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 Industry in Texas 
 
 Published under the direction of 
 
 GEORGE W. SAUNDERS, President of 
 THE OLD TRAIL DRIVERS 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 Compiled and Edited by 
 
 J. MARVIN HUNTER 
 
Copyright 1920 
 By George \V. Saunders 
 
GEORGE W. SAUNDERS 
 
 President and Organizer Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association 
 

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FOREWORD. 
 
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 This volume is brought forth to present a link in the long 
 chain of Texas history that cannot well be spared if the record 
 is “kept straight,” and posterity is given a true account of the 
 deeds of daring and heroism of the early pioneers of our great 
 state. The characters mentioned in this book are men of 
 sterling worth and integrity, as has been proven in every in- 
 stance wherein they came in contact with the problems and 
 difficulties that made for the development of an empire so 
 vast in its possibilities as to excite the envy of the world. 
 These pages sparkle with the lustre of deeds well done by a 
 passing generation, and it is our purpose to keep bright that 
 lustre, that it may not pale with the fleeting years. 
 
 The men and women, the pioneers who blazed the way for 
 the present day civilization, happiness and prosperity in Texas, 
 are looked upon with the greatest respect and veneration. Fif- 
 ty years ago the Indian, the buffalo and the deer roamed at 
 will over the Texas prairies. A half century now intervenes, 
 but today prosperous cities dot the green distances and men 
 and women who thirty-five and forty years ago drifted to the 
 great and boundless West with hardly a penny are today 
 wealthy and “in the saddle” in the State’s affairs. They en- 
 dured many privations. They fought for what they believed 
 was right. They blazed the trail. The people of today, the 
 younger generation, are not unmindful of what the early set- 
 tlers did for them, and as they enjoy the splendid prosperity 
 that is theirs they silently thank the earlier ones. 
 
 To the memory of the old trail drivers, the Texas pioneers 
 — to the heroic mothers, fathers — to the young and the brave 
 who fought manfully for proud, imperial Texas, this volume is 
 lovingly dedicated. 
 
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4 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS. 
 
 Before the advent of railroads the marketing of cattle was a 
 problem that confronted the man who undertook the raising 
 of cattle in Texas. The great expanse of unsettled domain 
 was ideal for the business. No wire fences were here to limit 
 the range, grass was knee high, and cattle roamed freely over 
 the hills, valleys and prairies of Texas. The long-horn was 
 in the hey-day of his glory. The limitless range, broken by no 
 barrier, extending from the £ulf_to Kansas, offered ample op- 
 portunities for the man with nerve and determination in this 
 great out-of-doors. There being no fences he allowed his cat- 
 tle to scatter over the range, but at times he would round them 
 up and throw them back in the vicinity of the home ranch 
 when they strayed too far away. In the spring the big “round- 
 ups” usually took place, when all of the cowmen of each sec- 
 tion would participate, coming together. at a stated time, gath- 
 ering all of the cattle on the range, and branding what was 
 rightfully theirs. Be it said to their credit, those early cowmen 
 seldom claimed animals that belonged to a neighbor. If a 
 cow was found unbranded, and there was any evidence that 
 she belonged to some cowman not present, or who, lived over 
 in the “next neighborhood,” the owner was notified and usual- 
 ly got his cow. There was a noticeable absence of greed in 
 those days in the cattle business, for the men who chose that 
 means of livelihood were of that whole-souled big-hearted 
 type that established a rule of “live and let live,” and where 
 a man was suspected of being a thief he was watched and if 
 the suspicions were realized that man found that particular 
 neighborhood to be a mighty unhealthy place to live in. Be- 
 ing sparsely settled in those early days, the ranches being from 
 ten to fifty miles apart, counties unorganized and courts very 
 few, every man in a way was a “law unto himself,” so that 
 speedy justice was meted out to offenders whose deeds were 
 calculated to encourage lawlessness. 
 
 Gradually the country began to settle up with people, some 
 coming from other states to establish homes in the great Lone 
 Star State, and in the course of time the cattle industry be- 
 came the leading industry of this region. Farming was not 
 thought of, more than to raise a little corn for bread. Beef 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 5 
 
 was to be had for the asking, or wild game for the killing. 
 Mustangs furnished mounts for the cowman, and these horses 
 proved their value as an aid to the development of the cat- 
 tle industry. A good rider could break a mustang to the sad- 
 dle in a very short time, and for endurance these Spanish 
 ponies had no equal. Then loomed the problem of finding 
 a market for the ever-increasing herds of cattle that were 
 being produced in South and Southwest Texas. In this state 
 there was no demand for the beef and hides of the long-horn, 
 but in other states where the population was greater the 
 beeves were needed. Then it was that some far-seeing cow- 
 man conceived the idea of getting his cattle to where the de- 
 mand existed, so it was that trail-driving started. A few herds 
 were driven to Abilene, Kansas, on the Atchison, Topeka and 
 Santa Fe Railroad, and the venture proved so successful fi- 
 nancially that before a great while everybody began to send 
 their cattle “up the trail.” These drives were not unattended 
 by many dangers, as a great portion of the route was through 
 a region infested by hostile Indians, and many times the red- 
 skins carried off the scalps of venturesome cowboys. 
 
 For many years the trail-driving continued, or until those 
 great arteries of commerce, the railroads, began to penetrate 
 the stock-raising region, and then gradually the cow-puncher, 
 whose delight was to ride his pony “up the trail” was deprived 
 of that privilege, and now instead he goes along with a train 
 load to “tail ’em up” when the cattle get down in a stock car. 
 
 With the passing of the trail came a better breed of cattle, 
 the long-horn gave place to the short horn white face Here- 
 ford, less vicious and unruly. The free range passed away, 
 wire fences came as a new era set in, with the encroachment 
 of civilization. The Texas cowmen formed an association 
 with regular annual conventions, where ways and means for 
 the improvement and betterment of their business were de- 
 vised. These gatherings are a source of much pleasure to the 
 old time stockmen, and it was at one of these conventions 
 a few years ago that George W. Saunders suggested that an 
 auxiliary association of old time trail drivers be formed, to be 
 composed of men who “went up the trail” in those early days. 
 But inasmuch as such an association would detract from the 
 
6 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 usual business transacted at the meetings of the parent asso- 
 ciation it was eventually decided to form a separate associa- 
 tion with a different time for its meetings, and thus the Old 
 Trail Drivers’ Association sprang into existence, and met with 
 popular favor, so much so that within a year from its organi- 
 zation it had a membership of over five hundred. 
 
 The ranks of the old trail drivers are becoming thinner each 
 year, but there still remain many who knew the pleasures and 
 hardships of a six and eight months’ trip to market with from 
 fifteen hundred to three thousand head of cattle. They are 
 scattered from Texas to the Canadian border and from Cali- 
 fornia to New York. Many are rated in Dun and in Brad- 
 street’s in the seven-figure column, while others are not so 
 well off financially. The stories some of these old fellows 
 could tell would make your hair stand on end, stories of 
 stampedes and Indian raids, stories with dangers and pleas- 
 ures intermingled and of fortunes made and lost; they made 
 history which the world does not know a thing about. 
 
 To perpetuate the memory of these old trail drivers, who 
 blazed the trail to greater achievement, is the aim of every 
 native-born Texan who knows what has been so unselfishly 
 accomplished. To stimulate it, and keep it alive in the hearts 
 of our Texan youth, will inspire a spirit of reverence and grati- 
 tude to their heroic fathers for the liberty which they have 
 given them — for the free institutions which are the result of 
 their daring. J. R. BLOCKER. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE OLD TIME TRAIL 
 DRIVERS’ ASSOCIATION. 
 
 The following, taken from the Secretary’s record gives an 
 outline of the first steps that were taken toward organizing 
 the Old Trail Drivers’ Association: 
 
 “A number of the old time trail men in San Antonio met 
 in the Chamber of Commerce hall on the afternoon of Feb- 
 ruary 1 5, 1915, for the purpose of organizing an association 
 to include in its membership those surviving who had shared 
 the dangers, vicissitudes and hardships of the trail. 
 
 “After a general discussion it was unanimously resolved to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 / 
 
 perfect the organization and prepare for the enrollment. 
 George W. Saunders outlined the plan of formation, and the 
 following officers were elected: J. R. Blocker, president; 
 
 George W. Saunders, vice-president; Luther A. Lawhon, sec- 
 retary, and Colonel R. B. Pumphrey, treasurer.” 
 
 At that time it was suggested that the Association affiliate 
 with the Texas Cattle Raisers’ Association, and hold joint 
 meeting's with that organization. At the Cattle Raisers’ con- 
 vention on March 9th and 10th, 191 5, a great many members 
 were added to the new association, and in March, 1916, the 
 old Trail Drivers had their first round up when the Cattle 
 Raisers’ convention met in Houston. We give below the com- 
 plete proceedings of the Old Trail Drivers’ meeting, in which 
 is included the report of the secretary, and a list of the offi- 
 cers and directors of the association: 
 
 Minutes of the First Annual Convention of the Old Time Trail 
 Drivers’ Association Held in the City of Houston, 
 Texas, March 21, 22, 23, 1916. 
 
 In accordance with the date and place selected by the Texas 
 Cattle Raisers’ Association, with which the Old Time Trail 
 Drivers’ Association is affiliated, these two organizations 
 convened in the city of Houston on Tuesday, March 21st, 
 1916, in annual convention. 
 
 Headquarters for the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association 
 was established in the lobby of the Rice Hotel, with Vice 
 President and Organizer, Geo. W. Saunders, Secretary Lu- 
 ther A. Lawhon and C. D. Cannon in charge. Badges and 
 buttons, furnished by the association, were distributed to the 
 members, of whom quite a large number were in attendance, 
 and the books of the association were opened for the enroll- 
 ment of new members. 
 
 At 10 o’clock A. M. Tuesday, 21st, the two organizations — 
 the Texas Cattle Raisers’ Association and the Old Time Trail 
 Drivers’ Association, met jointly in the city auditorium for 
 the opening exercises, which were associately conducted. The 
 Hon. Joe Jackson, President of the Texas Cattle Raisers’ As- 
 sociation, presiding. 
 
8 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 After preliminary prayer and introductory speeches by the 
 Hon. Pat Garrett, the Hon. Ben Campbell, mayor of the city, 
 delivered the address of welcome. This was responded to 
 on behalf of the Texas Cattle Raisers’ Association by the Hon. 
 G. W. Armstrong, of Fort Worth, and on behalf of the Old 
 Time Trail Drivers’ Association, by Secretary Luther A. Law- 
 hon. The joint preliminary exercises having been concluded, 
 the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association recessed until 
 2:30 P. M. 
 
 Afternoon Session. 
 
 Promptly at 2:30, the members of the Old Time Trail Driv- 
 ers’ Association assembled in the ball room of the Auditorium, 
 which had been kindly placed at the disposal of the associa- 
 tion by the city of Houston. Owing to the absence of Presi- 
 dent John R. Blocker, who was indisposed, Vice President and 
 organizer, Geo. W. Saunders, presided. In calling the asso- 
 ciation to order, Vice President Saunders in a forcible address, 
 reviewed the history of the organization, its aims and its pur- 
 poses, and dwelt with especial pride upon the cordial and 
 hearty endorsement which had been given the association by 
 the “old Trailers” throughout the country, as evidenced by 
 the many applications for membership which the Secretary 
 had received during the current year. 
 
 At the conclusion of Vice President Saunders’ address, Sec- 
 retary Luther A. Lawhon presented the following annual re- 
 port, which was unanimously adopted. 
 
 Hon. John R. Blocker President, 
 
 Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 I have the honor to herewith submit to you for the bene- 
 fit of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association, my annual re- 
 port as Secretary of the Association. I congratulate the mem- 
 bership upon the rapid growth of the Association, and for the 
 deep and fraternal interest which has been unanimously mani- 
 fested for its maintenance and welfare. 
 
 Assembled as we are in our first annual convention, I trust 
 it will not be deemed inappropriate to refer briefly to the 
 origin of our Association — an organization which has taken 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 9 
 
 such a stronghold upon the hearts of the old time trail men, 
 and the motives and the influences which called it into being. 
 
 As is well known to most of the membership, the name of 
 George W. Saunders, our Vice President, is indissolubly linked 
 with that of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association. Mr. 
 Saunders, an old time cowboy, and one of the first to go up 
 the trail, had urged through the press, as well as orally, the 
 desirability and importance of an organization that would in- 
 clude and perpetuate the names of those survivors who had 
 shared the dangers and the hardships of the trail — a condition 
 and a society long since passed away. The proposition awak- 
 ened a responsive chord in the hearts of the old time trail 
 in the San Antonio Daily Express, a number of prominent 
 cattlemen residing in San Antonio, with others of nearby coun- 
 ties, met in the rooms of the San Antonio Chamber of Com- 
 merce on the afternoon of February 15, 1915, and formally 
 organized the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association, with the 
 election of the following officers and board of directors: 
 
 John R. Blocker, President. 
 
 George W. Saunders, Vice President. 
 
 Luther A. Lawhon, Secretary. 
 
 R. B. Pumphrey, Treasurer. 
 
 J. M. Bennett Sr., W. J. Moore, George W. West, J. H. 
 Presnail, W. H. Jennings, T. A. Coleman, Ike T. Pryor, J. D. 
 Houston, San Antonio, Texas; D. H. Snyder, Georgetown, 
 Texas; John Pumphrey, Taylor, Texas; W. B. Blocker, Aus- 
 tin, Texas; P. B. Butler, Kenedy, Texas; R. B. Masterson, 
 Amarillo, Texas; J. B. Irving, Alpine, Texas; John Holland, 
 Alpine, Texas; J. H. Paramore, Abilene, Texas; Clabe Mer- 
 chant, Abilene, Texas; T. D. Wood, Victoria, Texas; George 
 W. Littlefield, Austin, Texas; M. A. Withers, Lockhart, Texas; 
 Chas. Schreiner, Kerrville, Texas; Jim Scott, Alice, Texas. 
 
 By resolution all those are eligible for membership who 
 went up the Trail with cattle or horses during the years from 
 1865 to 1896. A membership fee of One Dollar was au- 
 thorized to be assessed. 
 
 The Cattle Raisers’ Association of Texas, at its annual con- 
 vention held in San Antonio, March 9th, 10th, 11th, 1 9 1 5, 
 generously extended its fraternal recognition to the Old Time 
 
10 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Trail Drivers’ Association, by passing a resolution inviting the 
 latter to meet with the former in its annual convention. In 
 this connection I desire to return thanks to the editor, A. C. 
 Williams of The Cattleman, the official organ of the Cattle 
 Raisers’ Association of Texas, and Assistant Secretary of that 
 organization, for the courteous consideration which he per- 
 sistently extended to the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Associa- 
 tion. 
 
 In May, 1915, your Secretary addressed to each member 
 of the Association, a letter signed by Vice President George 
 W. Saunders, asking that the parties addressed would write 
 their reminiscences, incidents and adventures of the Trail for 
 the benefit of the Association. In response to these letters, 
 the Secretary has received a number of communications, 
 which are not only highly interesting, but are valuable con- 
 tributions to the frontier history of Texas. It is expected that 
 at this convention, the Association will take such steps as it 
 may deem proper to have these chronicles edited and prop- 
 erly arranged for the press, that they may be ultimately pub- 
 lished in book form for sale to the general public, and for 
 the benefit of the Association. 
 
 On February 5th, 1916, at a meeting of the Executive 
 Committee composed of the officers and Board of Directors, 
 held in San Antonio, a resolution was passed making the sons 
 of the old time trail drivers eligible for membership. This was 
 done at the urgent solicitation of many of the younger cattle- 
 men of Texas, whose fathers had been trail men, and who 
 felt an interest in, and a desire to become identified with 
 the organization. 
 
 In addition to appreciating the interest shown by the sons 
 of the old time trail men, the Executive Committee recognized 
 that in a few years at best, the old time trail men, will have 
 passed away, and the incorporation of the young cattlemen 
 would be the means of perpetuating our organization. We 
 now have a membership of 3 75, scattered through the states 
 of Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico^ and Texas. 
 
 The Executive Committee, also at this meeting, decided to 
 have a button manufactured for the members to wear per- 
 manently in the buttonhole of the lapel of their coats. Vice 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 11 
 
 President Saunders was authorized to select the design and ar- 
 range for the manufacture. In obedience to this, Mr. Saunders 
 designed and has had manufactured a button which is artistic, 
 appropriate and worthy to be worn by the membership of the 
 Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association. He also had badges 
 printed for distribution to the members attending this con- 
 vention. 
 
 I regret to have to report that since our last meeting, death 
 has taken from our midst the following members: 
 
 J. H. Winn, Pleasanton, Texas; Wm. Choate, Beeville, 
 Texas; S. R. Guthrie, Alpine, Texas; O. C. Hildebrand, 
 Brownsville, Texas; T. D. Woods, Victoria, Texas. In the 
 death of these members, our Association has suffered a se- 
 vere loss, and I submit that this convention pass appropriate 
 resolutions to their memories. 
 
 In conclusion I desire to return my sincere thanks to the 
 officers and members of the Association for their cordial co- 
 operation in behalf of the Association, and for the uniform 
 courtesy and consideration which they have extended to me. 
 For the past twelve months I have, as Secretary, served the 
 Association to the best of my ability, and I trust that the interest 
 of our honored Association will continue to advance for the 
 future as it has in the past. 
 
 LUTHER A. LAWHON, Secretary. 
 
 The Secretary’s report having been adopted, the Association 
 went into a discussion of the origin, start, route and terminus 
 of the “Old Chisholm Trail.” There was found to be a con- 
 siderable difference of opinion as to details pertaining to this 
 famous historic highway, and it was finally decided to leave 
 the subject for further discussion at the 1917 convention. The 
 Secretary, in the meantime being instructed to correspond with 
 as many of the original trail men as possible, that the origin 
 and route of this famous trail might be definitely established 
 at the succeeding annual convention. To this end, the Secre- 
 tary was especially instructed to write to the following “Old 
 Trail” men for such data and information as they might be 
 able to furnish: Bud Dogget, Fort Worth, Texas; John Coffee, 
 Noxville, Texas; Eli Baggett, San Angelo, Texas. 
 
 Acting President Saunders appointed a committee to draft 
 
12 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 appropriate resolutions on death of deceased members. The 
 committee in due time reported, and the resolutions were 
 unanimously adopted. On motion of Acting President Saun- 
 ders, the Association unanimously voted a monthly salary of 
 Thirty Dollars to Secretary Luther A. Lawhon for the succeed- 
 ing year, or for such time as he should continue to act as 
 Secretary for the Association. 
 
 After disposing of further routine matters as claimed the 
 immediate attention of the convention, there was a general 
 interchange of old time reminiscences, incidents and exper- 
 iences. A number of ladies were in attendance on the conven- 
 tion, who were interested listeners, and who evinced a deep 
 and patriotic interest in the proceedings of the Association. 
 Having disposed of all business to be transacted, the convention 
 adjourned sine die. 
 
 LUTHER A. LAWHON, Secretary 
 
 The second annual reunion of the Old Trail Drivers’ Associa- 
 tion was held in San Antonio, Texas, July 2 and 3, 1917. It was 
 estimated that fully two hundred and fifty of the old trail men 
 were in attendance. The meeting place was in the ball room 
 of the Gunter Hotel. Addresses of welcome were delivered 
 by Hon. Dave Woodward as representative of Mayor Sam C. 
 Bell, by Hon. J. H. Kirkpatrick, representing the Chamber of 
 Commerce, Col. Ike T. Pryor, President of the American Live 
 Stock Association, and Vice President George W. Saunders of 
 the Old Trail Drivers’ Association, who responded on behalf 
 of the Association. Following is Secretary Lawhon’s report 
 as adopted at this meeting: 
 
 “Hon. John R. Blocker, 
 
 President Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association. 
 
 “Sir: — I have the honor to herewith submit to you, and 
 through you to the members of this Association, my annual 
 report as Secretary for the years 1916-17. 
 
 “Assembled as we are in our second annual reunion, I am 
 proud to be able to congratulate the Association upon its con- 
 tinued growth in membership, and upon the loyalty and zealous 
 interest which has been manifested by the membership at large. 
 This is an incentive and an encouragement to further effort 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 13 
 
 on our part, individually and collectively. Therefore, judging 
 the future by the past, I believe I am not indulging in an unwar- 
 ranted assumption when 1 say the Old Time Trail Drivers’ 
 Association is destined to take its place as one of the permanent 
 and popular associations of our country. 
 
 “Within a few days after adjournment of our reunion at 
 Houston last year, your secretary addressed a letter to each 
 of those members who were not in attendance on the Houston 
 reunion, and enclosed a badge and the Association button with 
 concise mention of the meeting. With this effort I am per- 
 suaded that the members at large have received their badges 
 and buttons to be worn in the lapels of their coats. There 
 are, however, some exceptions to this assertion. A few of the 
 letters so addressed were returned to your secretary “un- 
 claimed.” I assume that the members in question had changed 
 their residence after enrollment at San Antonio in 19 1 5, and 
 had neglected to acquaint me with the change. 
 
 “While our Association is not yet two years old, we have in 
 the neighborhood of five hundred members’ names upon the 
 Association’s books, or to be exact 488 members are now 
 actively identified with the Association. Eight of these are 
 sons of the old time trail drivers. This list is being rapidly 
 augmented by new accessions, and our membership as it 
 stands today shows the names of members resident in Missouri, 
 Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and other 
 states. 
 
 During the past twelve months, so far as your secretary 
 has been able to ascertain, the hand of Providence has lain 
 lightly upon the membership of our Association. Since our 
 last meeting death has claimed but two of our members, Jesse 
 Presnail and M. Standifer, both of San Antonio. The former 
 was well and favorably known throughout the state as one of 
 the old time cowmen, while the latter, though not actively 
 engaged in the livestock industry, was one of the “old trailers,” 
 and took a deep interest in the organization. In the death of 
 these two members our Association has suffered a grevious 
 loss.” 
 
 After the reading of the secretary’s report a general discus- 
 sion of the origin and terminus of the Old Chisholm Trail 
 
14 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 was indulged in. A letter on this subject, written by W. P. 
 Anderson, was read in which the writer gave many facts con- 
 cerning the origin and route of this famous highway, stating 
 that this trail was named for a half-breed, John Chisholm, 
 who ranched in the Indian Territory, and who in the early 
 sixties had driven a herd of cattle through the Indian Terri- 
 tory to the government forts on the Arkansas River, and 
 that subsequently when the great drives from Texas commenced 
 these herds would intersect and follow for a considerable dis- 
 tance this Chisholm Trail in the Indian Territory, and for 
 this reason the entire trail from the Texas line to Kansas 
 became familiarly known as “The Chisholm Trail.” This 
 version of Mr. Anderson’s was unanimously adopted by the 
 Association as being authoritative and authentic. Following 
 is Mr. Anderson’s letter to Secretary Lawhon: 
 
 Mr. Luther A. Lawhon, Sec., 
 
 Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 Dear Sir: — Your letter of April 1 3th came to hand after 
 following me through the Cattle Convention to the North- 
 west and was finally received at El Paso, Texas, last week 
 on my way here to San Antonio. 
 
 In reference to the Old Chisholm Trail I notice that you 
 spell the name “Chism”. Another version is “Chissum” but 
 probably the correct one is “Chisholm”. As I understand the 
 history of these trails, the original Chisholm Trail was named 
 after John Chisholm who was a Cherokee cattle trader, who 
 supplied the government frontier posts with their cattle supply 
 in the early part of the occupation of frontier posts and during 
 the Civil War. 
 
 Among the first herds that started north from Texas was 
 that of Smith and Elliot, and their guide was a gentleman 
 who was formerly a soldier with Robert E. Lee who had to do 
 with the civilized tribes of the Indian Territory and used the 
 old military trails, which were suppposed to run from Texas 
 to Sedalia, Mo., and crossed the Red River at Colbert’s Ferry, 
 and who afterwards was a citizen of San Antonio and whose 
 children reside here now. The name 1 do not recall at present. 
 
 The first diversion from this trail was where the trail left 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 15 
 
 the Sedalia trail for Baxter Springs. It was originally used 
 by this same John Chisholm, the Cherokee Indian cattle trader, 
 to supply Ft. Scott, Kans. The basic ground for the commence- 
 ment of this trail was probably about the mouth of the Grand 
 River where it emptied into the Arkansas. The most prominent 
 branch of this trail runs directly up the Arkansas River as far 
 as Ft. Zarah, which was about a mile east of where Great 
 Bend, Kan., now stands. From along this trail there were diver- 
 sions made by these cattle that went into the army supply 
 at Fort Riley, Fort Harker, near Ellsworth, Fort Hays, near 
 Hays City, Fort Wallace, now Wallace, Kans., the main base 
 being in the Arkansas bottom on what is now called Chisholm 
 Creek near the present city of Wichita, the trail continuing 
 on west as far as Fort Bend and Fort Lyon in Colorado, for 
 the delivery of these cattle, hence all cattle trailed from Texas 
 across the Arkansas River would, perforce, strike at some 
 point the old Chisholm Trail, and hence practically all cattle, 
 whether by Colbert’s Ferry, Red River Crossing or Doan’s 
 Store or elsewhere intermediate, would naturally use some 
 part of the original Cherokee Indian Chisholm Trail on some 
 part of its journey to Western Kansas. 
 
 In about the late 60’s or early 70’s, Mr. Charles Goodnight 
 went the western route up the Pecos into the Colorado country, 
 establishing what was known as the Goodnight or the Good- 
 night & Loving Trail, afterwards trailing the “Jingle Bobs” or 
 the John Chissum cattle north laying the old Tascosa route 
 out to Dodge City, Kans., which became famous as the Chis- 
 sum trail and naturally produced the confusion as to the ident- 
 ity of the original Chisholm cattle trail. Nominally every man 
 that came up the trail felt as though he had traversed the 
 old Chisholm trail. The facts hardly establish the original 
 of either the New Mexican John Chissum trail or the John 
 Chisholm Cherokee trail or trails leading to western frontier 
 army posts as originating in Texas. 
 
 In reference to Mr. Goodnight’s allusion to my “blazing” 
 the trail for the Joe McCoy herd, my recollection of the first 
 herd that came to Abilene, Kans., was that of J. J. Meyers, 
 one of the trail drivers of that herd now living at Panhandle, 
 Texas. A Mr. Gibbs, I think, will ascertain further on the 
 
16 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 subject. The first cattle shipped out of Abilene, that I recol- 
 lect, was by C. C. Slaughter of Dallas, and while loaded at 
 Abilene, Kans., the billing was made from memorandum slips 
 at Junction City, Kans. 
 
 The original chapters of Joe McCoy’s book were published 
 in a paper called “The Cattle Trail”, edited by H. M. Dixon 
 whose address is now the Auditorium building, Chicago. It 
 was my connection with this publication that has probably 
 led Mr. Goodnight into the belief that I helped blaze the 
 trail with McCoy’s cattle herd. This was the first paper I 
 know of that published maps of the trails from different cattle 
 shipping points in Kansas to the intersection of the original 
 Chisholm trail, one from Coffeyville, Kans., the first, however, 
 from Baxter Springs, then from Abilene, Newton, then Wichita 
 and Great Bend, Dodge City becoming so famous obviated 
 the necessity for further attention in this direction. 
 
 There are many interesting incidents that could still be 
 made a matter of record connected with the old cattle trails 
 that I could enumerate, but 1 will reserve them for another 
 time. Yours truly, 
 
 W. P. ANDERSON 
 
 Then followed the election of officers for the ensuing year. 
 George W. Saunders was elected President; J. B. Murrah, 
 Vice-President; Luther A. Lawhon, Secretary, and R. B. Pum- 
 phrey treasurer. On motion of Mr. Murrah the following 
 resolution was unanimously adopted: 
 
 “Resolved that in his voluntary retirement from the presi- 
 dency of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association, we extend 
 to Hon. John R. Blocker our sincere appreciation of the able 
 and patriotic manner in which he has presided over the des- 
 tinies of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Associaton, and we extend 
 to him our sincere wishes for his future health and happiness.” 
 
 Vacancies in the Board of Directors occasioned by death 
 were filled by the election of John Doak of Del Rio, J. M. 
 Dobie of Cotulla, Texas, and W. S. Hall of Comfort, Texas. 
 
 The wives and daughters of members of the Association 
 were made eligible for membership. 
 
 It was resolved that all communications intended for the 
 proposed book of trail and frontier reminiscences must be 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 17 
 
 received by the Secretary of the Association on or before 
 January, 1918. 
 
 San Antonio was selected as the place for the next reunion. 
 The convention adjourned, after passing a number of resolu- 
 tions which are of but little concern to the readers of this book. 
 
 During this convention the members of the Association 
 with their wives, daughters and friends, were given an auto- 
 mobile ride through the city and out to the Saunders ranch 
 on the Medina River, where an old fashioned barbecue which 
 had been prepared by George W. Saunders and T. A. Coleman 
 was tendered the visitors. 
 
 Owing to the World War, which was in progress at the 
 time scheduled for the meeting in 1918, no reunion was held 
 that year, and the funds which had been appropriated for the 
 reunion were used in the purchase of $500 worth of Liberty 
 Bonds. But on September 10th and 11th, 1919, the Associa- 
 tion again met in San Antonio, and following is the report of 
 the proceedings of that meeting, as furnished by the secretary: 
 
 Minutes of the Annual Reunion of the Old Time Trail 
 Drivers’ Association, Held in San Antonio, Texas, 
 September 10th and 11th, 1919. 
 
 After a recess of two years on account of the world war, the 
 members of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association met in 
 annual reunion September 10th, 1919, in the ball room of the 
 Gunter Hotel, in the city of San Antonio. The meeting had 
 previously been called by the board of directors for September 
 10th and llth. Promptly at 10 o’clock a.m., President Geo. 
 W. Saunders rapped for order, and declared the annual reunion 
 of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association to be in session. 
 Chaplain J. Stewart Pierce, who was elected chaplain of the 
 Association at a former reunion, and who is also Chaplain of 
 the 1 5th Field Artillery, U. S. A., delivered an impressive 
 invocation; after which Luther A. Lawhon, Secretary of the 
 Association, as the representative of Mayor Bell, delivered the 
 address of welcome. Secretary Lawhon was followed by Judge 
 S. H. Wood of Alice, Texas, who in an eloquent address, which 
 was frequently applauded, responded in behalf of the member- 
 
18 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ship of the Association. Addresses were also made by J. D. 
 Jackson of Alpine, Texas, ex- President of the Texas Cattle 
 Raisers Association, and by Nat. M. Washer, prominent mer- 
 chant and citizen of San Antonio. Mr. Washer’s eloquent 
 and patriotic sentiments were frequently loudly cheered. In 
 the interval between the addresses the orchestra played popular 
 and patriotic songs. After the morning’s program had been 
 concluded, the reunion took a recess until two o’clock p.m. 
 
 On re-assembling, the afternoon’s session was devoted to a 
 general discussion of business matters affecting the interests 
 of the Association, and the passage of resolutions. President 
 Saunders appointed J. D. Jackson, J. B. Murrah and Luther A. 
 Lawhon a committee to draft suitable resolutions on the death 
 of deceased members. The committee reported as follows: 
 
 “Whereas, it has pleased Divine Providence to remove by 
 death from our midst the following members of the Old Time 
 Trail Drivers’ Association: E. E. Rutledge, John Hoffman, 
 Maxey Burris, John H. Meads, W. J. Moore, Joe Farris, Walter 
 J. Dunkin, B. M. Hall and E. R. Jensen, all of San Antonio; 
 W. B. Houston of Gonzales, J. A .Martin of Kenedy, John B. 
 Pumphrey of Taylor, Tom Perry of Bracketville, J. H. Jaro- 
 man of Abilene, S. R. Guthrie of Alpine, W. M. Choate of 
 Beeville, J. H. Winn of Pleasanton, T. D. Wood of Victoria, 
 J. A. Kercheville of Devine, Henry Rothe of Hondo, W. T. 
 Mulholland of Jourdanton, C. C. Hildebrand of Brownsville, 
 W. D. Crawford of Dilley, R. D. Peril of Jewitt, Hart Mussey 
 of Alice, A. H. Allen of Eagle Pass and Ed Dewees, Wilson 
 county. 
 
 “Therefore, be it resolved, that we deplore the loss of these 
 old pioneers. We feel that their families have suffered an 
 irreparable loss and we extend to them our heartfelt sympathies 
 and we further recognize that in the death of these members 
 the state has lost some of its worthy citizens and this Associa- 
 tion some of its most active, zealous and worthy members.” 
 
 At the close of the afternoon session of the first day’s 
 meeting, it was announced that there was free admission for 
 every member of the Association, for the evening performance 
 at the Princess Theatre. On motion of President Saunders, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 19 
 
 the members of the Albert Sidney Johnson camp of Confeder- 
 ate Veterans, were made honorary members of the Association. 
 
 The morning session of the second day of the reunion (Sept, 
 l lth) was devoted to a general discussion or old time “pow 
 wow”, as some of the boys termed it. These interesting pro- 
 ceedings continued until eleven o’clock, when the members 
 entered automobiles, and were driven to the Saunders ranch, 
 some twelve miles from the city, where upon the banks of the 
 beautiful Medina River an old time barbecue had been pre- 
 pared for the “old trailers” and their friends. After partaking 
 of the bountiful repast, speech making was indulged in, and 
 old time reminiscences were recounted, after which the mem- 
 bers and friends returned to the city for the closing session of 
 the reunion. 
 
 On reassembling in the ball room of the Gunter Hotel, the 
 election of officers was the first to be considered. This resulted 
 in the re-election of the following officers: Geo. W. Saunders, 
 President; J. B. Murrah, Vice-President; R. F. Jennings, Sec- 
 retary, and R. B. Pumphrey, Treasurer. Rev. J. Stewart Pierce 
 was unanimously re-elected Chaplain. On motion of J. D. 
 Jackson the annual dues which had been put at one dollar, 
 were raised to two dollars in accordance with the expressed 
 wish of the Association that the Secretary should be paid a 
 salary of Thirty Dollars per month — a part of which sum was 
 to be expended by the Secretary for postage, .stationery, etc. 
 The following resolutions were unanimously adopted before 
 final adjournment: 
 
 “Resolved, by the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association, that 
 we, each and every one, appreciate the warm hospitality which 
 has been accorded by the City of San Antonio and we look 
 forward with pleasure to our visit here next year. 
 
 “Resolved, that the thanks of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ 
 Association are hereby extended to Percy Tyrrell, manager of 
 the Gunter Hotel, for the many courtesies which he has ex- 
 tended to this Association during this reunion. 
 
 “ M. W. S. Parker, J. D. Jackson, J. B. Murrah, M. A. 
 Withers, committee.” 
 
 At the close of the afternoon session of the second day (Sept, 
 llth) the annual reunion of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ 
 
20 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Association, was declared at an end. This concluded two days 
 of solid enjoyment, in which some three hundred “old trailers,” 
 many of them with their wives and daughters, took part. 
 These old pioneers had gathered from all sections of Texas, 
 and neighboring states, to renew old friendships, and recount 
 the incidents of frontier life, and dwell once more upon the 
 hardships and adventures of the old trail days. ' 
 
 ORIGIN AND CLOSE OF THE OLD TIME 
 NORTHERN TRAIL 
 
 Compiled by George W. Saunders and Read at the Reunion 
 of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association 
 
 The following, prepared by President George W. Saunders, 
 was read at the 1917 reunion of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ 
 Association. Embodied in the article are statistics, regarding 
 cattle movements in early days, which are graphically por- 
 trayed by Mr. Saunders, and worthy of preservation: 
 
 Very few people realize at this late date, the important 
 part played by the old time trail drivers towards civilization 
 and development of the great State of Texas. At the close of 
 the Civil War the soldiers came home broke and our state 
 was in a deplorable condition. The old men, small boys and 
 negroes had taken care of the stock on the ranges and the 
 state was overstocked, but there was no market for their stock. 
 In 1867 and 1868 some of our most venturesome stockmen 
 took a few small herds of cattle to New Orleans, Baxter 
 Springs, Abilene, Kansas, and other markets. The northern 
 drives proved fairly successful, though they experienced many 
 hardships and dangers going through an uncivilized and partly 
 unexplored country. The news of their success spread like 
 wild fire and the same men and many others tackled the trail 
 in 1869. At that time it was not a question of making money; 
 it was a question of finding a market for their surplus stock 
 at any price. There was very little money in the country, and 
 no banks or trust companies to finance the drivers. In this 
 great undertaking some of them drove their own stock and 
 others buying on credit to pay on their return, giving no 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 21 
 
 other security than a list of brands and amounts due. The 
 1869 drives proved successful, which caused many other stock- 
 men to join the trail drivers in 1870. By this time going up 
 the trail was all a rage. 1870 was a banner year at all the 
 markets. The drivers came home and began preparing for 
 the 1871 drives. Excitement ran high; there was never such 
 activity in the stock business before in Texas. Drivers were 
 scouring the country, contracting for cattle for the next spring 
 delivery, buying horses and employing cowboys and foremen. 
 Many large companies were formed to facilitate the handling 
 of the fast growing business. Capital had been attracted from 
 the money centers and financial arrangements to pay for the 
 stock as received in the spring, were made. Thus opened the 
 spring of 1871, also all the drivers increasing the number of 
 herds previously driven and many companies and individuals 
 driving ten to fifteen herds each. Imagine all the ranchmen 
 in south, east and middle Texas at work at the first sign of 
 spring, gathering and delivering trail herds. 
 
 This work generally lasted from April 1st to May 15 th., 
 The drivers would receive, road-brand and deliver a herd to 
 their foremen, supply them with cash or letters of credit, 
 give the foremen and hands instructions and say “Adios boys, 
 
 I will see you in Abilene, Dodge, Ellsworth, Ogallala, Chey- 
 enne,” or whatever point was the destination of the herd. Then 
 riding day and night to the next receiving point, going through 
 the same performance, then on to the next until all herds were 
 started up the trail. Some of the drivers would go on the 
 trail, others would go by rail, or boat to the markets, lobby 
 around waiting for their herds, sometimes going down the 
 trail several hundred miles to meet their herds, often bringing 
 buyers with them. I made my first trip up the trail in 1871 
 for Choate & Bennett. John Bennett, Sr., was a member of 
 the firm. They sent fourteen herds up the trail that year. 
 Dunk Choate, now deceased, counted and delivered this herd 
 to Jim Byler, our boss, on the Cibolo near Stockdale, Wilson 
 county, pointed our herd north and left, saying, “You boys 
 know the rest, I must leave you and receive other herds.” 
 
 The first few years there was no market for cow ponies at 
 the cattle markets. In 1871 we brought back over the trail 
 
22 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 150 cow ponies and several chuck wagons from Abilene, Kan- 
 sas, belonging to Choate & Bennett and W. G. Butler; but 
 later, after ranches were established throughout the northwest 
 those ranchmen learned that our Spanish ponies were better 
 for their range work than their native horses and after that 
 cow ponies were ready sale and the cowboys came home by 
 rail or boat. Later there was a demand for Texas brood mares. 
 This proved a bonanza for Texas ranchmen as our ranges 
 were overstocked with them and they were almost worthless. 
 
 I drove 1,000 in two herds to Dodge City in 1884. It was 
 claimed that 100,000 went up the trail that year and more 
 than 1,000,000 went up the trail from the time the horse 
 market opened until the trail closed. 
 
 1871 was not a successful year but it did not prevent a 
 grand rush for the 1872 drive. Some of the drivers had made 
 government contracts to supply Indian agencies, some had 
 contracts with western ranchmen for stock cattle and young 
 steers; others driving on the open market. 1872 proved a 
 successful year which caused a great rush for the 1873 drive. 
 Those that sold early, had contracts or got tips from the money 
 centers did fairly well, but a panic clogged the wheels of 
 commerce, which broke lots of drivers and crippled many 
 others. Some sold at heavy losses, some wintered herds, 
 thinking a steer in good condition could live where a buffalo 
 could; a cold winter and a sleet covered range caused many 
 losses. The 1874 drive was lighter and profitable which caused 
 a larger drive in 1875. The losers in 1873 patched up the 
 weak places and were on the trail again; such men would not 
 stay broke, By this time the drivers had become acquainted 
 with the western ranchmen. Large companies were formed and 
 many large ranches were established in the Indian Territory 
 and the northwestern ranges. The drives continued, but they 
 did not always have smooth sailing. The markets fluctuated, 
 some had heavy losses from losing stock on the trail on 
 account of drouths, late spring, cold weather and many other 
 causes. During all these years the Texas ranchmen were not 
 idle. With the proceeds of cattle sold to trail men they were 
 able to improve their stock, establish new ranches, all the 
 time pushing west and forcing the savages before them. At the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 23 
 
 close of the war all the country west of an air line from 
 Eagle Pass to Gainesville was uncivilized and sparsely settled. 
 Every ranch or village above this line was subject to an 
 Indian raid every moon. The government had a string of 
 posts across the state above this line, but the Indians made 
 many raids between these posts, murdered men, women and 
 children, stole stock and made their escape without seeing 
 a soldier. The soldiers did their best but the cunning savages 
 generally outwitted them. The trailers and ranchmen were 
 the most dreaded enemies of the Indians and Texas rangers 
 next, most of them being cowboys. The savages were forced 
 back slowly but surely by the trailer and ranchmen and were 
 finally forced into the mountains of New Mexico, Old Mexico 
 and Arizona, their number being reduced to a small band led 
 by the notorious Geronimo, chief of the Apaches, which was 
 captured by the government troops in 1885. This ended 
 Indian depredations in Texas. The co-operation of the trailers, 
 ranchmen and rangers with the government troops accom- 
 plished this great feat, but the most credit belongs to the old 
 time trail driver, the starter and finisher of the destiny of 
 this great state and the men that blazed the way that led to 
 many great commercial enterprises, besides stocking and 
 causing to be stocked the ranges from the Rio Grande to 
 British possessions that before that time was a desert (not 
 bringing a cent of revenue to the state’s treasury) inhabited 
 by wild animals and savages. From 1885 the drives were 
 lighter up to 1895, when the trail which had been used twen- 
 ty-seven years was closed. Nothing like it and its far-reach- 
 ing accomplishment ever happened before and will never hap- 
 pen again. It is estimated by the most conservative old time 
 trail drivers that an average of 350,000 cattle were driven up 
 the trails from Texas each year for twenty-eight years, mak- 
 ing 9,800,000 cattle at ten dollars a head received by the 
 ranchmen at home, making $98,000,000; 1,000,000 horse 
 stock at $10 per head received by the ranchmen at home, 
 making $10,000,000; or a total of $1,008,000,000. This 
 vast amount sounds like a European war loan, but it was not. 
 It was all caused by a few fearless men making the start in 
 1867 or 1868. No one had any idea that the cattle, the staple 
 
24 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 product, would blossom out thus and bring such prosperity 
 to our state and heap so much glory on the heads of the old 
 time trail men. The circulation of the billions of dollars pro- 
 duced by the industry, passing as it did, directly into channels 
 that were opened to receive it, produced the prosperity that 
 has been in evidence in Texas for so many years, the cowman, 
 the merchant, the farmer, the day laborer profited thereby, 
 and the vast volume of gold that flowed through these chan- 
 nels is absolutely incomprehensible. 
 
 Had these old time trail drivers not looked for and found 
 this market our vast herds would have died on the ranges and 
 the vast unstocked ranges would have lain dormant and un- 
 productive. Our ranchmen would have left Texas disgusted 
 and broke and it would have been a difficult matter to re- 
 inhabit our state; therefore development would have been 
 checked for many years; possibly no iron horse would have 
 reached the Rio Grande up to this time as the inducement 
 would not have been attractive. No one knows what would 
 have happened had the Northern trail never existed, but it is 
 plain that all commercial achievements, civilization, good gov- 
 ernment, Christianity, morality, our school system, the use 
 of all school and state lands making them revenue bearers, the 
 expansion of the stock business from the Rio Grande to the 
 British possessions, which is producing millions of dollars; the 
 building of railroads, factories, seaports, agricultural advance- 
 ment and everything else pertaining to prosperity can be traced 
 directly to the achievements of the old time trail drivers. The 
 many good things accomplished by the untiring efforts of 
 these old heroes can never be realized or told just as they were 
 enacted and it would be the father of all mistakes to let their 
 daring and valuable efforts be forgotten and pass to unwrit- 
 ten history. Our Association now has 500 members and by 
 resolution we made the sons of the old time trail drivers 
 eligible to membership. There are many old timers that have 
 not joined, but 1 believe every one will when the importance 
 of perpetuating the memory of the old timers is fully under- 
 stood by them. It is our purpose to write a history dealing 
 strictly with trail and ranch life and the early cattle industry. 
 This book will consist of letters written by trail drivers only, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 25 
 
 giving the minutest details of their experiences of bygone 
 days at home and on the trail and will contain facts and be 
 full of thrills. Such a book has never been written; all the 
 books published on this subject have been by some author 
 who spent a few months on some ranch, then attempted to 
 write a book, understanding very little about stock or the stock 
 business and consequently having them pulling off stunts that 
 have never been pulled off anywhere else but in the fertile 
 imagination of some fiction writer. We are now assessing the 
 old members $5.00 each and are charging $5.00 each for en- 
 rollment of new members, this fund will be used for compil- 
 ing and printing our history and paying the necessary expenses 
 of the Association. Each member will get a book free. If 
 there is any money left it will stay in the treasury to be used 
 with the proceeds of the sale of our history as directed by the 
 directors or by the Association as a whole. I am in favor of 
 building a monument somewhere on the old trial, between San 
 Antonio and Fort Worth, to the Old Time Trail Drivers. 
 
 LOCATION OF THE OLD CHISHOLM TRAIL. 
 
 By C. H. Rust, of San Angelo, Texas. 
 
 1 will state that from my own knowledge, and from short 
 stories by thirty-five old early day trail men, most of whom 
 went up the old Chisholm Trail, indicating the Trail by naming 
 rivers and towns, showing same on maps, so, with the long 
 drawn out investigation, and with all of this information from 
 different sources, 1 believe the old Chisholm Cow Trail started 
 at San_ Aj rtoniq ^.Texas, and ended at Abilene, Kansas. Forty- 
 five years have passed since 1 went over lHe~Trail, and 1 am 
 using my memory to aid me, especially on the Texas end of the 
 Old Cow Trail. 
 
 This old Trail that I attempt to tell you about, begins at 
 San Antonio, and from there leading on to New Braunfels, 
 thence to San Marcos, crossing the San Marcos River four miles 
 below town, thence to Austin, crossing the Colorado River 
 three miles below Austin. Leaving Austin the Trail winds its 
 way on to the right of Round Rock, thence to right of George- 
 
26 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 town, on to right of Salado, to the right of Belton, to old Fort 
 Graham, crossing the Brazos River to the left of Cleburne, 
 then to Fort Worth, winding its way to the right of Fort Worth 
 just about where Hell’s Half Acre used to be, crossing Trinity 
 River just below town. Fort Worth was just a little burg on 
 the bluff where the panther lay down and died. 
 
 From Fort Worth the next town was Elizabeth, and from 
 there to Bolivar; here the old Trail forked but we kept the 
 main trail up Elm to St. Joe on to Red River Station, here 
 crossing Red River; after crossing Red River 1 strike the line 
 of Nation Beaver Creek, thence to Monument Rocks leading 
 on to Stage Station, to head of Rush Creek, then to Little 
 Washita, on to Washita Crossing at Line Creek, from there to 
 Canadian River, to the North Fork, on to Prairie Spring, from 
 there to King Fisher Creek; thence to Red Fork, on to Tur- 
 key Creek, to Hackberry Creek; thence to Shawnee Creek, to 
 Salt Fork; to Pond Creek, from there to Pole Cat Creek, to 
 Bluff Creek; thence to Caldwell, line of Kansas River on to 
 Slate Creek to Ne-ne-squaw River; thence to Cow Skin Creek 
 to Arkansas River to head of Sand Creek; on to Brookville; 
 thence from Solomon to. Abilene, and from there on to Ells- 
 worth. 
 
 I have no definite information as to what year this old Trail 
 was laid out, and if this is not the Old Chisholm Cow Trail, 
 then there is no Chisholm Trail. It is just what we call the Old 
 Chisholm Trail, and when the cow-boy reached his destination, 
 weary and worn, he forgot all about the rainy nights he -ex- 
 perienced while on the Trail, in the companionship of the other 
 Long and Short Horns. 
 
 Now, let me test my memory as to distance. 1 will call 
 the distance from one town to another as the old wagon road 
 runs. From San Antonio to New Braunfels is thirty miles, from 
 New Braunfels to San Marcos, twenty miles, from San Marcos 
 to Austin, thirty miles, from Austin to Round Rock, seventeen 
 miles, from Round Rock to Georgetown, nine miles, from 
 Georgetown to Salado, twenty-four miles, from Salado to 
 Belton, twelve miles, from Belton to Fort Graham, sixty-five 
 miles, from Fort Graham to Cleburne, forty miles, from Cle- 
 burne to Fort Worth twenty-eight miles. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 27 
 
 I note that I do not find in John Chisum’s history where he 
 ever drove a herd of cattle from Texas to Kansas, but he drove 
 thousands of cattle into the Pecos Country and New Mexico, 
 about 1864 and 1866. 
 
 It is stated that one Jess Chisholm drove cattle to the Na- 
 tion and Kansas before and during the war, crossing the Red 
 River at Choke Bluff Crossing below Denison. Mr. Sugg also 
 states that this Jess Chisholm was half Indian, and that his 
 ranch was located near the Canadian River. In later years he 
 crossed his herd higher up near Gainesville, so as to reach his 
 ranch on the Canadian. 
 
 I note again the Old Cow Trail forked at Bolivar. The 
 route of this right hand trail crossed Red River below Gaines- 
 ville, thence to Oil Springs, on to Fort Arbuckle, crossing Wild 
 Horse Creek, and intersecting the main trail at the south fork 
 of the Canadian River. The last main western trail ran by 
 Coleman, Texas, on to Bell Plain, thence to Baird, on to Al- 
 bany, from there to Fort Griffin, to Double Mountain Fork, 
 crossing Red River at Doan’s Store. 
 
 Now here I have one more old trail, and 1 have a printed 
 map of same. They call it the McCoy Trail. It started at Cor- 
 pus Christi, leading from there to Austin, thence to George- 
 town on to Buchanan, to Decatur, from there to Red River 
 Station on to the Red Fork of the Arkansas River; thence to 
 Abilene, Kansas. A short story of the life of Wild Bill Hickok 
 goes with the map. I do not think there ever was a cow trail 
 in Texas called ( the McCoy Trail, but 1 will state that I am 
 somewhat acquainted with Wild Bill Hickok. He was city 
 marshall of Wichita, Kansas, in 1870. I think they are try- 
 ing to put the “kibosh” on us. 
 
 The Old Chisholm Cow Trail varied in width at river cross- 
 ings, from fifty to one hundred yards. In some places it spreads 
 out from one mile to two miles in width. The average drive in 
 a day was eight to ten and twelve miles, and the time on the 
 Trail was from sixty to ninety days, from points in Texas to 
 ^Abilene or Newton, or Ellsworth, Kansas. 
 
 What happened on the Old Cow Trail, in those days of long 
 ago is almost forgotten, and it is a sad thought to us today 
 that there is no stone or mile post to mark the Old Trail’s lo- 
 
28 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 cation. The old time cow-puncher that followed the Trail, his 
 mount, his make-up, the old Trail songs that he sang, what 
 he did, and how he did it, is left yet to someone to give him the 
 proper place in history. 
 
 What he was then and what he is now, I hope to meet him 
 over there in the Sweet Bye and Bye, where no mavericks or 
 slicks will be tallied. 
 
 THE PUMPHREY BROTHERS’ EXPERIENCE 
 ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By J. B. Pumphrey, of Taylor, Texas. 
 
 I am glad that the Old Trail Drivers’ Association is making 
 up a collection of letters and stories of the “Boys Who Rode 
 the Trail,” and it will be fine to read them and recall the old 
 days. I am pleased to hand you a brief sketch of myself and 
 some of my experiences. 
 
 My mother was a Boyce, one of the old pioneer families of 
 Texas, and my father came from Ohio as a surgeon with Gen- 
 eral Taylor, during the war between the United States and 
 Mexico, and afterwards settled in Texas. My oldest uncle, 
 Jim Boyce, was killed and scalped by Indians on the bank of 
 Gilleland’s Creek, near Austin. 
 
 I was born at old Round Rock on the 10th of November, 
 1852, and had the usual schooling of that time, when the “Blue 
 Back Speller” and “Dog-wood Switch” were considered the 
 principal necessities for the boy’s education. 
 
 All of my life I have been engaged in the cow business, tak- 
 ing my first job in 1869, at $ 15.00 a month, for eighteen (18) 
 hours a day if necessary, with horses furnished. 
 
 In February, 1872, I made my first trip on the long trail 
 helping to gather a herd at the old Morrow Ranch, about two 
 miles from Taylor, and from there we went through to Kan- 
 sas, and then rode back, making about a four months’ trip in 
 all, and I then felt like I was a real graduated cow boy. I 
 would like to see this ride in ’72 compared with the longest 
 ride that was ever made. My wages on the trail were $60.00 
 per month, I furnishing six head of cow ponies. This trip 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 29 
 
 was made while working - for Cul Juvanel, who was from In- 
 diana and had a lot of Indiana boys with him, whom we called 
 “Short Horns.” Myself and two others, Beal Humphrey, my 
 brother, and Taylor Penick, were the only Texans in the bunch. 
 When we reached the South Fork of the Arkansas River it was 
 night, and about five o’clock in the morning after waking the 
 cook, 1 was on my way back to the herd when I saw our horses 
 were being hustled, and was afraid they would stampede the 
 herd, when just then the cook yelled “Indians,” and sure 
 enough they had rounded up our horses and were going away 
 with them. A heavy rain was falling and the boss said, “You 
 Texas boys follow the Indians and get those horses.” The 
 two others and myself rode one day and night, having to swim 
 rivers and creeks with our clothing fastened on our shoulders 
 to keep them dry, making the hardest ride of my life, but we 
 did not overtake the Indians; and I am now glad that we did 
 not. We were left with but one horse each, with this herd, 
 but had another herd near by and throwing the two together, 
 making about six thousand head, we took them through to 
 Kansas. 
 
 I remember one trip later in the year with Dave Pryor and 
 Ike Pryor when we were working for Bill Arnold of Llano 
 County. We got back home on the night of December 24th, 
 and rolling up in our blankets slept in the yard where the folks 
 found us in the morning. 
 
 In 1873 I made - another trip to Kansas with Bill Murchison 
 of Llano County, . and in later years took two other herds 
 through to Kansas. 
 
 I have handled cattle in Mexico, South and Central Texas, 
 Oklahoma, and once had a herd in Wyoming. 1 was director 
 and vice president of the Taylor National Bank for twenty- 
 four years, president of the McCulloch County Land & Cat- 
 tle Company about twenty-five years, and now have ranches 
 in McCulloch and Stonewall Counties. 
 
 1 have never forgotten the feel of the saddle after a long- 
 day, the weight and pull of the old six-shooter, and what a 
 blessing to cow men was the old yellow slicker. Those were 
 the days when men depended upon themselves first, but could 
 rely on their friends to help, if necessary. Days of hard work 
 
30 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 but good health ; plain fare but strong appetites, when people 
 expected to work for their living and short hours and big pay 
 was unknown. 
 
 In conclusion I wish to say any movement that will pre- 
 serve the memories of the old trail days is valuable, for in a 
 few years most of those who “Rode the Trail” will have cross- 
 ed the great divide. All honor to the Old Timers who have 
 gone before, and good luck to all of you who are left. 
 
 By R. B. Pumphrey, of San Antonio. 
 
 In offering this a small sketch of my life to be published in 
 the book that is to be published by the Old Trail Drivers’ As- 
 sociation, 1 find it will be necessary for me to quote the same 
 things that are written by my brother, J. B. Pumphrey. 
 
 “My mother was a Boyce, one of the old pioneer families of 
 Texas, and my father came from Ohio as a surgeon with 
 General Taylor, during the war between the United States and 
 Mexico, and afterwards settled in Texas. My oldest uncle, 
 Jim Boyce, was killed and scalped by Indians on the bank of 
 Gilleland’s Creek near Austin.” 
 
 Like my brother, I too, was born at Old Round Rock, on 
 April 3rd, 1854. Our education was very much alike the 
 principal studies being “Blue Back Speller” and the “Dog- 
 wood Switch.’’ 
 
 I have been in the cattle business practically all of my life, 
 beginning when 1 was sixteen or seventeen years old, and 
 finally in February, 1872, my brother and I assisted in mak- 
 ing up a herd for the Trail. This herd was sold to a man by 
 the name of Cul Juvanel and our experiences on this trip were 
 practically the same. We went through to Kansas, riding 
 back, making about a four months’ trip in all. My wages on 
 the trail were $60.00 per month. This trip was made while 
 working for Cul Juvanel, who was from Indiana and had a 
 lot of Indiana boys with him, whom we called “Short Horns.” 
 Myself and two others, John Pumphrey, my brother, and Tay- 
 lor Penick, were the only Texans in the bunch. When we 
 reached the South Fork of the Arkansas River it was night, 
 and about 5 o’clock in the morning after waking the cook, 
 was on my way back to the herd when I saw our horses were 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 31 
 
 being' hustled, and was afraid they would stampede the herd,- 
 and just then the cook yelled ‘Indians,’ and sure enough 
 they had rounded up our horses and gone away with them. A 
 heavy rain was falling and the boss said, ‘You Texas boys 
 follow the Indians and get those horses.’ The two others 
 and myself rode one day and night, having to swim the rivers 
 with our clothing fastened on our shoulders to keep them dry, 
 making the hardest ride of my life, but we did not overtake 
 the Indians; and I am now glad that we did not. We were 
 left with but one horse each, with this herd, but had another 
 herd near by and throwing the two together, making about 
 6000 head, we took them through to Kansas.” 
 
 In 1873 I made another trip to Kansas with W. T. Avery. 
 On this trip just north of the Arkansas River we had another 
 experience that I think is worth relating. There were about 
 four or five big herds camped near together and we had a 
 very severe storm, consequently our herds were badly mixed 
 and it took us all the following day to separate them, each fel- 
 low getting his own cattle. After we had separated the cat- 
 tle we counted ours and found that we were about 15 head 
 of cattle short.. So Mr. Avery and myself and one other man 
 that we could rely on made a circle around where the cattle 
 were lost to see if we could find the trail of where they had 
 gone off. We finally found the trail and followed it for 10 
 or 15 miles, when my horse was bitten by a rattlesnake and 
 of course we knew it would not do to attempt to go further 
 on a snake-bitten horse, so we retraced our steps to the camp, 
 finally getting this snake-bitten horse into the camp about 12 
 o’clock at night. During the absence some of the neighbors 
 told the bosses that we had been killed by the Osage Indians 
 and our men of course all thought we had been killed until we 
 arrived at camp, or else we would not have stayed out so 
 late. Early the next morning we reported to our foreman, 
 telling him that we had found the trail and that they were be- 
 ing driven off by the Indians — so he reinforced our party by 
 one man and sent us off again to see if we could get the cat- 
 tle. We did not lose much time in following the cattle, but 
 as they had two days the start of us we were never able to 
 overtake them, which perhaps was a good thing as we were 
 
32 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 poorly armed and perhaps would have been three men against 
 ten or fifteen Indians. We rode our horses so hard this first 
 day that we were unable to get back for two days and we and 
 our horses were worn out and almost starved when we reach- 
 ed our camp. It was not thought advisable to trail the cattle 
 any further. 
 
 After this second year’s experience on the trail I with my 
 two brothers went to Llano County where we associated our- 
 selves with the Moss boys, who were our first cousins, and for 
 ten years I ranched in Llano County. In ’84 my brother, Mr. 
 Kuykendall and myself moved about 12,000 cattle to Wyom- 
 ing Territory where I spent two years on the range. This 
 proved not to be a very successful move for me as we lost 
 practically everything we put in that country. After that I 
 did not attempt any trail driving until ’84 and ’85. My broth- 
 er, Kuykendall and myself had established a ranch in Greer 
 County and drove several herds from Central Texas to Greer 
 County to stock this ranch with. 
 
 While those were hard old times, 1 have never regretted for 
 a minute that I underwent the hardships as it was the kind of a 
 life that I loved at that time and 1 only wish that 1 was young 
 enough to engage in the same life again. Many of the old boys 
 who were on the trail have passed away, but 1 want to wish 
 for the few that are left that they will always “graze with the 
 lead cattle.’’ 
 
 (EDITOR’S NOTE— J. B. Pumphrey died at Taylor, Tex- 
 as, July 21, 1917. R. B. Pumphrey died at Austin, May 
 4, 1920.) 
 
 DODGING INDIANS NEAR PACKSADDLE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 By E. A. (Berry) Robuck, Lockhart, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Caldwell County, Texas, September 3, 1857, 
 and was in my sixteenth year when I entered the trail life. My 
 father came to this- state from Mississippi, in 1846, when he 
 was sixteen years old. He enlisted in the Confederate Army 
 and died in 1863 of pneumonia while in the service. 1 was 
 the oldest of three brothers, one of them being Terrell (Tully) 
 Robuck, who went to North Dakota with Colonel Jim Ellison’s 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 33 
 
 outfit in 1876. He was then sixteen years old. Emmet Ro- 
 buck, who was assassinated at Brownsville, in 1902, while serv- 
 ing as a state ranger, was my son. 
 
 I made my first trip up the trail to Utah Territory with old 
 man Coleman Jones, who was boss for a herd belonging to 
 Colonel Jack Meyers. This herd was put up at the Smith & 
 Wimberly ranch in Gillespie County. I gained wonderful ex- 
 perience on this trip in the stampedes, high water, hail storms, 
 thunder and lightning which played on the horns of the cat- 
 tle and on my horse’s ears. We suffered from cold and hun- 
 ger and often slept on wet blankets and wore wet clothing for 
 several days and nights at a time, but it was all in the game, 
 and we were compensated for these unpleasant things by the 
 sport of roping buffalo, and seeing sights we had never seen 
 before. 
 
 On one occasion my boss sent me from the Wimberly ranch 
 to another ranch twenty miles away to get some bacon. At 
 the foot of Packsaddle Mountain in Llano County I passed 
 about fifty Indians who had killed a beef and were eating their 
 breakfast, but I failed to see them as I passed. When I reached 
 my destination a man came and reported the presence of the 
 Indians. I had to return over the same route 1 had come, so 
 I took the best horse I had for my saddle horse and put the 
 packsaddle and bacon on another horse, for I was determined 
 to go back without being handicapped by that bacon. I dodged 
 the Indians and got back to the Wimberly ranch in safety. 
 
 On one of my trail trips we had a trying experience be- 
 tween Red River and the Great Bend of the Arkansas River on 
 the Western'trail, when we had to go without water for twen- 
 ty-four hours. When we finally reached water about 600 head 
 of the cattle bogged in the mud and we worked all night pull- 
 ing them out. 
 
 At another time I was on the Smoky River in Kansas when 
 2800 beeves stampeded. I found myself in the middle of the 
 herd, while a cyclone and hailstorm made the frightened brutes 
 run pell-mell. The lightning played all over the horns of the 
 cattle and the ears of my horse, and the hail almost pounded 
 the brim of my hat off. I stuck to the cattle all night all alone, 
 and was out only one hundred head the next morning. An- 
 
34 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 other time I ran all night, lost my hat in the stampede, and 
 went through the rain bareheaded. 
 
 On one trip myself and a negro, Emanuel Jones, ran into a 
 herd of buffalo in the Indian Territory, and roped two of them. 
 The one I lassoed got me down and trampled my shirt off, but 
 I tied him down wth a hobble I had around my waist. One day 
 my boss told me we were going to make a buffalo run, and 
 asked me to ride my best horse. The horse I rode was a red 
 roan belonging to George Hill, who was afterward assassinated 
 at Cotulla, Texas. Myself and Wash Murray rode together, 
 and when we got into the chase I caught a five-year-old cow. 
 My horse was “Katy on the spot” in a case of that kind, and 
 helped me to win the championship on that occasion. I was 
 the only man in the party that succeeded in roping a buffalo. 
 
 1 met Mac Stewart, Noah Ellis, Bill Campbell and several 
 other old Caldwell County boys in Ellsworth, Kansas, on one 
 of my trips. Stewart served three years in the Confederate 
 Army, after which he took to trail life, and followed that 
 for several years, then going to Mexico where he became in- 
 volved in a difficulty with an officer and killed him. He was 
 in prison for over ten years with the death sentence hanging 
 over him, but through the influence of friends in this country 
 he was finally released and returned to Texas, dying shortly 
 afterward. 
 
 After meeting this bunch in Ellsworth, a number of us re- 
 turned home together with the saddle horses. We came back 
 the old Chisholm trail. While returning through the Indian 
 T erritory we were caught in a cyclone and hailstorm one night 
 while I was on guard. The wind was so strong at times it near- 
 ly blew me out of the saddle, and the hail pelted me so hard 
 great knots were raised on my head. Next morning 1 found 
 myself alone in a strange land with the horses, for I had drift- 
 ed with the storm. Picking up the back trail I started for 
 camp, and before long in the distance I saw some people com- 
 ing towards me. I thought they might be Indians, but it turned 
 out to be Mac Stewart and others who had started out to search 
 for me. The horse I was riding that night was raised by Black 
 Bill Montgomery, and had been taken up the trail that year by 
 Mark Withers. Three days later we reached Red River, which 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 35 
 
 was on a big' rise. We were out of grub, but had to remain 
 there for three days waiting for the river to run down, but it 
 kept getting higher, so we decided to attempt the crossing. We 
 put into the stream, and with great difficulty got the horses 
 across. Mac Stewart’s horse refused to swim, and as Mac could 
 not swim, I went to his rescue. The horse floated down the 
 river, and Mac told me he had $300 in money and his watch 
 tied on his saddle. Sam Henry and l then swam to the horse 
 and took the saddle off, and came out under a bluff. We had 
 a pretty close call, but reached the bank finally where we had 
 a big reunion and something to eat. 
 
 There is one incident which I feel I ought to add, as perhaps 
 it did not fall to the lot of many of the boys to have a similar 
 one. I am the chap who caught the blue mustang mare. This 
 was while we were range herding cattle in Kansas on the 
 Smoky River, near the King Hills, about fifteen miles from 
 old Fort Hayes. This blue mustang would come to our saddle 
 horses at night, and also to the river for water. The boys .were 
 all anxious to get her, had set snares made of ropes at the wa- 
 tering places, hoping to get her by the feet, but she always 
 managed to avoid this danger. One day the boys found her 
 with the horses, and on seeing them she stampeded. 1 was on 
 the range about the foot of the hills, saw her coming and made 
 for her with my rope ready. To get back to her herd she had 
 to go through a gap in the hills. 1 was riding a good sorrel 
 horse, an E P horse, raised by Ed Persons of Caldwell county. 
 I made for the gap, getting there just in time, and as she started 
 to enter running at break-neck speed, just in the nick of time I 
 threw my rope, it went true and fell securely around her neck. 
 When the rope tightened, she jerked my horse fully thirty feet, 
 and both animals went down together, not more than ten feet 
 apart. I scrambled to my feet, getting out of the mix up, but 
 I had my mustang. Manuel Jones and Dan Sheppard, two of 
 the cow boys on the range, coming up about this time, helped 
 me to further secure her and we got her safely back to camp. 
 In time she responded to good treatment, made a fine saddle 
 animal and with her long black mane and tail, she was a beauty 
 of which I was justly proud. Good saddle horses could be had 
 cheap at that time but I sold her near Red River for $65.00. 
 
36 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 F FOUGHT INDIANS ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By Henry Ramsdale, of Sabinal, Texas. 
 
 I came to Texas in 1876, and have been handling cattle 
 nearly ever since. Made my first trip with Joe Collins and had 
 a pretty good time. My next trip was from Llano and Ma- 
 son counties. Was attacked by Indians several times and on 
 one occasion we lost all of our horses except the ones we were 
 riding, and one man was killed by the redskins. Had to make 
 the drive from the head of the Concho to the Pecos River, a 
 distance of eighty miles, without water for ourselves or cattle. 
 From there we had a very good trip, but saw Indians nearly 
 every day. I stayed with this outfit until the next spring, when 
 1 came back to Texas and settled in Uvalde county, and have 
 been here ever since. 
 
 CYCLONES, BLIZZARDS, HIGH WATER, STAMPEDES 
 AND INDIANS ON THE TRAIL 
 
 By G. H. Mohle, Lockhart, Texas 
 
 In April, 1869, I was employed by Black Bill Montgomery 
 to go with a herd of 4,500 head of stock cattle on the drive 
 to Abilene, Kansas. We started from Lockhart, and crossed 
 the Colorado River below Austin, out by way of Georgetown, 
 Waxahachie, and on to Red River, which we found very high. 
 We were several days getting the herd across this stream. The 
 first day I crossed over with a!?out a thousand head and came 
 back and worked the rest of the day in the water, but could 
 not get any more of the cattle across on account of the wind 
 and waves. Two of the boys and myself went across with 
 grub enough for supper and breakfast, but the next day the 
 weather was so bad the others could not cross to bring us 
 something to eat and we were compelled to go hungry for 
 forty-eight hours. The next night about twelve o’clock we 
 heard yelling and shouting, but thinking it might be Indians, 
 we remained quiet and did not know until noon the next 
 day that it was some of the boys of our outfit who had brought 
 us some grub, which we found hanging in a tree. The third 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 37 
 
 day the balance of the herd was crossed over without further 
 trouble. Flies and mosquitos were very bad, and kept us 
 engaged in fighting them off. 
 
 When we reached the North Fork of the Canadian River 
 is was also pretty high, on account of heavy rains. The water 
 was level with the bank on this side, but on the far side the 
 bank was about six feet above the water and the going out 
 place being only about twenty feet wide. We had trouble 
 getting the cattle into the water, and when they did get started 
 they crowded in so that they could not get out on the other 
 side, and began milling, and we lost one hundred and sixteen 
 head and three horses. When we arrived at the Arkansas 
 River we found it out of its banks and we were compelled 
 to wait several days for it to run down. We were out of 
 provisions, and tried to purchase some from a government 
 train which was camped at this point. This wagon train was 
 loaded with flour and bacon, enroute to Fort Sill. The man 
 in charge refused to sell us anything, so when the guard was 
 absent we “borrowed” enough grub to last us until we could 
 get some more. When the flood stage had passed, we crossed 
 the river and reached Abilene, Kansas, the latter part of June, 
 camping there a month, and finally sold the cattle to Mr. 
 Evans of California for $2 5 per head, with the understanding 
 that Black Bill Montgomery, Bill Henderson, myself and Gov, 
 the negro cook, were to go along with the cattle. Mr. Evans 
 also bought the horses. 
 
 About the first of August we started for California. When 
 we reached the Republican River, a cyclone struck us, turned 
 our wagon over, and scattered things generally. Mr Evans 
 had a large tent. It went up in the air and we saw it no more. 
 We next reached the Platte River where we camped for several 
 days to allow the cattle to graze and rest. On account of f 
 quicksand in the river we had to go up the stream about 
 twenty-five miles to make a crossing. At Platte City we 
 purchased a supply of provisions, and went on up the north- 
 west side of the river about a hundred miles, to where about 
 five hundred soldiers were camped. We camped about a quar- 
 ter of a mile above the soldiers’ camp, and thought we were 
 pretty safe from Indian attack, but one night about three 
 
38 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 o’clock we were awakened by an awful noise. We thought it 
 was a passing railroad train but instead it was our horses being- 
 driven off by Indians right along near our camp. As they 
 passed us the Indians fired several shots in our direction, but 
 no one was hit. We had sixty-three horses and the red rascals 
 captured all of them except five head. Mr. Evans sent one 
 of the hands to notify the soldiers of our loss and get them 
 on the trail of the Indians. It was nine o’clock the next 
 morning before the soldiers passed our camp in pursuit, 
 and as the Indians had such a good start they were never 
 overtaken. We remained there all day, and the next- 
 morning we started out afoot. For about a week we felt 
 pretty sore from walking as we were not used to this kind of 
 herding. When we reached Cheyenne, we secured mounts, 
 and laid in a supply of grub and traveled up Crow Creek to 
 Cheyenne Pass, where we had our first blizzard and snow. 
 
 The next morning the snow was six inches deep, and the 
 weather was bitterly cold. Our next town was Fort Laramie, 
 and from there we went on to Elk Mountain on the Overland 
 Immigrant Trail to California, where we stopped for three 
 days because of the heavy snow. We had very little trouble 
 until we reached Bitter Creek, called Barrel Springs on account 
 of many barrels having been placed in the ground and served 
 as water springs. Here we cut out five hundred of the cattle 
 because they were not able to keep up. Five of us were left 
 to bring them on, and we traveled down the creek for a dis- 
 tance of about twenty miles. One day at noon we camped and 
 some of the cattle drank water in the creek and within twenty 
 minutes they died. I drank from a spring on the side of the 
 mountain, thinking the water was good, and in a short while I 
 thought I was going to die too. An Irishman came along and I 
 told him I was sick from drinking the water, and he informed 
 that it was very poisonous. He carried me to a store and 
 bought me some whiskey and pretty soon I was able to travel. 
 We went up Green River and crossed it at the mouth of 
 Hamsford, and then crossed the divide between Wyoming and 
 Utah. The temperature was down to zero, and when we 
 reached the little town of Clarksville, Utah, we remained 
 there two weeks. Mr. Evans sent the cattle up into the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 39 
 
 mountains, and we took stage for Corrine, just north of Salt 
 Lake City, where we hoarded the train for home. 
 
 (EDITOR’S NOTE — Mr. Mohle, the writer of the above 
 sketch, died at his home in Lockhart, Texas, October 11, 
 1918, aged 71 years. ) 
 
 MISTAKEN FOR COLE YOUNGER AND ARRESTED. 
 
 By S. A. Hickok, Karnes City, Texas 
 
 I was born at Columbus, Ohio, December 8th, 1842, and 
 moved to Mattoon, Illinois, when I was about twenty-four 
 years old, and engaged in buying chickens, turkeys, ducks and 
 geese and shipping them by carload to New Orleans, La. 
 
 When I would go to New Orleans with my shipment of poul- 
 try I heard a great deal about Texas, and the money that was 
 to be made in sending cattle up the trail, so I decided to move 
 to Texas. ! met a man by the name of Couch who was making 
 up a party to go on an excursion train to Dallas, Tex., and made 
 arrangements to meet him in Saint Louis and join the excursion 
 party there. My brother accompanied me to Saint Louis, and 
 a short while after our arrival we passed a man on the street 
 and he said, “Hello Younger.” I told him he was mistaken, 
 that my name was not Younger. He asked me if I was not 
 from Marshall, Missouri, and I told him that I was not. We 
 went to a cheap boarding house and made arrangements to 
 stay all night. We went to the Southern Hotel that night to 
 see if Couch had arrived. While we were there a man came in 
 and asked me if I was from Marshall county, and I replied, 
 “No; I have been asked that question twice today.” He then 
 called me aside and asked me several questions, and just then 
 motioned a policeman to come near. They asked me if I was 
 armed and 1 told them that it was none fo their business, but 
 as they insisted on searching me I told them to proceed but 
 be sure they had the proper authority for their action. They 
 found a small six-shooter, a draft for $1000, and about $100 
 in cash on me, and the policeman said he would have to take 
 me down to the police station. When we arrived there I 
 learned that they thought that they had Cole Younger, one 
 
40 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 of the Jesse James desperadoes. I told them to telegraph the 
 First National Bank of Mattoon, Illinois, and they could get 
 all the information they needed to establish my identity. But 
 they locked me up in a cell and kept me there over night. 
 Next day they released me, and returned my pistoLand money 
 to me. 
 
 I reached Dallas in the Spring of 1875, and went to Fort 
 Worth, which was then a small place. My brother and I 
 purchased a pair of Mexican ponies, a new wagon and camping 
 outfit and started for San Antonio. Near Burnett we met a 
 man who had a ranch and some sheep in Bandera county, and 
 we went with him and bought six hundred head of sheep, thus 
 embarking in the sheep business, doing our own herding, shear- 
 ing, cooking and washing. We had hard sledding for a long 
 time but finally achieved success. We moved our herd from 
 Bandera county to the southeast corner of Atascosa county, 
 near the line of Live Oak and Karnes counties, where I located 
 a ranch of 15,000 acres in 1877 or 1878. There I engaged 
 in sheep-raising for several years, finally selling out and buying 
 horses and cattle. I went to the border on the Rio Grande, 
 and bought many horses and mares and drove them to Kansas. 
 The next year I went over into Mexico and bought several 
 hundred horses, which I kept on the ranch for about a year, 
 and then shipped them and many more which I had bought at 
 different times to Ohio, New York, Nebraska, Tennessee, 
 Arkansas and Mississippi. 
 
 A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 By Jeff M. White of Pleasanton, Texas 
 
 1 was born in Palmyra, Marion county, Missouri, October 
 20th, 1831. In the spring of 1852 a bunch of us were stricken 
 with the gold fever. We rigged up three ox wagons, five yoke 
 to a wagon, and started on the 13th day of April in 1852 for 
 the California gold mines. We crossed the Mississippi River 
 at Savannah, Holt county, Missouri, on the 3rd day of May. 
 At this time this country belonged to the Sioux Indians, being 
 their hunting grounds. However, we had no trouble with them. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 41 
 
 The first white people we saw after leaving the Missouri River 
 were a few soldiers at Fort Karney on the Platte River. Re- 
 garding these soldiers will say they were in no condition to 
 protect any one as it looked as though they had not washed 
 their faces in months. However, they were good card players. 
 We forded the South Platte and went across to the North 
 Platte and proceeded up that stream to Fort Laramie. We 
 also found a few soldiers here in about the same condition as 
 the others and we did not look to them for any protection. We 
 crossed the middle fork of the Platte above Fort Laramie on 
 a bridge and from there we went north to the North Platte. 
 We traveled up this stream to the Mormon Ferry. Before 
 reaching this Mormon Ferry we passed some two or three 
 times a big black Dutchman rolling a wheelbarrow. The 
 Mormons put him across ahead of us giving him a bottle of 
 whiskey and some buffalo meat and this is the last we ever saw 
 of him. 
 
 The next water we found was the Sweetwater River, but 
 will say the water was not sweet but as fine as I ever drank. 
 The first curiosity we found was the Chimney Rock. This was 
 on the south side of the North Platte. The base of this rock 
 covered some five or six acres of the ground and extended in 
 the air to a height of approximately four hundred feet and 
 from this there extended a smaller stem some ten or twelve 
 feet in diameter and must have been eighty or more feet high 
 and was soft sand rock. 
 
 After crossing the Sweetwater River we found another 
 curiosity called the Independence Rock. This rock is on the 
 Old Fremont Trail and this is where Fremont ate his Fourth 
 of July dinner, on July 4th, 1847, hence the name Independ- 
 ence Rock. Where the Sweetwater River comes out of the 
 Rocky Mountains is a solid rock gap claimed to be three 
 hundred feet deep. I know it was so deep we couldn’t look 
 over into it without laying down flat on our stomachs. From 
 here we proceeded to what is called the South Pass, a low 
 flat place in the Rocky Mountains, and some two days travel 
 brought us to a place where the roads forked. At this place 
 we held an election to determine which road to take, the left 
 road going to Salt Lake City and the right hand road was the 
 
42 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Fremont Trail going west. ‘The majority voted to go by Salt 
 Lake City. Will say, before reaching the forks of this road, 
 we had overtaken another party, called the Priest Train, 
 making a total of seven wagons and twenty-eight men. 
 
 On our road to Salt Lake City we had to go into what is 
 called Echo Canyon. The Mormons, on going down into this 
 canyon, let their wagons down by putting ropes and chains 
 around trees that grew upon the side of the canyon and fast- 
 ening same to rear of wagon. When we reached this place 
 the trees were all dead, so we took all the oxen loose except 
 the wheel team, and fastened them to the rear axle and let the 
 wagon down into the canyon. It required half of a day to 
 let our seven wagons down. After getting down into this 
 canyon the road travels down same into the Salt Lake Valley. 
 
 Will also add that our principal fuel on this trip was buffalo 
 chips, but west of the Rocky Mountains there were no buffalo 
 so we used cow chips. 
 
 It is eight hundred miles from Salt Lake City to California 
 and there were only two different tribes of Indians, the Utahs 
 and Piutes. In the summer time the Piutes live mostly on 
 roasted lizards and grass hoppers, there being no game in this 
 part of the country to amount to anything, only a few scatter- 
 ing black tail deer. 
 
 We arrived in Salt Lake City a day or two before the Fourth 
 of July, 1852, and spent the fourth there. About all the cele- 
 bration was a few horse races on the main street of the city. 
 At this time it was a small town, there being only two good 
 houses in the town, the Mormon Temple and Brigham Young’s 
 Temple. At this time it was told by the Mormons that Brigham 
 Young had some sixty odd wives and of course it required a 
 large house to hold them. 
 
 We were never bothered by the Indians as we watched 
 them day and night and an Indian is good only when he is 
 watched. I never saw one with a gun or pistol on the entire 
 trip. Their fighting weapons were bow and arrows, tomahawk 
 and scalping or bowie knives. 
 
 After leaving Salt Lake City we crossed the River Jordan 
 and the next water was a good spring at the head of the 
 Humbolt River. This river, however, is three hundred and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 43 
 
 thirty miles long, running through a flat alkali country, and the 
 worst water a human or beast ever tried to drink. It spreads 
 out and sinks into the earth, not emptying into any other 
 stream. While traveling down this stream one of our men 
 took sick and we had no good water for him . While nooning 
 one day, on this stream, one of the boys went fishing with a 
 little fly hook not larger than a sewing thread and caught 
 four or five fish. When he returned he found an old Piute 
 Indian in camp. This Indian wanted to see what our boy had 
 caught the fish with and when the boy showed him the hook 
 he examined it very closely and from his actions, it seemed 
 this was the first hook he had ever seen. He had on an old 
 ragged coat and from the tail of this he unwound a string and 
 brought out a Mexican dollar and gave it to the boy for the 
 fish-hook. This old Indian having a Mexican dollar was as 
 much a curiosity to us as the fish-hook was to him. He was 
 four hundred miles from Salt Lake City and about the same 
 distance from California or any white settlement and the ques- 
 tion was “Where did he get the Mexican dollar? ” Where this 
 Humbolt River sinks into the earth we cut grass and filled our 
 wagons to feed our stock on as we had to cross a desert fifty 
 miles wide and filled all of our water kegs so as to give stock 
 water that night and this was all the water they had until we 
 crossed the desert. The last twelve miles of this trip was 
 deep white sand. It took a day and night to cross this desert 
 and we fed our stock one time and gave them one drink. This 
 brought us to Carson River where our sick man died. We 
 rolled him in his blankets, as we had no coffin, and buried him 
 under a large elm tree, covering him the best we could with 
 timber and dirt. We traveled up the Carson River, the worst 
 road we had on the entire trip, crossing the Sierra Nevada 
 Mountains and followed the slope to Hangtown, California, 
 the first mining town we struck. There we sold out everything 
 we had in the shape of teams and wagons. We arrived there 
 the 27th day of August in 1852. This being Dry Diggings, 
 meaning no gold to be found, after resting a few days we all 
 scattered and went to the South Fork of the American River 
 and four or five of the boys I have never seen or heard of since. 
 I know they never came back home. After staying about two 
 
44 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 years and a half I returned home. I was the youngest of the 
 outfit, being only 20 years old and was called a 20 year old 
 
 boy. 
 
 A THORNY EXPERIENCE 
 
 By S. B. Brite, of Pleasanton, Texas. 
 
 Like most of the boys of the early days, I had to sow my 
 wild oats, and I regret to say that I also sowed all of the 
 money I made right along with the oats. I went up the trail 
 in 1882 with a herd belonging to Jim Ellison of Caldwell 
 county, delivering the cattle at Caldwell, Kansas. I went again 
 in 1884 with Mark Withers, starting from the Tigire ranch 
 in LaSalle county, where Mr. J. M. Dobie now lives. When 
 we reached the Canadian River it was on a rise, and we 
 drowned a horse which was hitched to the chuck wagon. 
 While making this crossing a negro’s horse sank in the middle 
 of the river and left the rider standing on a sandbar. After we 
 crossed the cattle over I swam my horse out and allowed the 
 negro to swing to his tail and thus ferried him across. The 
 negro thanked me and said that horse’s tail was just like the 
 “hand of providence”. We delivered the cattle on the Platte 
 River, and I returned to the Tigire ranch where I worked for 
 seven years. While on this ranch one day Gus Withers, the 
 boss, picked out a fine bay horse and told me that if I could 
 ride him I could use him for a saddle horse. I managed to 
 mount him, but after I got up there I had to “choke the horn 
 and claw leather”, but to no avail for he dumped me off in 
 the big middle of a prickly pear bush. When the boys pulled 
 me out of that bush they found that my jacket was nailed to 
 my back as securely as if the job had been done with six 
 penny nails. 
 
 I went up the trail twice, and drove the drag both times, 
 did all the hard work, got all the “cussin’,” but had the good 
 luck never to get “fired.” 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 45 
 
 RAISED ON THE FRONTIER 
 
 By Walter Smith, Del Rio, Texas 
 
 It made me feel twenty-five years younger to attend the 
 reunion of the Old Trail Drivers in San Antonio, for I met so 
 many of my old boyhood friends, many of them I had not 
 seen in forty-five years, boys that I had been associated with 
 during the early days of the frontier. 
 
 I was born at Corpus Christi, May 8th, 1856, and moved 
 to San Antonio when I was six years old. Went to school at 
 the old Free School house which stood on Houston street in 
 that city. San Antonio was then only a small adobe town. In 
 1869 I landed in Uvalde in an ox-wagon owned by Bill Lewis 
 of the Nueces Canyon. There were only six ranches in the 
 canyon at that time, but lots of Indians were there to harrass 
 the few settlers. We had many narrow escapes, but we were 
 a happy and seemingly contented people. I have lived on the 
 western frontier ever since I reached manhood, and have had 
 many thrilling experiences and hard trials, but have lived 
 through all down to this day of the high cost of everything, 
 We lived then on the fat of the land, and that was not a 
 luxury. Our food was plain, but wholesome, and if the people 
 of today would be content with the table comforts we had in 
 those days, the doctors’ signs would soon disappear. 
 
 I went up the trail six different times, the last herd being 
 driven from Uvalde county in 1882 for the Western Union 
 Beef Co. to the South Platte River, Colorado. I have had so 
 many ups and downs that if I were to undertake to tell all of 
 them it would more than fill this volume. 
 
 Was married at Uvalde, Texas, May 8th, 1879, to Sarah 
 A. Fulgham, and we have had eleven children, eight of whom 
 are still living. 
 
 PARENTS SETTLED IN THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS 
 
 By Joseph S. Cruze, Sr., San Antonio, Texas 
 
 My parents, William and Isabella Cruze came to the Republic 
 of Texas in 1840 and located on the Brazos River in Washing- 
 
46 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ton county. There I was born July 27th, 1845, and when I 
 was three months old father placed a buffalo hair pillow on 
 the horn of his saddle, placed me thereon, mounted his horse 
 and was ready to immigrate west with his family. He settled 
 on Onion Creek, nine miles south of Austin, near the Colorado 
 River, where he remained for several years. Then in 1854 
 we moved to the central part of Hays county, where father 
 died in 1856. 
 
 I enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862, received my 
 discharge in 1865, and returned home to my widowed mother. 
 On July 24th, 1865, I was married to Miss Mary Kate Cox of 
 Hays county. 
 
 In the years 1870 and 1871 I drove cattle to Kansas over 
 the old Chisholm Trail. 1 remember the killing of Pete Owens, 
 who was with the same herd I was with. We had reached the 
 Cross Timbers of Texas, and passed a ranch where booze was 
 sold. There was a row and Pete was shot and killed. He was 
 a good friend to me, we had been soldier comrades for nearly 
 three years, worked cattle together, and I loved him as a 
 brother. Billie Owens, known to many of the old trail drivers 
 was his brother. The Owens boys were good soldiers, upright, 
 honest and brave men. 
 
 In those days the cowmen underwent many hardships, sur- 
 vived many hair-breadth escapes and dangers while blazing 
 our way through the wilderness. My comrades yet living have 
 not forgotten what we had to endure. Everything was then 
 tough, wild and woolly, and it was dangerous to be safe. 
 
 In September, 1866, 1 settled on Loneman Creek, in Hays 
 county, near the Blanco River, and established the Cruze 
 Ranch, which I sold to my son, S. J. Cruze, in 1917, and 
 moved to San Antonio with my wife and two daughters, 
 Margaret and Addie, and my grandson, Forest Harlan. 1 have 
 a nice little home in Los Angeles Heights, and would be glad 
 to hear from any of my old friends at any time. 
 
 My address is Route 10, Box 101 a, Los Angeles Heights, 
 San Antonio. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 47 
 
 SEVEN TRIPS UP THE TRAIL 
 
 By J. F. Ellison, Fort Cobb, Okla. 
 
 My first trip up the trail was in the year 1869, over the old 
 Fort Arbuckle Trail. 1 made seven trips in all. In 1876 I 
 worked for Ellison, Dewees, Willett and Maberry, and was on 
 the trail for six months. These men drove out that year fully 
 one hundred thousand cattle. We had our hardships, boys, 
 but when we look back and reflect over those good old times 
 spent in each other’s company, and compare those old days to 
 the present time, we conclude that we had our share of the 
 good things of life and played well our part in the develop- 
 ment and transformation of a wild country into one of peace, 
 plenty and prosperity. There are hundreds of the old boys yet 
 living that we knew in the trail days, and to all of them I 
 send greetings and good wishes. 
 
 DROVE A HERD OVER THE TRAIL TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 By W. E. Cureton, of Meridian, Texas 
 
 1 was born in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, in 1848; 
 came to Texas with my father, Captain Jack Cureton, in the 
 winter of 1854-55; settled on or near the Brazos River below 
 old Fort Belknap in what is now Palo Pinto county, and began 
 raising cattle. The county was organized in 1857. 
 
 In 1867 we (my father and John C. Cureton) drove a herd 
 of grown steers from Jim Ned, a tributary of the Colorado of 
 Texas, now in Coleman county, up the Concho at a time when 
 the Coffees and Tankersleys were the only inhabitants there. 
 That year the government began the building of Fort Concho, 
 which is now a part of the thrifty little city of San Angelo. 
 The Indians killed a Dutchman and scalped and partly skinned 
 him a little ahead of us, and Captain Snively, with a gold 
 hunting outfit, had quite a skirmish along the Concho with 
 them. 
 
 From the headwaters on the Concho we made a ninety-six 
 mile drive to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River without 
 giving the cattle a good watering. Our trail was the old mili- 
 
48 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 tary stage route used by the government before the Civil War. 
 The Indians had killed a man and wounded a woman ahead 
 of us at the old adobe walls at Horsehead Crossing on the 
 Pecos, and captured a herd of cattle belonging to John Gamel 
 and Isaac W. Cox of Mason, Texas. A few miles above 
 Horsehead Crossing the Indians stole eleven head of our horses 
 one night; only having two horses to the man, we felt the loss 
 of half our mounts very severely. A little further up the 
 river the Indians wounded Uncle Oliver Loving, the father 
 of J. C. and George B. of the noted Loving fomily of 
 the upper Brazos country and the founder of the great Texas 
 Cattle Raisers’ Association. The old man died at Fort 
 Sumner of his wounds. They also killed Billy Corely, one 
 of Lynch & Cooper’s men, from Shackleford county, the 
 same drive. 
 
 We left the Pecos near where now stands the town of Ros- 
 well, and traveled up the Hondo out by Fort Stanton over the 
 divide to San Augustine Springs, near the Rio Grande, and 
 wintered the cattle and sold them in the spring of 1868 to 
 Hinds & Hooker, .who were the United States contractors to 
 feed the soldiers and Indians, as they were pretending to sub- 
 due and keep the Indians on reservations but in reality were 
 equipping them so they could depredate more efficiently on 
 the drovers and emigrants. 
 
 In the summer of 1869 I sold a bunch of grown steers in 
 Palo Pinto County, Texas, to Doctor D. B. Warren of Missouri, 
 and we trailed them to Baxter Springs, Kansas. We swam Red 
 River at the old Preston ferry. We camped near the river the 
 night before and tried to cross early in the morning. The 
 river was very full of muddy water, and the cattle refused to 
 take the water. After all hands had about exhausted them- 
 selves Doctor Warren, who was his own boss, said to me, 
 “William, what will we do about it? ” I answered him that we 
 had better back out and graze the cattle until the sun got up 
 so they could see the other bank, and they would want water 
 and go across. “You should know that you can’t swim 
 cattle across as big a stream as this going east in the morning 
 or going west late of an evening with the sun in their faces.’’ 
 Aoout one p.m. we put them back on the trail and by the time 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 49 
 
 the drags got near the river the leaders were climbing the 
 east bank. The doctor looked at me and said, “Well, I’ll be 
 damned — every man to his profession.” 
 
 In the spring of 1870 my father took his family along, and 
 turned over more than eleven hundred cattle to us boys, John 
 C. and J. W., to drive to California. We went out over the 
 old Concho trail to the Dio Pecos, up that river to the Hondo 
 out by the Gallina Mountains, crossing the Rio Grande 
 at Old Albuquerque, over to and down the Little Colorado of 
 the West; through New Mexico into Arizona, by where Flag- 
 staff is now; on the Santa Fe Railroad, parallel to the Grand 
 Canyon on the south side of the Colorado; crossed the Colo- 
 rado at Hardyville above the Needles; crossed over the Califor- 
 nia desert; climbed over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and 
 wintered the cattle between San Bernardino and Los Angeles 
 in California, a fifteen-hundred mile drive. In the spring of 
 1871 we drove the cattle back across the Sierras, north up the 
 east side of the mountains to the head of Owens River, where 
 we fattened them on the luxurious California meadows; then 
 drove them to Reno, Nevada, five hundred miles from our 
 wintering grounds, and sold them, and Miller & Lux, the 
 millionaire butchers of San Francisco, shipped them to their 
 slaughtering plant in San Francisco, California — and, by the 
 way, the firm still controls the California market there. We 
 paid ten dollars for grown steers in Texas; got thirty dollars 
 after driving them two thousand miles and consuming two 
 years on the trip. After all, I honor the old long horn; he 
 was able to furnish hi's own transportation to all the markets 
 before the advent of railroads. 
 
 I made many other trips, but think these will give a fair 
 idea of the hardships of the pioneers. 
 
 I had been interested in cattle raising for sixty years, ranch- 
 ing in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California during that 
 time, but always claimed Texas as home; was a school boy 
 with the late Colonel C. C. Slaughter of Dallas and George T. 
 Reynolds of Fort Worth more than sixty years ago. 
 
50 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 COMING UP THE TRAIL IN 1882 
 
 By Jack Potter, of Kenton, Oklahoma 
 
 In the spring of 1882, the New England Livestock Co. 
 bought three thousand short horns in Southwest Texas, cut 
 them into four herds and started them on the trail to Colorado, 
 with King Hennant of Corpus Christi in charge of the first 
 herd, Asa Clark of Legarta the second herd, Billie Burke the 
 third herd, and John Smith of San Antonio in charge of the 
 fourth. When they reached a point near San Antonio Smith 
 asked me to go with the herd at $30 a month and transporta- 
 tion back. Now, friends, it will not take long to tell my 
 experiences going up the trail, but it will require several pages 
 to recount what 1 had to endure coming back home. 
 
 There was no excitement whatever on this drive. It was 
 to me very much like a summer’s outing in the Rocky Moun- 
 tains. We went out by way of Fredericksburg, Mason and 
 Brady City, and entered the Western trail at Cow Gap, going 
 through Albany near Fort Griffin, where we left the Western 
 trail and selected a route through to Trinidad, Colorado, via 
 Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos, Wichita and Pease Rivers 
 to the Charles Goodnight ranch on the Staked Plains, We 
 had several stampedes while crossing the plains. 
 
 En route we saw thousands of antelope crossing the trail 
 in front of the herd. We crossed the Canadian at Tuscosa. 
 This was a typical cowboy town, and at this time a general 
 roundup was in progress and I believe there were a hundred 
 and fifty cow-punchers in the place. They had taken a day 
 off to celebrate, and as there were only seven saloons in 
 Tuscosa they were all doing a flourishing business. We had 
 trouble in crossing the river with our herd, as those fellows 
 were riding up and down the streets yelling and shooting. 
 
 Our next point was over the Dim Trail and freight road 
 to Trinidad, Colorado, where we arrived the tenth of July. 
 Here the manager met us and relieved two of the outfits, 
 saying the country up to the South Platte was easy driving 
 and that they would drift the horses along with two outfits 
 instead of four. The manager and King Hennant made some 
 medicine and called for the entire crews of John Smith and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 51 
 
 Asa Clark, apd told Billie Burke to turn his crew over to 
 Hennant who was to take charge of the whole drive. I was 
 disappointed for I did not want to spoil the summer with a 
 two months’ drive. They called the men up one at a time 
 and gave them their checks. However, King Hennant arranged 
 with the manager for me to remain with them, and then it 
 was agreed to send me with some of the cow ponies to the 
 company’s cattle ranch in the Big Horn basin later on. 
 
 The drive up the South Platte was fine. We traveled for 
 three hundred miles along the foothills of the Rockies, where 
 we were never out of sight of the snowy ranges. We went 
 out by way of La Junta, Colorado, on the Santa Fe and then 
 to Deer Trail. We would throw our two herds together at 
 night and the next morning again cut them into two herds for 
 the trail. We arrived at the South Platte River near Greeley, 
 Colorado, about the tenth of August. 
 
 The itch or ronia had broken out on the trail and in those 
 days people did not know how to treat it successfully. Our 
 manager sent us a wagon load of kerosene and sulphur with 
 which to fight the disease. 
 
 When we reached Crow Creek we turned the herds loose 
 and began building what is known as the Crow Ranch. I 
 worked here thirty days and it seemed like thirty years. One 
 day the manager came out and gave instructions to shape 
 up a herd of one hundred and fifty select cow ponies to be 
 taken to the Big Horn Ranch, and 1 was chosen to go with the 
 outfit. This was the first time I had seen an outfit fixed up in 
 the north. I supposed we would get a pack horse and fit up 
 a little outfit and two of us hike out with them. It required 
 two days to get started. The outfit consisted of a wagon 
 loaded with chuck, a big wall tent, cots to sleep on, a stove, 
 and a number one cook. We hit the trail, and it was another 
 outing for me, for this time we were traveling in new fields. 
 
 After leaving Cheyenne we pulled out for Powder River and 
 then up to Sheridan. The weather was getting cold and 1 
 began to get homesick. When we reached the Indian country 
 I was told that it was only one days’ drive to Custer’s battle- 
 ground. I was agreeably surprised the next morning as we 
 came down a long slope into the Little Big Horn Valley to the 
 
52 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 battleground. I was under the impression that Sitting Bull 
 had hemmed Custer up in a box canyon and came up from 
 behind and massacred his entire army. But that was a mistake, 
 as Sitting Bull with his warriors was camped in the beautiful 
 valley when Custer attacked him in the open. It seems that 
 the Indians retreated slowly up a gradual slope to the east and 
 Custer’s men followed. The main fight took place at the top 
 of the rise, as there is a headstone where every soldier fell, 
 and a monument where Custer was killed. 
 
 The balance of that day we passed thousands of Indians 
 who were going the same direction we were traveling. When 
 they go to the agency to get their monthly allowance they 
 take along everything with them, each family driving their 
 horses in a separate bunch. When we arrived at the Crow 
 agency the boss received a letter from the manager instructing 
 him to send me back to Texas as the company were contracting 
 for cattle for spring delivery, and I would be needed in the 
 trail drives. The next morning I roped my favorite horse, 
 and said to the boys: “Goodbye, fellows, I am drifting south 
 where the climate suits my clothes.” That day I overtook an 
 outfit on the way to Ogallala, and traveled with them several 
 days, and then cut out from them and hiked across the prairie 
 one hundred and fifty miles to the Crow ranch, where I sold 
 my two horses, and hired a party to take me and my saddle 
 to Greeley, where I expected to set out for home. 
 
 Coming Off the Trail 
 
 Now, reader, here I was, a boy not yet seventeen years 
 old, two thousand miles from home. 1 had never been on a 
 railroad train, had never slept in a hotel, never taken a bath 
 in a bath house, and from babyhood I had heard terrible 
 stories about ticket thieves, money-changers, pickpockets, 
 three-card monte, and other robbing schemes, and I had horrors 
 about this my first railroad trip. The first thing I did was 
 to make my money safe by tying it up in my shirt tail. I had 
 a draft for $150 and some currency. 1 purchased a second- 
 hand trunk and about two hundred feet of rope with which 
 to tie it. The contents of the trunk were one apple-horn 
 saddle, a pair of chaps, a Colt’s 45, one sugan, a hen-skin 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 53 
 
 blanket, and a change of dirty clothes. You will see later 
 that this trunk and its contents caused me no end of trouble. 
 
 My cowboy friends kindly assisted me in getting ready for 
 the journey. The company had agreed to provide me with 
 transportation, and they purchased a local ticket to Denver 
 for me and gave me a letter to deliver to the general ticket 
 agent at this point, instructing him to sell me a reduced ticket 
 to Dodge City, Kansas, and enable me to secure a cowboy 
 ticket from there to San Antonio for twenty-five dollars. 
 Dodge City was the largest delivering point in the northwest, 
 and by the combined efforts of several prominent stockmen 
 a cheap rate to San Antonio had been perfected for the con- 
 venience of the hundreds of cowboys returning home after 
 the drives. 
 
 About four p. m. the Union Pacific train came pulling into 
 Greeley. Then it was a hasty handshake with the boys, one 
 of them handed me my trunk check, saying, “Your baggage 
 is loaded. Goodbye, write me when you get home,” and the 
 train pulled out. It took several minutes for me to collect 
 myself, and then the conductor came through and called 
 for the tickets. When 1 handed him my ticket he punched 
 a hole in it, and then pulled out a red slip, punched it too 
 and slipped it into my hat band. I jumped to my feet and 
 said, “You can’t come that on me. Give me back my ticket,” 
 but he passed out of hearing, and as 1 had not yet learned how 
 to walk on a moving train I could not follow him. When I 
 had become fairly settled in my seat again the train crossed 
 a bridge, and as it went by I thought the thing was going to 
 hit me on the head. I dodged those bridges all the way up to 
 Denver. When I reached there I got off at the Union Station 
 and walked down to the baggage car, and saw them unloading 
 my trunk. 1 stepped up and said; “I will take my trunk.” A 
 man said, “No; we are handling this baggage.” “But,” said I 
 “that is my trunk, and has my saddle and gun in it.” They 
 paid no attention to me and wheeled the trunk off to the 
 baggage room, but I followed right along, determined that 
 they were not going to put anything over me. Seeing that I 
 was so insistent one of the men asked me for my check. It 
 was wrapped up in my shirt tail, and I went after it, and pro- 
 
54 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 duced the draft I had been given as wages. He looked at it 
 and said, “This is not your trunk check. Where is your 
 metal check with numbers on it?” Then it began to dawn 
 on me what the darn thing was, and when I produced it and 
 handed it to him, he asked me where I was going. I told 
 him to San Antonio, Texas, if I could get there. 1 then showed 
 him my letter to the general ticket agent, and he said: “Now, 
 boy, you leave this trunk right here and we will recheck it 
 and you need not bother about it.” That sounded bully to me. 
 
 I followed the crowd down Sixteenth and Curtiss Streets 
 and rambled around looking for a quiet place to stop. 1 found 
 the St. Charles Hotel and made arrangements to stay all night. 
 Then I went off to a barber shop to get my hair cut and 
 clean up a bit. When the barber finished with me he asked 
 if 1 wanted a bath, and when I said yes, a negro porter took 
 me down the hallway and into a side room. He turned on 
 the water, tossed me a couple of towels and disappeared. I 
 commenced undressing hurriedly, fearing the tub would fill up 
 before I could get ready. The water was within a few inches 
 of the top of the tub when I plunged in. Then I gave a yell 
 like a Comanche Indian, for the water was boiling hot! I 
 came out of the tub on all fours, but when I landed on the 
 marble floor it was so slick that I slipped and fell backwards 
 with my head down. I scrambled around promiscuously, and 
 finally got my footing with a chair for a brace. 1 thought: 
 “Jack Potter, you are scalded after the fashion of a hog.” 
 I caught a lock of my hair to see if it would “slip,” at the 
 same time fanning myself with my big Stetson hat. I next 
 examined my toe nails, for they had received a little more 
 dipping than my hair, but I found them in fairly good shape, 
 turning a bit dark, but still hanging on. 
 
 That night I went to the Tabor Opera House and saw a 
 fine play. There I found a cowboy chum, and we took in 
 the sights until midnight when I returned to the St. Charles. 
 The porter showed me up to my room and turned on the 
 gas. When he had gone I undressed to go to bed, and stepped 
 up to blow out the light. I blew and blew until I was out of 
 breath, and then tried to fan the flame ouf with my hat, but 
 I had to go to bed and leave the gas burning. It was fortunate 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 55 
 
 that I did not succeed, for at that time the papers were full 
 of accounts of people gassed just that way. 
 
 The next morning I started out to find the Santa Fe ticket 
 office, where I presented my letter to the head man there. 
 He was a nice appearing gentleman, and when he had looked 
 over the letter, he said, “So you are a genuine cowboy? 
 Where is your gun and how many notches have you on its 
 handle? I suppose you carry plenty of salt with you on the 
 trail for emergency? I was just reading in a magazine a few 
 days ago about a large herd which stampeded and one of 
 the punchers mounted a swift horse and ran up in front of 
 the leaders and began throwing out salt, and stopped the herd 
 just in time to keep them from running off a high precipice.” 
 1 laughed heartily when he told me this and said, “My friend, 
 you can’t learn the cow business out of books. That yarn 
 was hatched in the brain of some fiction writer who probably 
 never saw a cow in his life. But I am pleased to find a railroad 
 man who will talk, for I always heard that a railroad man 
 only used two words, Yes and No.” Then we had quite a 
 pleasant conversation. He asked me if I was ever in Albert’s 
 Buckhorn saloon in San Antonio and saw the collection of 
 fine horns there. Then he gave me an emigrant cowboy 
 ticket to Dodge City and a letter to the agent at that place 
 stating that I was eligible for a cowboy ticket to San Antonio. 
 
 As it was near train time I hunted up the baggage crew 
 and told them I was ready to make another start. 1 showed 
 them my ticket and asked them about my trunk. They 
 examined it, put on a new check, and gave me one with several 
 numbers on it. I wanted to take the trunk out and put it on 
 the train, but they told me to rest easy and they would put it 
 on. I stood right there until I saw them put it on the train, 
 then I climbed aboard. 
 
 This being my second day out I thought my troubles should 
 be over, but not so, for 1 couldn’t face those bridges. They 
 kept me dodging and fighting my head. An old gentleman 
 
 who sat near me said, “Young man, I see by your dress that 
 
 you are a typical cowboy, and no doubt you can master the 
 
 worst bronco or rope and tie a steer in less than a minute, 
 
 but in riding on a railway train you seem to be a novice. Sit 
 
56 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 down on this seat with your back to the front and those bridges 
 will not bother you.” And sure enough it was just as he said. 
 
 We arrived at Coolidge, Kansas, one of the old landmarks 
 of the Santa Fe trail days, about dark. That night at 12 
 o’clock we reached Dodge City, where I had to lay over for 
 twenty-four hours. I thought everything would be quiet in 
 the town at that hour of the night, but I soon found out that 
 they never slept in Dodge. They had a big dance hall there 
 which was to Dodge City what Jack Harris’ Theatre was to 
 San Antonio. I arrived at the hall in time to see a gambler 
 and a cowboy mix up in a sixshooter duel. Lots of smoke, 
 a stampede, but no one killed. I secured a room and retired. 
 When morning came I arose and fared forth to see Dodge City 
 by daylight. It seemed to me that the town was full of cow- 
 boys and cattle owners. The first acquaintance 1 met here was 
 George W. Saunders, now the president and chief remudero 
 of the Old Trail Drivers’. I also found Jess Pressnall and 
 Slim Johnson there, as well as several others whom I knew 
 down in Texas. Pressnall said to me: “Jack, you will have 
 lots of company on your way home. Old “Dog Face” 
 Smith is up here from Cotulla and he and his whole bunch 
 are going back tonight. Old “Dog Face” is one of the 
 best trail men that ever drove a cow, but he is all worked 
 up about having to go back on a train. I wish you would 
 help them along down the line in changing cars.” That 
 afternoon I saw a couple of chuck wagons coming in 
 loaded with punchers, who had on the same clothing 
 they wore on the trail, their pants stuck in their boots, 
 and their spurs on. They were bound for San Antonio. 
 Old “Dog Face” Smith was a typical Texan, about thirty 
 years of age, with long hair and three months’ growth 
 of whiskers. He wore a blue shirt and a red cotton handker- 
 chief around his neck. He had a bright intelligent face that 
 bore the appearance of a good trail hound, which no doubt 
 was the cause of people calling him “Dog Face.” 
 
 It seemed a long time that night to wait for the train and 
 we put in the time visiting every saloon in the town. There 
 was a big stud poker game going on in one place, and I saw 
 one Texas fellow, whose name I will not mention, lose a herd 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 57 
 
 of cattle at the game. But he might have won the herd back 
 before daylight. 
 
 1 will never forget seeing that train come into Dodge City 
 that night. Old “Dog Face” and his bunch were pretty bad- 
 ly frightened and we had considerable difficulty in getting 
 them aboard. It was about 12:30 when the train pulled out. 
 The conductor came around and I gave him my cowboy 
 ticket. It was almost as long as your arm, and as he tore off 
 a chunk of it 1 said: “What authority have you to tear up a 
 man’s ticket?” He laughed and said, “You are on my di- 
 vision. I simply tore off one coupon and each conductor be- 
 tween here and San Antonio will tear off one for each di- 
 vision.” That sounded all right, but I wondered if that ticket 
 would hold out all the way down. 
 
 Every one seemed to be tired and worn out and the bunch 
 began bedding down. Old “Dog Face” was out of humor, 
 and v/as the last one to bed down. At about three o’clock 
 our train was sidetracked to let the west-bound train pass. 
 This little stop caused the boys to sleep the sounder. Just 
 then the west bound train sped by traveling at the rate of 
 about forty miles an hour, and just as it passed our coach 
 the engineer blew the whistle. Talk about your stampedes! 
 That bunch of sleeping cowboys arose as one man, and started 
 on the run with Old “Dog Face” Smith in the lead. I was a 
 little slow in getting off but fell in with the drags. I had not 
 yet woke up, but thinking I was in a genuine cattle stampede, 
 yelled out, “Circle your leaders and keep up the drags.” Just 
 then the leaders circled and ran into the drags, knocking some 
 of us down. They circled again and the news butcher crawled 
 out from under foot and jumped through the window like a 
 frog. Before they could circle back the next time, the train 
 crew pushed in the door and caught Old “Dog Face,” and 
 soon the bunch quieted down. The conductor was pretty 
 angry and threatened to have us transferred to the freight 
 department and loaded into a stock car. 
 
 We had breakfast at Hutchinson, and after eating and 
 were again on our way, speeding through the beautiful farms 
 and thriving towns of Kansas, we organized a kangaroo court 
 and tried the engineer of that west bound train for disturbing 
 
58 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the peace of passengers on the east bound train. We heard 
 testimony all morning, and called in some of the train crew 
 to testify. One of the brakemen said it was an old trick for 
 that engineer to blow the whistle at that particular siding and 
 that he was undoubtedly the cause of a great many stampeler. 
 The jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and assessed the death 
 penalty. It was ordered that he be captured, taken to some 
 place on the western trail, there to be hog-tied like a steer, 
 and then have the road brand applied with a good hot iron 
 and a herd of not less than five thousand long-horn Texas 
 steers made to stampede and trample him to death. 
 
 We had several hours lay-over at Emporia, Kansas, where 
 we took the M. K. & T. for Parsons, getting on the main line 
 through Indian Territory to Denison, Texas. There was a 
 large crowd of punchers on the through train who were re- 
 turning from Ogallala by way of Kansas City and Omaha. 
 
 As we were traveling through the Territory Old “Dog 
 Face” said to me: “Potter, I expect it was me that started 
 
 that stampede up there in Kansas, but 1 just couldn’t help it. 
 You see I took on a scare once and since that time I have been 
 on the hair trigger when suddenly awakened. In the year 
 1875 me and Wild Horse Jerry were camped at a water hole 
 out west of the Nueces River, where we were snaring mus- 
 tangs. One evening a couple of peloncias pitched camp near 
 by, and the next morning our remuda was missing, all except 
 our night horses. I told Wild Horse Jerry to hold down the 
 camp and watch the snares, and I hit the trail of those peloncias 
 which headed for the Rio Grande. I followed it for about 
 forty miles and then lost all signs. It was nightfall, so 1 made 
 camp, prepared supper and rolled up in my blanket and went 
 to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened 
 by a low voice saying: “Dejarle desconsar bien por que en 
 
 un rato el va a comenzar su viaje por el otro mundo.” (Let 
 him rest well, as he will soon start on his journey to the other 
 world.) It was the two Mexican horse thieves huddled 
 around my camp fire smoking their cigarettes and taking it 
 easy, as they thought they had the drop on me. As I came 
 out of my bed two bullets whizzed near my head, but about that 
 time my old Colt’s forty-five began talking, and the janitor 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 59 
 
 down in Hades had two more peloncias on his hands. Ever 
 since that night, if I am awakened suddenly I generally come 
 out on my all fours roaring like a buffalo bull. I never sleep 
 on a bedstead for it would not be safe for me as I might 
 break my darn neck, so I always spread down on the floor.” 
 It was a long ride through the Territory, and we spent the 
 balance of the day singing songs and making merry. I kept 
 thinking about my trunk, and felt grateful that the railroad 
 people had sent along a messenger to look out for it. At 
 Denison we met up with some emigrant families going to 
 Uvalde, and soon became acquainted with some fine girls in 
 the party. They entertained us all the way down to Taylor, 
 where we changed cars. As we told them goodbye one asked 
 me to write a line in her autograph album. Now 1 was sure 
 enough “up a tree.” I had been in some pretty tight places, 
 and had had to solve some pretty hard problems, but this 
 was a new one for me. You see the American people go 
 crazy over some fad about once a year, and in 1882 it was 
 the autograph fad. I begged the young lady to excuse me, 
 but she insisted, so I took the album and began writing down 
 ail the road brands that I was familiar with. But she told me 
 to write a verse of some kind. 1 happened to think of a reci- 
 tation I had learned at school when I was a little boy so 1 
 wrote as follows: “It’s tiresome work says lazy Ned, to 
 
 climb the hill in my new sled, and beat the other boys. Signed, 
 Your Bulliest Friend, JACK POTTER.” 
 
 We then boarded the I. & G. N. for San Antonio, and at 
 Austin a lively bunch joined us, including Hal Gosling, Unit- 
 ed States Marshall, Captain Joe Sheeley and Sheriff Quigley 
 of Castroville. Pretty soon the porter called out “San Anto- 
 nio, Santonnie-o,” and that was music to my ears. My first 
 move on getting off the train was to look out for my trunk 
 and found it had arrived. I said to myself, “Jack Potter, 
 you’re a lucky dog. Ticket held out all right, toe nails all 
 healed up, and trunk came through in good shape.’’ After 
 registering at the Central Hotel, I wrote to that general ticket 
 agent at Denver as follows: 
 
60 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 San Antonio, Texas, Oct. 5th, 1882. 
 Gen. Ticket Agt. A. T. & S. F., 
 
 1415 Larmer St., Denver, Colo. 
 
 Dear Sir — I landed in San Antonio this afternoon all O. K. 
 My trunk also came through without a scratch. I want to 
 thank you very much for the man you sent along to look after 
 my trunk. He was very accommodating, and would not al- 
 low me to assist him in loading it on at Denver. No doubt 
 he will want to see some of the sights of San Antonio, for it 
 is a great place, and noted for its chile con carne. When 
 he takes a fill of this food, as every visitor does, you can ex- 
 pect him back in Denver on very short notice, as he will be 
 seeking a cooler climate. Did you ever eat any chile con 
 carne? I will send you a dozen cans soon, but tell your wife 
 to keep it in the refrigerator as it might set the house on fire. 
 Thank you again for past favors. 
 
 Your Bulliest Friend, 
 
 JACK POTTER. 
 
 (EDITOR’S NOTE — The foregoing will be read with 
 much interest by the old cowboys who worked the range and 
 traveled the trail with Jack Potter. Mr. Potter is now a 
 prosperous stockmen, owning large ranch interests in Okla- 
 homa and New Mexico. He is the son of Rev. Jack Potter, 
 the “Fighting Parson,” who was known to all the early set- 
 tlers of West Texas. The above article is characteristic of 
 the humor and wit of this rip-roaring, hell-raising cow-puncher, 
 who, George Saunders says, and other friends concur in 
 the assertion, was considered to be the most cheerful liar on 
 the face of the earth. But he was always the life of the out- 
 fit in camp or on the trail.) 
 
 WHEN A GIRL MASQUERADED AS A COWBOY AND 
 SPENT FOUR MONTHS ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By Samuel Dunn Houston, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 My first trip was from Southern Texas, in the spring 1876. 
 Mac Stewart was foreman. The cattle belonged to Ellison & 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 61 
 
 Dewees. In the spring 1877 and 1878 I was on the trail 
 with Bill Green with the Ellison & Dewees cattle. In the 
 spring 1879 I was on the trail with Len Pierce, but when we 
 crossed the Cimarron, the boys all went to the Longhorn 
 Roundup and got too much whiskey, went to camp, made a 
 rough house and fired Mr. Pierce. He went to Dodge City 
 and we put John Saunders of Lockhart in charge of the herd. 
 Pierce was no good. In the spring 1880 I was on the trail 
 with Henry Miller, with the Head & Bishop cattle. In the 
 spring 1881 I was on the trail with Monroe Hardeman, Head 
 & Bishop cattle. In 1882, I went with George Wilcox, Head 
 & Bishop cattle. In 1883 I worked for Captain B. L. Crouch 
 in Frio county. In 1884 I went on the trail with two herds 
 for Captain Crouch, spring herd and fall herd. In the fall 
 1884, I was ordered to Seven Rivers, New Mexico, by Cap- 
 tain Crouch to help deliver the Joe Crouch cattle which the 
 Captain had sold to the Holt Live Stock Company, after Joe 
 Crouch had died. 
 
 I was on the range during the year 1885. 
 
 In the spring 1886 I went to work for the Holt Live Stock 
 Company and was promoted trail foreman and drove my 
 first herd for that company in the spring of 1886, and was 
 trail boss for the company until 1893. I would take off the 
 spring herd and drive from one to two feeder herds to the 
 Corn Belt country down on. the Cimarron. 'That year I was 
 on the trail almost the year around. One winter 1 didn’t get 
 back from the third trip until the last of January. 1 expect 
 I have made more trips over the cow trail from Southern 
 Texas and New Mexico than any man in the country. 
 
 In the fall of 1893, I came back to my old home to die, 
 but 1 am still living and able to do a man’s work every day. 
 I live in San Antonio with my good wife and three nice daugh- 
 ters, and keep my gun at the head of my bed to keep the 
 young up-to-date cowboys away. 
 
 Now 1 am going to write a sketch of a trip I made while 1 
 was with the Holt Live Stock Company of New Mexico, in 
 the spring 1888. 
 
 I was hiring men for the spring drive and they were not 
 very plentiful in that country, but as luck was on my side, I 
 
62 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 heard that there were four men at Seven Rivers who had 
 come up from Texas and wanted work. I got in my chuck 
 wagon, went to Seven Rivers and found what I was looking- 
 for, so that completed my outfit. 
 
 In a few days I went up the Pecos to the spring round-up 
 and took charge of the steer herd of twenty-five hundred 
 three’s and up. George Wilcox, the ranch boss counted them 
 out to me and said, “Sam, they are yours.” 
 
 I lined up my men, drifted over toward Roswell and did 
 fine the first night. We passed around town the next morn- 
 ing, and camped that night on Salt Creek. I picked the 
 wrong place to bed the herd, so about nine pin they broke, 
 and we didn’t get them stopped until four o’clock in the morn- 
 ing. I told the boys we had lost half of the herd. Just as 
 soon as daylight came I had everything in the saddle to move 
 the herd off the bed ground. 1 counted them and I was out 
 six hundred and thirty-five head of steers. I left four men 
 with the herd and cut for sign. 1 found where they had struck 
 the Pecos River and went down that stream. We struck a 
 gallop and found the entire bunch, six miles down the river. 
 They showed they had been in a stampede for they were as 
 green as the grass itself. 
 
 When 1 got back to camp, 1 found the cause of the stam- 
 pede. I had failed to go over the bed ground the evening be- 
 fore and I found I had bedded the herd on high ground and 
 on the worst gopher holes I could have found in that country. 
 I was out only four or five head and they were close to the 
 range. 
 
 I had a boy with me by the name of Gus Votaw. He was 
 about twenty years old, and was the son of Billie Votaw, 
 who all the old timers knew in San Antonio. Gus made a 
 good hand. 
 
 That day while drifting along up the Pecos River I went 
 ahead to hunt a watering place and when I rode up on a 
 gyp hill overlooking the herd 1 saw six or seven men in a 
 bunch. I went down to the herd to know the cause and hand 
 out a few orders. When 1 got to them I found the four men 
 I secured at Seven Rivers were gun men and had been play- 
 ing pranks on Gus Votaw. I told them they would have to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 03 
 
 cut that out and they didn’t say, yes or no, so 1 kept my eyes 
 open from there on. In a few days I caught one of them at 
 the same thing and I read the law to him and when I got 
 them all in camp I told them that I was going to run the out- 
 fit and that such things as that must be cut out right now. I also 
 told Gus that if they worried him any more to let me know. 
 
 1 will leave off now from here to Fort Sumner, New Mexi- 
 co, which was less time than a month. 
 
 I arrived at Fort Sumner in less than a month and had to stop 
 and write some letters, so 1 told the cook and horse rustler 
 to take the wagon and camp it up the river and for the cook 
 to have dinner early, for I would be there about ten o’clock. 
 
 I finished my job at the postoffice, mounted my 
 horse and pulled out for camp. When I got up within two 
 
 hundred yards of camp 1 looked up and saw what I thought, 
 
 every man in camp and only one man with the herd. When 
 I rode up every man had a gun in his hand but Gus Votaw. 
 I got off my horse and of course knew the cause. The cook 
 said, “Boss there is going to be hell here, I am glad you 
 came.” 
 
 I went to the front of the wagon, got my gun off of the 
 
 water barrel and I told the men that 1 would play my trump 
 
 card, that I had to have every gun in camp. I didn’t expect to 
 live to get the last one but I did. I got six of them, knocked the 
 loads out, threw them in the wagon, got out my time and check 
 books and gave the four gun men their time. I told the cook 
 and horse rustler to hitch up the mules and we would move 
 camp. I left the four bad men sitting on their saddles under 
 a cottonwood tree and felt that I had done the right thing. 
 I went up the river about two miles and camped. 
 
 Afer all this occurred, right here my troubles began. I had 
 to leave the Pecos River and drive across the Staked Plains, 
 ninety miles without water. The next water was the Cana- 
 dian River. Being short handed, I had to put my horses in 
 the herd, put the horse rustler with the herd and made a 
 hand myself. 1 held the herd over that day and rested, raised 
 the men’s wages five dollars, and made my plans. The next 
 day we had dinner early, filled my water barrel and left the 
 old Pecos at eleven o’clock for a long dry drive. 
 
64 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 That evening at sun-down we reached the top of the mesa, 
 fifteen miles up hill all the way. We rounded up the herd on 
 the trail, got a bite to eat, changed horses and drove until 
 day-break, bedded on the trail again and had lunch. The 
 cattle were getting very dry and men were worn out. We 
 kept this up until we reached the Canadian River, which was 
 fifty-two hours from the time we left the Pecos River. I 
 didn’t lose a steer. 
 
 I could not let the herd string out in making the trip if I 
 had we would have lost cattle. I kept them in a bunch and 
 when I reached the Canadian River I laid over three days to 
 let the men, horses and cattle rest. I would run off the range 
 cattle in the evening and turn everything loose at night ex- 
 cept one horse for each man. 
 
 It was only a few miles to Clayton, New Mexico, a small 
 railroad town ahead, so I struck camp, left the boys with 
 
 the herd and I went to town to see if I could get two or 
 
 three trail men. 
 
 When I got there 1 found there were no men in town, 
 but I met an old friend of mine and he told me that there 
 
 was a kid of a boy around town that wanted to get with a 
 
 herd and go up the trail, but he had not seen him for an 
 hour or so. I put out to hunt that kid and found him over 
 at the livery stable. I hired him and took him to camp, and 
 put him with the horses and put my rustler with the cattle. 
 I got along fine for three or four months. The kid would 
 get up the darkest stormy nights and stay with the cattle 
 until the storm was over. He was good natured, very mod- 
 est, didn’t use any cuss words or tobacco, and always pleas- 
 ant. His name was Willie Matthews, was nineteen years old 
 and weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds. His home 
 was in Caldwell, Kansas, and I was so pleased with him that 
 I wished many times that 1 could find two or three more 
 like him. 
 
 Everything went fine until I got to Hugo, Colorado, a lit- 
 tle town on the old K. P. Railroad, near the Colorado and 
 Wyoming line. There was good grass and water close to 
 town, so I pulled up about a half a mile that noon and 
 struck camp. After dinner the kid come to where I was sit- 
 
 » 
 
rHE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 65 
 
 ting and asked me if he could quit. He insisted, said he was 
 homesick and I had to let him go. 
 
 About sun-down we were all sitting around camp and 
 the old herd was coming in on the bed ground, I looked up 
 toward town and saw a lady, all dressed up, coming toward 
 camp walking. 1 told the boys we were going to have com- 
 pany. I couldn’t imagine why a woman would be coming 
 on foot to a cow camp, but she kept right on coming, and 
 when within fifty feet of camp, 1 got up to be ready to re- 
 ceive my guest. Our eyes were all set on her, and every 
 man holding his breath. When she got up in about twen- 
 ty feet of me, she began to laugh, and said, “Mr. Houston, 
 you don’t know me, do you?” 
 
 Well, for one minute I couldn’t speak. She reached her 
 hand out to me, to shake hands, and I said, “Kid, is it pos- 
 sible that you are a lady?” That was one time that I could 
 not think of anything to say, for everything that had been 
 said on the old cow trail in the last three or four days 
 entered my mind at that moment. 
 
 In a little while we all crowded around the girl and shook 
 her hand, but we were so dumbfounded we could hardly think 
 of anything to say. I told the cook to get one of the to- 
 mato boxes for a chair. The kid sat down and I said, “Now 
 I wa^l you to explain yourself.” 
 
 “Well,” she said, “I will tell you all about it, Mr. Hous- 
 ton. My papa is an old time trail driver from Southern 
 Texas. He drove from Texas to Caldwell, Kansas, in the 
 70’s. He liked the country around Caldwell very much, so 
 the last trip he made he went to work on a ranch up there 
 and never returned to Texas any more. In two or three 
 years he and my mother were married. After I was ten or 
 twelve years old, 1 used to hear papa talk so much about 
 the old cow trail and I made up my mind that when I was 
 grown I was going up the trail if I had to run off. I had a 
 pony of my own and read in the paper of the big herds 
 passing Clayton, New Mexico, so I said, now is my chance 
 to get on the trail. Not being far over to Clayton I saddled 
 my pony and told brother I was going out in the country, 
 and I might be gone for a week, but for him to tell papa 
 
66 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 not to worry about me, I would be back. I had on a suit 
 of brother’s clothes and a pair of his boots. In three or four 
 days I was in Clayton looking for a job and I found one. 
 Now Mr. Houston, I am glad I found you to make the trip 
 with, for I have enjoyed it. I am going just as straight home 
 as I can go and that old train can’t run too fast for me, 
 when 1 get on it.” 
 
 The train left Hugo at 1 1 :20 o’clock in the evening. I 
 left one man with the herd and took the kid and every man 
 to town to see the little girl off. I suppose she was the only 
 girl that ever made such a trip as that. She was a perfect 
 lady. 
 
 After I got through and returned to the ranch on the Pecos 
 River, I had many letters from the little girl and her father 
 also, thanking me for the kindness toward Willie and begging 
 me to visit them. 
 
 The trip I made that year was for the Holt Live Stock 
 Company of Denver, Colorado. They also had large ranches 
 in New Mexico. 
 
 The next morning I went to Hugo and secured three more 
 men and hit the trail for Pole Creek, Wyoming, about fifty 
 miles from the Montana and Wyoming line, where 1 turned 
 over the big herd to the Russell Brothers Ranch, and that 
 was the end of this drive. 
 
 A TRYING TRIP ALONE THROUGH THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 By Samuel Dunn Houston, 2206 South Presa St., 
 
 San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 In 1879 I went through Southern Texas with a big herd of 
 cattle to the northern market, Ogallala, Nebraska. This herd 
 belonged to Head & Bishop. 
 
 We reached Ogallala August 10th, 1879, and there we met 
 R. G. Head, who gave the boss, John Sanders, orders to 
 cross the South Platte the next morning and proceed to 
 the North Platte. He said he would see us over there and 
 would tell us where to take the herd. 
 
 On August 11th we crossed the South Platte and went over 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 67 
 
 on North River about ten miles and camped. Dick Head 
 came over to camp for dinner and told our boss to take the 
 herd up to Tusler’s Ranch on Pumpkin Creek and Mr. Tus- 
 ler would be there to receive the cattle. He said it was 
 about one hundred miles up the Platte. After dinner we 
 strung the herd out and drove them up there. We rushed 
 them up because we were anxious to get back to Ogallala 
 to see all of our old cowboy friends get in from the long drive 
 from Texas. 
 
 We reached the Tusler Ranch on August 1 9th and on the 
 20th we counted the old herd over to the ranch boss and 
 started back to Ogallala, making the return trip in four days. 
 
 The next morning as we were going through town, I met 
 an old trail boss, and he wanted me to go with him to Red 
 Cloud Agency, Dakota, with four thousand big Texas steers 
 that belonged to D. R. Fant. They were Indian contracted 
 cattle, so I told the boss I was ready to make the trip. Tom 
 Moore was the foreman’s name and he was a man that knew 
 how to handle a big herd. 
 
 I went to camp with Tom that night and he got all the 
 outfit together and on August 28 th we took charge of the 
 big herd. They were one of the old King herds which had 
 come in by way of Dodge City, Kansas, from the old coast 
 country down in Southern Texas. 
 
 They wanted to walk, so we strung them out, and headed 
 for the old South Platte. When the lead cattle got to the 
 bank of the river the boss said, “Now Sam don’t let them 
 turn back on you, and we won’t have any trouble.’’ We 
 landed on the other side all O. K. and went through the 
 valley and on through the town. Everybody in town was out 
 to see the big King herd go through. I threw my hat back 
 on my head and I felt as though the whole herd belonged to 
 me. 
 
 When the lead cattle struck the foot hills I looked back 
 and could see the tail end coming in the river, and I told my 
 partner, the right hand pointer, that we were headed for the 
 North pole. We raised our hats and bid Ogallala good-bye. 
 When the lead cattle got to North River it was an hour and 
 
68 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ten minutes before the tail end got to the top of the hills. My 
 partner and I threw the range cattle out of the flats and we 
 had it easy until the chuck wagon came over and struck camp 
 for noon, then four of us boys went to camp. 
 
 We had a high ball trail from there on. 
 
 We didn’t cross the North Platte until we got to Fort 
 Laramie, Wyoming. The snow was melting in the moun- 
 tains and the river was muddy and no bottom to the quick 
 sand. I was looking every night for a stampede but we were 
 lucky. The night we camped close to the Court House Rock, 
 they made a jump off the bed ground, but that didn’t count. 
 I think they got wind of the old negro cook. This herd had 
 come from the old King Ranch, away down in Texas with a 
 Mexican cook. I told the boss that the next morning and 
 he said he was almost sure that was the cause. 
 
 The North Platte River in places is more than a mile 
 wide and it seemed to me when we reached the place we were 
 to cross, it was two miles wide. The range cattle on the 
 other side looked like little calves standing along .the bank. 
 
 When we reached Fort Laramie we made ready to cross. 
 I pulled my saddle off and then my clothes. Tom came up 
 and said, “Sam, you are doing the right thing.” I told him 
 1 had crossed that river before and that 1 had a good old 
 friend who once started to cross that river and he was lost 
 in the quicksand. His name was Theodore Luce, of Lock- 
 hart, Texas. He was lost just above the old Seven Crook 
 Ranch above Ogallala. Tom told all the boys to pull off 
 their saddles before going across. When everything was 
 ready we strung the herd back on the hill and headed for the 
 crossing. Men and steers were up and under all the way 
 across. 
 
 We landed over all safe and sound, got the sand out of 
 our hair, counted the boys to see if they were all there and 
 pulled out to the foot hills to strike camp. 
 
 About ten o’clock that night the first guards came in to 
 wake my partner and 1 to stand second guard. I got up, 
 pulled on my boots, untied my horse and then the herd 
 broke. The two first guards had to ride until Tom and the 
 other men got there. Three of us caught the leaders and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 69 
 
 threw them back to the tail end, then run them in a mill, 
 until they broke again. We kept that up till three o’clock in 
 the morning when we got them quieted. 
 
 We held them there until daylight, then strung them to- 
 wards the wagon and counted them. We were out fifty- 
 five head, but we had the missing ones back by eight o’clock. 
 We were two miles from the grub wagon when the run was 
 over. The first guards said that a big black wolf got up too 
 close to the herd and that was the cause of the trouble. 
 
 Our next water was the Neobrara River, which was thirty 
 miles across the Laramie Plains. We passed over that in fine 
 shape. From there our next water was White River. The 
 drive through that country was bad, because the trail was 
 so crooked and such deep canyons. We reached White River, 
 crossed over and camped. About the time we turned the 
 mules loose, up rode about thirty bucks and squaws, all 
 ready for supper. They stood around till supper was ready 
 and the old negro cook began to get crazy and they couldn’t 
 stay any longer. They got on their horses and left. 
 
 An Indian won’t stay where there is a crazy person. They 
 say he is the devil. 
 
 The next morning the horse rustler was short ten head of 
 horses. He hunted them until time to move camp and never 
 found them, so Tom told me that I could stay there and 
 look them up, and he would take the herd eight or ten 
 miles up the trail and wait for me. I roped out my best 
 horse, got my Winchester and six-shooter and started out 
 looking for the horses. I rode that country out and out, 
 but could not find them, so I just decided the Indians drove 
 them off during the night to get a reward or a beef. I 
 thought I would go down to the mouth of White River, on 
 the Missouri River in the bottom where the Indians were 
 camped. When I got down in the bottom 1 saw horse signs, 
 so I was sure from the tracks they were our horses. I rode 
 and rode until I found them. There was no one around 
 them, so I started back with the bunch. 
 
 When I had covered three or four miles, I looked back 
 and saw a big dust on the hill out of White River. Then I 
 rode for life, because I knew it was a bunch of Indians and 
 
70 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 they were after me. I could see the herd ahead of me, and 
 never let up. I beat them to camp about a half mile. 
 
 When they rode up and pointed to the horses, one Indian 
 said, “Them my horses This man steal ’em! Him no good!” 
 We had an old squaw humper along with us, and he got 
 them down to a talk and Tom told them he would give them 
 a beef. Tom went with them out to the herd and cut them out 
 a big beef and they ran it off a short distance and killed it, 
 cut it up, packed it on their ponies and went back toward 
 White River. I told the boss that was the best deed he ever 
 did in his life. If those Indians had overtaken me I am sure my 
 bones would be bleaching in that country today. The Indians 
 were almost on the war path at that time and we were lucky 
 in that we did not have any more trouble with them. 
 
 A week longer put us at the Agency. Tom went ahead of 
 the herd and reported to the agent. We camped about 
 four miles this side that night and the next morning we 
 strung the old herd off the bed ground and went in to the 
 pens at Red Cloud Agency, Dakota. There I saw more 
 Indians than I ever expected to see. The agent said, there 
 were about ten thousand on the ground. 
 
 It took us all day to weigh the herd out, ten steers on the 
 scales at one time. We weighed them and let them out one 
 side and the agent would call the Indians by name and each 
 family would fall in behind his beef and off to the flats they 
 would go. 
 
 After we got the herd all weighed out the agent told 
 us to camp there close and he would show us around. He 
 said the Indians were going to kill a fat dog that night and 
 after they had feasted they would lay the carcass on the 
 ground and have a war dance. 
 
 All the boys wanted to stay and see them dance. A few 
 of the bucks rode through the crowd several times with 
 their paint on. In a little while a buck came up with a table 
 on his head and set it down in the crowd and then came 
 another with big butcher knives in his hand and a third 
 came with a big fat dog on his shoulder, all cleaned like 
 a hog. He placed it on the table, then every Indian on 
 the ground made some k fdinpoaow-wo 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 71 
 
 the ground made some kind of a pow-wow that could be 
 heard for miles, after which the old chief made a speech 
 and the feast began. Every Indian on the ground had a 
 bite of that dog. They wanted us to go up and have some, 
 but we were not hungry, so we stood back and looked on 
 “Heap good,” said the chief, “heap fat.” About ten o’clock 
 they had finished eating and two squaws took the carcass 
 off the table and put it on the ground and the dance began. 
 Every Indian was painted in some bright color. That was 
 a wonderful dance. 
 
 The next morning we started back over our old trail to 
 Ogallala. It was about October 1 6th and some cooler and 
 all of the boys were delighted to head south. 
 
 Seven days’ drive with the outfit brought us back to the 
 Neobrara River and we struck camp at the Dillon Ranch. 
 
 The Dillon Ranch worked a number of half-breed Indians. 
 I was talking with one about going back to Ogallala, as 
 1 was very anxious to get on the trail road and go down 
 in Texas to see my best girl. 
 
 He told me he could tell me a route that I could cut 
 off two or three hundred miles going to Ogallala. So I 
 wrote it all down. He told me to go over the old Indian 
 trail across the Laramie Plains, saying his father had often 
 told him how to go and the trail was wide and plain and 
 it was only one hundred and seventy-five or two hundred 
 miles. Right there 1 made up my mind that I would go that 
 way and all alone. There were only two watering places and 
 they were about forty miles apart. The first lake was 
 sixty-five or seventy miles. 
 
 I had the best horse that ever crossed the Platte River 
 and if I could cut off that much, I would be in Texas by 
 the time the outfit reached Ogallala. 
 
 I asked Tom to pay me off, saying that I was going back 
 to Texas over the old Indian trail across the Laramie Plains. 
 I knew if an Indian crossed that country I could also. 
 
 He said, “You are an old fool. You can’t make that 
 trip, not knowing where the fresh water is, you will starve 
 to death.” I told him that I could risk it anyway and I knew 
 I could make it. 
 
72 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Next morning I was in my saddle by daylight, bade the 
 boys goodbye and told them if they heard of a dead man 
 or horse on the old Indian trail, across the plains, for some 
 of them the next year to come and pick me up, but I was 
 sure I could make the trip across. 
 
 The first day’s ride I was sure I had covered sixty-five 
 or seventy miles. I was getting very thirsty that evening so 
 I began to look on both sides of the trail for the fresh 
 water lake, but was disappointed. I was not worried. Just 
 as the sun went down I went into a deep basin just off the 
 trail where there was a very large alkali lake. 
 
 I had a pair of blankets, my slicker and saddle blankets 
 so I made my bed down and went to bed. I was tired and 
 old Red Bird (my horse) was also jaded. I lay awake 
 for some time thinking and wondering if I was on the 
 wrong trail. The next morning I got up, after a good rest, 
 ate the rest of my lunch, and pulled down the trail looking 
 on both sides of the trail for the fresh water lake but failed 
 to find it. I then decided that the half-breed either lied 
 or had put me “up a tree.” Anyway I would not turn 
 back. I had plenty of money but that was no good out 
 there. I could see big alkali lakes everywhere but I knew 
 there would be a dead cowboy out there if I should take 
 a drink of that kind of water. 
 
 I rode until noon but found nothing. The country was 
 full of deer, antelope, elk and lobo wolves but they were 
 too far off to take a shot at. When I struck camp for 
 noon, I took the saddle off my horse and lay down for 
 a rest. Got up about one-thirty and hit the trail. 
 
 That was my second days’ ride and my tongue was very 
 badly swelled. I could not spit any more, so I began to 
 use my brain and a little judgment and look out for “old 
 Sam” and that horse. 
 
 About the middle of the afternoon I looked off to my 
 left and saw a large lobo wolf about one hundred yards 
 away and he seemed to be going my route. I would look 
 in his direction quite often. He was going my gait and 
 seemed to have me spotted. I took a shot at him every 
 little while but I kept on going and so did he. I rode on 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 73 
 
 until sundown and looked out for my wolf, but did not see 
 him. The trail turned to the right and went down into a 
 deep alkali basin. I rode down into it and decided that 
 I would pull into camp for the night, as 1 was very much 
 worn out. I went down to the edge of the lake pulled 
 off my saddle and made my bed down on my stake rope 
 so I would not lose my horse. The moon was just coming 
 up over the hill. 
 
 I threw a load in my gun and placed it by my side, 
 with my head on my saddle and dropped off to sleep. 
 About nine o’clock the old wolf’s howls woke me up. 
 
 I looked up and saw him sitting about twenty feet from 
 my head just between me and the moon. I turned over 
 right easy, slipped my gun over the cantle of my saddle 
 and let him have one ball. He never kicked. 1 grabbed 
 my rope, went to him, cut him open and used my hands 
 for a cup and drank his old blood. It helped me in a way 
 but did not satisfy as water would. I went down to the 
 lake and washed up, went back to bed and thought 1 would 
 get a good sleep and rest that night but found later 1 had 
 no rest coming. 
 
 1 was nearly asleep when something awakened me. I 
 raised up and grabbed my gun, and saw that it was a herd 
 of elk, so I took a shot or two at them. As soon as I shot 
 they stampeded and ran off but kept coming back. About 
 twelve o’clock I got up, put my saddle on my horse and 
 rode until daylight. 1 was so tired, I thought I would lay 
 down and sleep awhile. Riding that night I must have 
 passed the second water lake. After sleeping a little while 
 I got up and broke camp and rode until twelve o’clock, when 
 1 stopped for noon that day. That being my third day out, 
 I thought I would walk around, and the first thing I saw was 
 an old dead horse’s bones. I wondered what a dead horse’s 
 bones were doing away out there so I began to look around 
 some more and what should I see but the bones of a man. 
 I was sure then that some man had undertaken to cross the 
 plains and had perished, so I told old Red Bird (my horse) 
 that we had better go down the trail and we pulled out. 
 
 That evening about four o’clock, as I was walking and 
 
74 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 leading my horse, I saw a very high sand hill right on the 
 edge of the old trail. I walked on to the top of the sand hill 
 and there 1 could see cottonwood trees just ahead of me. I 
 sat down under my horse about a half an hour. I could 
 see cattle everywhere in the valley and 1 saw a bunch of 
 horses about a mile from me. I looked down toward the 
 trees about four miles and saw a man headed for the bunch 
 of horses. 1 didn’t know whether he was an Indian or not. 
 He was in a gallop and as he came nearer to the horses 1 
 pulled my gun and shot one time. He stopped a bit and 
 started off again. Then I made two shots and he stopped 
 again a few minutes. By that time he had begun to round 
 up the horses, so 1 shot three times. He quit his horses and 
 came to me in a run. When he got up within thirty or forty 
 feet of me, he spoke to me and called me by my name and 
 said, “Sam you are the biggest fool I ever saw.” I couldn’t 
 say a word for my mouth was so full of tongue, but I knew 
 him. He shook hands and told me to get up behind him and 
 we would go to camp He took his rope and tied it around 
 my waist to keep me from falling off for I was very weak. 
 Then he struck a gallop and we were at camp in a very few 
 minutes. He tied his horse and said, “Now Sam we will go 
 down to the spring and get a drink of water.” 
 
 Just under the hill about twenty steps away was the finest 
 sight I ever saw in my life. He took down his old tin cup 
 and said, “Now, Sam, 1 am going to be the doctor.’’ 1 was 
 trying all the time to get in the spring but was so weak he 
 could hold me back with one hand. He would dip up just 
 a teaspoonful of the water in the cup and say, “Throw your 
 head back,” and he poured it on my tongue. After a while 
 he increased it until I got my fill and my tongue went down. 
 When I got enough water then I was hungry. I could have 
 eaten a piece of that fat dog if I’d had it. 
 
 My friend’s name was Jack Woods, an old cowboy that 
 ‘ worked on the Bosler ranch. Jack and 1 had been up the 
 trail from Ogallala to the Dakotas many times before that. 
 
 Jack said, “Now, Sam, we will go up to the house and get 
 something to eat. I killed a fat heifer calf yesterday and 
 have plenty of bread cooked so you come in and lay down 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 75 
 
 and I will start a fire quickly and cook some steak and we will 
 eat some supper.” Before he could get it cooked, I could 
 stand it no longer, so I slipped out, went around behind the 
 house where had the calf hanging, took out my pocket knife 
 and went to work eating the raw meat trying to satisfy my 
 appetite. After fifteen or twenty minutes, Jack came around 
 hunting me and said, “Sam, I always thought you were crazy, 
 now I know it. Come on to supper.” I went in the house 
 and ate a hearty supper. 
 
 After finishing supper, I never was so sleepy in my life. 
 Jack said, “Sam, lay down on my bed and go to sleep and I 
 will go out and get your horse and treat him to water and 
 oats.” He got on his horse and struck a gallop for the sand 
 hills, where my poor old horse was standing starving to death. 
 
 Next morning Jack told me that a man by the name of 
 Lumm once undertook to cross those plains from the Neo- 
 brara River to the head of the Little Blue over that same In- 
 dian trail. Jack said, “He and his horse’s bones are laying out 
 on the plains now. Perhaps you saw them as you came 
 along.” I told him I saw the bones of a man and the horse 
 but didn’t remember how far back it was. It seemed about 
 twenty-five miles. 
 
 I remained there five days and every morning while I was 
 there Jack and I would get on our horses and go out in the 
 valley and round up the horses he was taking care of, rope 
 out the worst outlaw horse he had in the bunch and take the 
 kink out of his back. The five days I was there 1 rode four 
 and five horses every day. 
 
 On October 29th I saddled my horse and told Jack I was 
 going to Texas. He gave me a little lunch, and I bid him 
 goodbye and headed for the North Platte. 
 
 I reached Bosler’s Ranch at 12:20 o’clock, had dinner, 
 gave the boss a note from Jack Woods, fed my horse, rested 
 one hour, saddled up, bade the boys goodbye and headed for 
 Ogallala on the South Platte, forty miles below. 
 
 I reached Ogallala that night at 9:30 o’clock, put my horse 
 in the livery stable, went up to the Leach Hotel and there I 
 met Mr. Dillon, the owner of the Neobrara Ranch, sold my 
 horse to him for $80, purchased a new suit, got a shave and 
 
76 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 haircut, bought my ticket to Texas and left that night at 
 11:30 o’clock for Kansas City. 
 
 On November 6th I landed in Austin, Texas thirty miles 
 from my home, and took the stage the next morning for 
 Lockhart. That was where my best girl lived and when I 
 got there I was happy. 
 
 This was the end of a perfect trip from Nebraska on the 
 South Platte to Red Cloud Agency, North Dakota. 
 
 FIRST CAMP MEETING IN GRAYSON COUNTY 
 
 From “Fruits and Flowers,” by Z. N. Morrell . 
 
 At the end of the conference year 1847, the Rev. Mr. 
 Brown, assisted by the Presiding Elder, Rev Mr. Custer, held 
 a camp meeting at Warren, in Grayson county. Rev. Mr. 
 Duncan, a missionary from the Indian Territory, also assisted 
 in the meeting. A camp meeting in those days was a most 
 important event, and anticipated with intense interest by the 
 settlers far and near. Different motives actuated people to 
 attend camp meetings, and the same rule will apply to all 
 such occasions of later date. Some go out of courtesy, to 
 see and be seen, others regard it as a season of rest and 
 diversion, while many embrace the occasion to gossip, 
 exchange news, see the latest fashions, and make new 
 acquaintances. A few, a chosen few, anticipate the event in 
 God’s natural temples, the leafy groves, they will feel the 
 “outpourings of the spirit,’’ or experience the magical change 
 of heart, granted through the efficacy of prayer to those who 
 earnestly seek the Divine blessing. But we will go as spec- 
 tators, mere lookers on, and take a bird’s eye view of this 
 panorama in the midst of nature. We first see a large shed 
 covered with brush and limbs of trees; this is to shelter the 
 large audience; while heavy boards or logs are to serve as 
 seats. Another slab upheld by stakes driven in the ground 
 and covered by a bearskin is the pulpit; a number of chairs, 
 some split bottom and some covered with rawhide, the hair 
 left on, are for the stewards and ministers expected to be 
 present. The “mourner’s bench” has not been forgotten, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 77 
 
 nor has the straw which is scattered around with a liberal 
 hand. Little brush shanties have been erected all around 
 in convenient places for the camps, and soon their occupants 
 began to arrive. They came “afoot and horseback,” riding 
 single or double. On carts and wagons are loaded bedding, 
 cooking utensils and children. Dogs have not been invited 
 but they come anyway, and make themselves too familiar 
 for comfort, and are all sizes and breeds from the longeared 
 deerhound to the common cur. The camp ground begins to 
 assume the appearance of a picnic on a large scale; horses 
 neigh as the newcomers arrive, babies cry, children shout and 
 play and a hum of good natured conversation, inquiries and 
 greetings all combine to make a vivid and realistic picture in 
 its setting of living green. I said something about fashions, 
 but it was a far fetched allusion. 1 wonder if our forefathers 
 and mothers in their coonskin caps and slat sun bonnets 
 worried about the “latest styles” or in their primitive sim- 
 plicity ever imagined that succeeding generations would lose 
 sight of their humble origin, forget what the foundation of 
 American aristocracy really is, and run to vanity, selfishness, 
 patent spring bottom pants, “rats” and false hair? 
 
 It is now approaching the time when the meetings is to 
 commence and to blast or toot the horn which brings the 
 scattered congregation together. Those men who from long 
 habit, carry their rifles with them, lean them against a tree, 
 and divest themselves of shot pouch and powder horn. A 
 dog fight or two is settled and the yelping curs sent off to 
 crouch under the wagons; then all gather in and seat them- 
 selves on the rough boards. A few youngsters who are 
 habitually thirsty at meeting take a last long drink out of 
 the bucket near the pulpit, put the gourd dipper down rather 
 noisily, then make their way to their mothers, who uncere- 
 moniously yank them into a seat and bid them all sit there 
 and be quiet. At last all is still and solemn. Brother Brown 
 raises up his tall form threatening to bring the top of his head 
 and the brush above in violent collision. He casts a search- 
 ing glance over his audience and finally all are attentive as the 
 occasion requires and he commences in a sonorous voice to 
 line out the hymn: 
 
78 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 “Children of the Heavenly King, 
 
 As we journey sweetly sing,” — 
 
 Here we leave them, confident that Brother Brown, in his 
 fervid zeal, will faithfully warn his interested hearers to flee 
 from the wrath to come. 
 
 Thus was the foundation of Methodism in Grayson and 
 adjoining counties. Brother Brown was succeeded by Jeffer- 
 son Schuck and he by Andrew Davis and others, all earnest 
 workers in the cause. The Baptist faith was ably upheld by 
 two brothers by the name of Hiram and James Savage. One 
 lived on Caney Creek and the other on Bois d’Arc, as farmers. 
 They tilled the soil the week, preaching on Sundays, 
 accomplishing great good on the frontier of Grayson. 
 
 The Fourth of July, 1847, was the occasion of a grand 
 barbecue and bran dance at Sherman, and to a great many 
 who attended the festivities this was their first view of the 
 new county seat. A log house about 20 feet square, used 
 for a court house, and a few rods of plowed ground comprised 
 the metropolis from one end to the other. I will leave my 
 readers to picture the contrast of the city then and now. 
 For the barbecue a large brush shed was built, under which 
 were tables loaded with all the delicacies of the season, 
 welcome to all, to eat, drink and be merry without money 
 and without price. The refreshment stand, a rail fence partly 
 built around a barrel of whiskey stood near at hand, while 
 a tin cup did frequent duty for a thirsty crowd. The court 
 house was thrown open to accomodate dancers. Justice 
 took off her spectacles, laid aside her scales, and for once 
 in her life gave herself up to the intoxicating pleasures of 
 the hoe-down. Music was furnished by a stalwart darkey 
 perched on a barrel; when he gave out another stood ready 
 to take his place until he could visit the refreshment stand 
 and counteract the effect of the heat and his violent exertions 
 by looking for the bottom of his tin cup. 
 
 When we stop and think of the advancement made in 
 every direction since this period of Texas early settlement, 
 the time seems longer than it really is. When we remember 
 that those pioneers had no newspapers, magazines, or any 
 kind of communication with the outside world, save as came 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 79 
 
 by word of mouth; no telegraph, telephone or railroads, that 
 churches and schools barely struggled into existence after 
 long years of patient waiting, it makes one imagine a pre- 
 Adamite sort of existence and not of a time of sixty years ago. 
 Think of having no thread except that manufactured at home; 
 no matches, a flint their only dependence and a stump in the 
 field set fire to by its spark was their reserve when the fire 
 at the house would accidently go out; the neighbors literally 
 coming to borrow a shovel of coals. 
 
 The faithful historian of the Lone Star State cannot ignore, 
 if he is a loyal chronicler, the honor due early settlers for 
 services rendered as advance guards to the great time of 
 immigration that peopled a prosperous land. It has not been 
 in my power to mention but a very few of the pioneers of 
 Grayson county, but however small the number they help 
 swell the grand total, and I bespeak their recognition in the 
 annals of the State. The pioneers of a country are deserving 
 a niche in the country’s history, and the pioneers who became 
 martyrs to the development of an almost unknown land 
 deserve to have a place in the hearts of its inhabitants. None 
 but the brave and venturesome, energetic and courageous 
 dare penetrate the pathless wilderness and trackless forests, 
 and Texas with her cultivated fields, untold wealth and 
 beautiful homes may well enshrine the memory of her noble 
 hearted pioneer pathfinders, martyrs. 
 
 THE OLD TRAILERS 
 
 Recited by Luther A. Lawhon at conclusion of his address, 
 when as representative of Mayor Bell, he welcomed to San 
 Antonio the members of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Asso- 
 ciation, who had assembled for their annual reunion, Septem- 
 ber 9th and 10th, 1919. 
 
 You recollect, though white your hair, 
 
 When you came up to see the sights, 
 
 And pike a little here and there, 
 
 And wager on the badger fights? 
 
80 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Around the plazas, then alive, 
 
 You found an ample feedin’ trough; 
 
 You smoked ’em with your forty-five, 
 
 And stood the stern policeman off. 
 
 But joys like these will soonest pale; 
 
 The eagle will not long be bound; 
 
 So pretty soon you hit the trail, 
 
 That led you to the stampin’ ground. 
 
 “Back to the ranch — to hell with the towns 
 You shouted with a savage yell; 
 
 You told the boys your ups and downs, 
 
 And some things that you didn’t tell. 
 
 But ah today — alas, the change! 
 
 Those good old times have faded out; 
 
 ’Tis strange — indeed ’tis passing strange, 
 How all these things have come about. 
 
 Now “Coke” and Tango run a race, 
 
 For the honors in the social cup; 
 
 And golf and baseball take the place, 
 
 Of poker, dice and seven up. 
 
 And when we stroll in friendly way, 
 
 To read the signs and see the town, 
 
 The jitneys mark us for their prey, 
 
 And aeroplanes may knock us down. 
 
 The city’s lit with ’lectric lights, 
 
 That blaze and blind us as we pass; 
 
 No more we note, in rooms at nights, 
 
 The warning, “Don’t blow out the gas.” 
 
 But we still have John Blocker here, 
 
 And Ike T. Pryor, good and stout; 
 
 And they’ll come down — you never fear — 
 With what we need to help us out. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 81 
 
 And we’ve George Saunders too today; 
 He’ll hand us up the welcome ten, 
 Which we’ll remit without delay, 
 
 And which he’ll never see again. 
 
 Sweet are the whispered words of love; 
 And sweet the poet’s honied rhymes; 
 
 But sweeter far, where’er we rove, 
 
 The memories of those good old times! 
 
 Such are the scenes that we recall; 
 
 And still perchance for them we mourn; 
 But have a good time — one and all, 
 
 For fellers, San Antonio’s your’n. 
 
 KILLING AND CAPTURING BUFFALO IN KANSAS 
 
 By M. A. Withers of Lockhart, Texas 
 
 I was born in Monroe county, Missouri, September 23, 
 1846. I came to Texas with my parents and settled in 
 Caldwell county in November 1852 or 1853, and have lived 
 in the same county ever since. 
 
 In 1859, when I was only thirteen years old, I made my 
 first trip on the trail. I went with a herd of cows and calves 
 from Lockhart to Fredericksburg, Texas. The cattle were 
 sold to Tom and Sam Johnson by George Haynes at $3.00 
 per head. 
 
 My next trip, in 1862, was from Lockhart, Texas, to 
 Shreveport, La., with a herd of steers for the Confederate 
 States government. George Haynes was the contractor and 
 S. H. Whittaker was the boss. After arriving at Shreveport, 
 a herd of steers, too poor for Confederate soldiers to eat, 
 was delivered to us to be driven to the Brazos River and 
 turned loose on the range. I rode one horse on this entire 
 trip. I was to get two dollars per day and board. I got the 
 board, consisting of cornbread, bacon, and sometimes coffee, 
 but I never got the two dollars per day promised me. On 
 my return to Lockhart I joined the Confederate Cavalry and 
 
82 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 served to the end of the war in Company I, 36th Texas 
 Cavalry. 
 
 I left Lockhart, Texas, April 1, 1868, with a herd of 600 
 big wild steers. The most of them belonged to my father, 
 brothers, and myself. I bought some of them at $10.00 
 per head to be paid for when I returned from the drive. I 
 had eight hands and a cook, all of whom are dead except 
 myself. We crossed the Colorado River at Austin, the 
 Brazos River at Waco, the Trinity River where Fort Worth 
 now is. Only one or two stores were there then. We 
 crossed the Red River where Denison now is, and the 
 Arkansas River at Fort Gibson, then traveled up the north side 
 of the Arkansas River to Wichita, Kansas, which then con- 
 sisted of a log house used for a store. 
 
 Before we reached Wichita, I went several miles ahead of 
 the herd and stopped at a large lake to get a drink of water 
 and water my horse. Suddenly my horse became restless 
 and when I looked up I saw seven Osage Indians coming 
 helter-skelter straight for me. Maybe you think I wasn’t 
 scared, but I surely was. I could not run for the lake was 
 on one side and the Indians on the other. I thought my 
 time had come. They ran their horses up to me and stopped. 
 All had guns, and I thought they were the largest ones I had 
 ever seen. There I was with my back to the lake and with 
 only my horse between me and the Indians who were look- 
 ing at me. 
 
 After looking at me for a few minutes, the big chief held 
 out his hand and said “how,” and then asked for tobacco. 
 
 I did not give him my hand, but I gave him all the tobacco 
 I had. It was a great relief to me when I saw them whirl 
 their horses and leave in as big a hurry as they came. 
 
 A few days later we killed and barbecued a beef. Early 
 the next morning one of the boys, who was with the herd 
 came running into camp and shouting, “Indians! Indians!” 
 We looked up and saw about thirty Osage Indians coming 
 as fast as their horses could run straight for our camp. Each 
 Indian gave the customary greeting, “how,” and all placed 
 their guns around a tree. They made short work of our 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 83 
 
 barbecued meat, and then began to pick up the things 
 scattered about the wagon. 
 
 They asked us to give them a beef and we gladly gave 
 them a “stray”. They butchered it, and immediately began 
 to eat it. While they were thus engaged, we moved the herd 
 away as quickly as possible. 
 
 We continued our journey to Abilene, Kansas, reaching 
 there about July 1, 1868. Between Wichita and Abilene we 
 found the skull of a man with a bullet hole in the forehead. 
 Whose skull it was we never knew. After reaching Abilene, 
 we established our summer camp on the Chatman Creek, 
 twelve miles north of Abilene, Kansas. We discharged 
 four hands and kept the others to range-herd the cattle until 
 fall when I sold the steers W. K. McCoy & Bros, of Cham- ^ 
 pagne, Illinois, for $28.00 per head. The cattle were worth 
 from $8.00 to $10.00 per head in Texas and the expenses 
 were about $4.00 per head. The steers were not road- 
 branded and we reached there with a full count. I received 
 $1,000 in cash and the remainder in drafts on Donald 
 Lawson & Co., of New York City, signed by W. K. McCoy 
 & Bros. One of these drafts for a small amount was never 
 paid and I still have it in my safe. I would like to collect 
 it now with compound interest. 
 
 On our trip from Lockhart, Texas to Abilene, Kansas, we 
 found plenty of grass and water.- The cattle arrived in 
 Abilene in fine condition and were rolling fat when sold. 
 
 After selling out, we bought new wagons and harness and 
 made work horses out of our cow ponies. We sent the boys 
 through Arkansas and loaded the wagons with red apples. 
 After reaching Texas, they placed an apple on a twig on 
 the front end of the wagon and began to peddle them. 
 They reached a fine price for those that they did not eat 
 or give away to the girls along the road. 
 
 I went from Abilene, Kansas, to St. Louis, Mo., and took 
 the last steamer down the Mississippi River, which would 
 reach New Orleans before Christmas. It took eleven days 
 to make the trip, for the boat stopped at every landing and 
 added chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc., to her cargo. There was 
 a dance on deck each night except Sunday night. I came 
 
84 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 from New Orleans to Galveston, Texas, by steamer; from 
 Galveston to Columbus by train, and from Columbus to 
 Lockhart by stage and arrived at home on Christmas day, 
 
 1868 . 
 
 In the summer of 1868 1 was chosen to go with Joe 
 G. McCoy and a party to Fossil Creek Siding on the Kansas 
 Pacific Railway for the purpose of roping buffalo bulls 
 to be sent east as an advertisement. It had been found 
 that by advertising a large semi-monthly public sale of stock 
 cattle to take place at the shipping yards at Abilene, Kansas, 
 a ready market had been found for the stock cattle. Buyers 
 were also needed for grown cattle. The plan adopted to 
 call attention to the fact was to send east a car load of 
 wild buffaloes, covering the side of the car with advertise- 
 ments of the cattle. But how to get the buffaloes was the 
 next point to be considered. 
 
 The slats of an ordinary stock car were greatly strengthened 
 by bolting thick planks parallel with the floor, and about 
 three feet above it, to the sides of the car. One half dozen 
 horses, well trained to the lasso, were placed in one car and 
 in the other were six men with supplies. Both cars departed 
 for the buffalo region. In the party chosen were four Texas 
 cowboys, Jake Carroll, Tom Johnson, Billy Campbell and 
 myself, also two California Spaniards, all experts with the 
 rope. 
 
 On the afternoon of our arrival on the buffalo range we 
 started out to capture our first buffalo. After riding for a 
 short while, we saw a moving object in the distance which 
 we supposed was the desired game. We followed and saw 
 that it was a man after an animal. We thought it was 
 
 an Indian after a buffalo. 
 
 All of us, with the exception of Tom Johnson, who rode 
 away to the right, started in pursuit of the desired game. 
 We soon discovered what we supposed was an Indian and a 
 buffalo was a white man driving a milch-cow to the section 
 
 house. He ran to the section house and told them, that the 
 
 Indians had chased him and were coming straight to the 
 
 house. He said that one long-legged Indian riding a white 
 horse tried to spear him. The supposed Indian on the white 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 85 
 
 JOE S. CLARK 
 
 JACK MULHALL 
 
 L. B. ANDERSON 
 
 A. W. CAPT 
 
86 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 horse was none other than Tom Johnson, who was about 
 four hundred yards away from the man. When we reached 
 the section house, the men had barricaded themselves in the 
 dugout awaiting the arrival of the Indians. They supposed 
 we were Indians until we were close enough for them to tell 
 we were white men. They came out and told us what the 
 frightened man had told them. 
 
 During our hunt we had to guard our horses at night from 
 the savages. We saw three small parties of Indians, and one 
 bunch gave some of us a little chase over the prairies. 
 
 The next morning after our arrival we spied seven buffalo 
 bulls on the north side of the Saline River and preparations 
 were made to capture them. Two of them refused to cross 
 the river and when I attempted to force one to cross he 
 began to fight and 1 shot him with my Navy six shooter. 
 This was the first buffalo I ever killed. The others were 
 started in the direction of the railway and when in several 
 hundred yards of it two of them were captured. The two 
 Spaniards roped one, and Billy Campbell and I roped the 
 other one. The buffalo charged first at one and then the 
 other of us. He would drop his head, stiffen his neck, and 
 await for us to come near him, then chase one of his 
 captors until there was no hope of catching him, then turn 
 and go after the other. 
 
 When he was near the track, a third rope was placed 
 around his hind legs and in a moment he was laying stretched 
 out on the ground. Our well trained horses watched his 
 movements and kept the ropes tight. After he ceased to 
 struggle, his legs were tied together with short pieces of rope, 
 then the lariats were taken off, and the buffalo was lifted 
 into the car by means of a block and tackle, one end was 
 fastened to the buffalo’s head and the other to the top of the 
 car on the opposite side. After his head was securely bound 
 to a part of the car frame, his feet were untied. Sometimes 
 the buffalo would sulk for hours after being loaded and show 
 no desire to fight. 
 
 In about a week we captured twenty-four buffalo bulls. 
 Some of them died from heat and anger caused by capture, 
 others became sullen and laid down before they were gotten 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 87 
 
 near the cars, and only twelve were successfully loaded and 
 started on the road to Chicago. 
 
 It was very interesting to see how well-trained were the 
 horses. They seemed to know what movements to make to 
 counteract those of the captured animal. It was almost 
 impossible to entangle them in the rope for they knew by 
 experience the consequences of being entangled. 
 
 After hanging upon each side of the cars an advertisement 
 of the cattle near Abilene, they were sent to Chicago via 
 St. Louis, causing much newspaper comment. Upon reach- 
 ing Chicago, the buffalo were sent to the fair grounds where 
 the two Spaniards, Billie Campbell, and 1 roped them again 
 to show the people how it was done. This advertising feat 
 was followed by an excursion of Illinois cattlemen to the 
 West. The people were taken to the prairie near Abilene 
 and shown the many fine herds of cattle. Several people 
 invested in these cattle, and in a short time the market at 
 Abilene assumed its usual life and activity. The year of 1868 
 closed with Abilene’s success as a cattle market of note. 
 Soon Texas cattle became in great demand for packing 
 purposes. 
 
 Later in the fall of the same year, 1868, I went on a hunt 
 with a party about seventy-five miles south of Abilene to the 
 valley between the Big and Little Arkansas Rivers, where we 
 saw countless numbers of buffalo. As far as we. could see 
 the level prairies were black with buffaloes. The grass was 
 eaten off as smooth as a floor behind these thousands of 
 animals. We killed all we wanted in a very short time. 
 
 In 1872 on the Smoky River near Hays City, Kansas, 
 while with a herd of cattle we had a big stampede. While 
 running in the lead of the steers, I saw by a flash of light- 
 ning that I was on the edge of a big bluff of the river. There 
 was nothing left for me to do but jump, so I spurred my 
 horse and landed in the river, which had three or four feet 
 of water in it. Neither my horse nor I was hurt, although 
 some of the steers were killed and many crippled. 
 
 While riding that same horse that fall in Nevada, he fell 
 into a prospector’s hole full of snow, and both of us had to 
 be pulled out. 
 
88 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 On this same trip between Fort Steele on the North Platte 
 River and Independence Rock on the Sweetwater, we crossed 
 a desert, which was seventy miles across. There was no 
 grass or water except some alkali lakes, which were not good 
 for man or beast. On the banks of one of these lakes I 
 found what I thought were pretty rocks. I picked up a few, 
 and later showed them to a jeweler who told me that they 
 were moss agates and that they made fine sets for rings or 
 pins and were very valuable. 
 
 Soon after crossing the desert two of our men quit, and as 
 we were far from any human habitation and in an Indian 
 country I have often wondered what became of them. We 
 found game of all kinds, fine grass, and water on this trip. 
 The Indians made two attempts to get our horses, but they 
 did not succeed. I sold this herd of 3400 two-year old 
 steers and heifers to Tabor & Rodabush at $20.00 per head, 
 delivered at Humbolt Wells, Nevada. I also sold the horses to 
 them at the same price. Our horses gave out and we walked 
 most of the last five hundred miles. Bart Kelso of Pleasan- 
 ton, Texas, was with me on this trip. 
 
 While following the trail I was in a number of storms. 
 During a storm in 1882 while I was delivering cattle to Gus 
 Johnson, he was killed by lightning. G. B. Withers, 
 Johnson and 1 were riding together when the lightning 
 struck. It set Johnson’s undershirt on fire and his gold 
 shirt stud, which was set with a diamond, was melted 
 and the diamond was never found. His hat was torn to 
 pieces and mine had all the plush burned off of the top. 
 I was not seriously hurt, but G. B. Withers lost one eye by 
 the same stroke that killed Johnson. 
 
 I followed the trail from 1868 to 1887. I bought cattle 
 in Texas and New Mexico and drove them to Kansas, Colo- 
 rado, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Montana, Oregon, 
 Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Nevada. My first herd numbered 
 600 Texas steers. The largest herd I ever drove from Texas 
 was 4500 steers, which I drove'from Fort Griffin, Texas, 
 to Dobie Walls in what was then known as “No Man’s Land.” 
 These cattle were sold to Gus Johnson. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 89 
 
 At different times while driving cattle to northern markets 
 I had as partners, Bill Montgomery, George Hill, Dr. John 
 G. Blanks, Dick Head and Jesse Pressnall. Some years we 
 had five or six herds, each herd numbering from 2000 to 
 3000 steers. At first we could buy cattle in Texas on time 
 and sell them in Kansas and the territories for cash, but the 
 last few years 1 drove we had to pay cash for cattle and sell to 
 northern buyers on credit, and then I quit the trail. 
 
 I had a number of flattering offers to remain north in the 
 cattle business, but 1 loved Texas so well that I always 
 returned after each drive. 
 
 ON THE TRAIL TO NEBRASKA 
 
 By Jeff D. Farris of Bryan, Texas 
 
 I was born in 1861 on a farm in Madison county, Texas. 
 My parents had moved to the country from Walker county 
 in 1858. They originally came from Tennessee to Texas 
 in 1850. When my father located in Madison county there 
 were only seven white men in the neighborhood where he 
 located. My wife’s father hauled the first load of iron that 
 was put on the ground to build up our state penitentiary, 
 which now covers twenty acres of ground. As I grew up I 
 remained on the small farm we cultivated, and in the spring 
 I gathered wild horses, and helped brand cattle, until 1881 
 when 1 went to Bryan with a bunch of cattle, where I found 
 an outfit going to Kansas with a herd belonging to Colonel 
 Jim Ellison of San Marcos. Tom Taylor was the boss and I 
 decided to go along with this outfit and see some of the 
 country that I had heard so much about. I have been told 
 that Tom still lives at Uvalde. 
 
 We had 2500 head to drive, and a force of ten men, some 
 of whose names 1 can’t recall. One was named Hamby, and 
 a one-armed boy named Hugh Strong. We went north 
 from Bryan to Cleburne and Fort Worth, and crossed the Red 
 River in Montague county. Just below old Fort Sill we 
 struck the trail for Fort Dodge, Kansas, and passed through 
 the Indian Territory. There was no Oklahoma in those days, 
 
90 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 When we reached Fort Dodge, we continued north until we 
 came to the South Platte River, and from there to Ogallala, 
 Nebraska, on the north side of the river, where I quit the out- 
 fit and came home. Ogallala was the town where Sam Bass, 
 the noted outlaw, made his headquarters after holding up the 
 Union Pacific. He later came to Texas and was killed by 
 the Rangers at Round Rock. 
 
 I remained at home until the spring of 1883, when I went 
 to Hearne, Texas and struck out with an outfit going to San 
 Angelo, in Tom Green county. We left Hearne about the 
 10th of May and reached San Angelo the later part of July. 
 
 In 1885 I married the sweetest woman in all the country 
 and to our union were born five boys and three girls, all of 
 whom are living except one. I am living within half a mile 
 of where I was born. 
 
 ECHOES OF THE CATTLE TRAIL 
 
 By Jerry M. Nance of Kyle, Texas 
 
 I left Hays county, Texas, on April 1 5th, 1877, bound for 
 Cheyenne, Wyoming, with 2100 cattle, forty head of ponies 
 and two yoke of oxen with the chuck wagon. The country 
 was open, no fences to bother us. We crossed the Colorado 
 about four miles below Austin, and went through Belton. 
 We camped one night near Belton, and while there it came a 
 heavy rain. From here we moved out several miles the next 
 morning to where there was grass, and where we stopped for 
 breakfast. After we had been there about an hour I saw a 
 man ride up and begin looking over the herd. After he had 
 looked through closely he came over to the camp, and I asked 
 him if he found any of his cattle in the herd.. He said no. 
 I asked him to get down and have breakfast with us, explain- 
 ing that our breakfast was late on account of leaving Belton 
 so early that morning to get out where there was grazing 
 for the cattle. He said he lived where we had camped the 
 night before, and when he got up the next morning he did 
 not see his small bunch of cattle and thought we had driven 
 them off with our herd. He probably found them when he 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 91 
 
 returned home. We crossed the Brazos above Waco. The river 
 was on a rise and it was so wide that all of the cattle were 
 in the river swimming at the same time, and it looked as if I 
 had no cattle at all, for all we could see was the horns. A 
 boat helped us get the chuck wagon across. One of the boys 
 was taken sick the next day, and went back home. When 
 we reached Fort Worth, then a small village, we bought 
 enough supplies from York & Draper to carry us through to 
 Dodge City, Kansas. 
 
 We crossed the Red River at Red River Station, into the 
 Indian Territory. After leaving this point we saw no more 
 white people, except those with herds, until we reached 
 Dodge City. When we reached the Washita River it was up 
 and hard to cross. There I met Joel Collins of Goliad. 
 He had just crossed and had made a raft of three big logs 
 tied together with ropes. I exchanged some of my ropes for 
 his raft and used it in ferrying my stuff across. The next day 
 I put the cattle to swimming the river, which had a very 
 swift current. At first they would not take the water, but 
 I cut off bunches of about seventy-five to a hundred and put 
 them to moving Indian fashion and shoved them right off into 
 the water. Some of them would turn and try to come back, 
 but the swift current had carried them down to where the 
 steep banks on this side kept them from coming out, and 
 they had to go across. I crossed the whole herd in this 
 manner. We had but little trouble in getting the horses 
 across. One of the boys had a mule in the outfit which 
 had a pair of hopples tied around his neck, and in swimming 
 the mule passed near a willow limb that had been broken 
 off by the cattle, and this limb had caught the hopples on 
 the mule’s neck and held him there swimming in the water. I 
 told the man who owned the mule th‘at unless those hopples 
 were cut loose the animal would drown. It was a dangerous 
 undertaking, but he plunged in and cut the hopples, and the 
 mule swam across. From here we made the trip all right 
 until we reached the North Canadian, which was also on a 
 rise and all over the bottom lands. We waited for several 
 days for the flood waters to subside, but all to no use. In 
 the meantime other herds had come in sight and for fear of 
 
92 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 bad nights and a mix-up I decided to make a raft and go 
 across. The cattle were started across, and were going fine 
 when it came up a terrific hailstorm, which interrupted the 
 proceedings. One man was across on the other side of the 
 river, naked, with his horse and saddle and about half of 
 the herd and the balance of us were on this side with the 
 other half of the herd and all the supplies. There was no 
 timber on our side of the river, and when the hail began pelt- 
 ing, the boys and myself made a break for the wagon for shel- 
 ter. We were all naked, and the hail came down so furiously 
 that within a short time it was about two inches deep on the 
 ground. It must have hailed considerably up the river, for 
 the water was so cold we could not get any more of the herd 
 across that day. We were much concerned about getting 
 help to the man across the river. We tried all evening to 
 get one of the boys over, to carry the fellow some clothes, 
 and help look after the cattle, but failed in each attempt. 
 We could not see him nor the cattle on account of the heavy 
 timber on the other side, and the whole. bottom was covered 
 with water so that it was impossible for him to come near 
 enough to hear us when we called to him. The water was 
 so cold that horse nor man could endure it, and in trying to 
 cross over several of them came near drowning, and were 
 forced to turn back, so the man on the other side had to 
 stay over there all night alone and naked.! I was afraid the 
 Indians would run the cattle off, but they did not molest 
 them. Next morning everything was lovely and our absent 
 man swam back to us after he had put the cattle in shape. 
 He had a good saddle blanket which he said had kept him 
 comfortable enough during the night. While we were get- 
 ting the balance of the cattle across one of my Mexican 
 hands suffered three broken ribs and a fractured collarbone, 
 by his horse falling with him. Some movers who were 
 waiting for the river to fall, agreed to convey the Mexican 
 to Fort Reno, twenty miles away, for me. At Fort Reno an 
 army surgeon patched him up, and he remained there until 
 the following September when he came back home. 
 
 On the 8th of June, while we were on the Salt Fork a 
 cold norther blew up, accompanied by rain, and it soon 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 93 
 
 became so cold we had to stop driving about three o’clock 
 in the afternoon, and gather wood for the night. We under- 
 took to hold our cattle that night in the open, but it was so 
 cold that we finally drifted them close to the river where 
 there was a little protection, and kept a man on guard to 
 look after them. About daybreak they stampeded, but we 
 soon caught them without loss of a single head. Eight 
 ponies belonging to other herds near us froze to death that 
 night. 
 
 We crossed the Arkansas River at Dodge, but stopped there 
 one day only, for supplies. At this place we saw a number 
 of Texas cattlemen who were waiting for their herds. 
 
 We crossed the Platte River at Ogallala, Nebraska, and 
 still had a long stretch to cover to reach Cheyenne. Near 
 Julesburg we came to a stone dam across a little creek. 
 There was no sign of a habitation near this dam, and why 
 it was placed there, and who contracted it, was beyond my 
 comprehension. 
 
 We reached Cheyenne sometime in July, after having been 
 on the trip for about three months. We sold our cattle and 
 ponies and took the railroad for home. 
 
 I also drove another herd of two thousand head of cattle 
 from Hays county in 1880, to Dodge City, Kansas. We 
 crossed the Colorado at Webbersville, and after crossing 
 Brushy Creek near Taylor, we struck camp. Just before 
 sundown two men drove up in a wagon, and one of them 
 who had been drinking, ordered us to move on, saying we 
 could not camp there. I told him he had arrived too late, 
 for we were going to remain right there. He said he would 
 get the sheriff to come and move us, and as he was standing 
 up in the back end of his wagon he fell out when the driver 
 started the team. He turned a complete somersault and fell 
 hard upon the ground. If he had been sober I am sure he 
 would have broken his neck. Picking himself up he clam- 
 bered back into his wagon, and drove on amid the yells and 
 whoops of my boys. That was the last we saw of him. 
 
 After we crossed Gabriel the other side of Taylor we 
 turned west and went by Lampasas, and quit the trail on 
 account of water. We passed through Comanche and struck 
 
94 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the trail again in Brown county. When we reached Fort 
 Griffin we purchased supplies to last us until we reached 
 Dodge, Kansas. We crossed the Brazos high up where there 
 was not much water in it, and the water it did contain was 
 so salty our cattle would not drink it. At Doan’s Store we 
 crossed Red River when it was very low, and I was glad of it. 
 We drove on through the Territory until we reached Dodge. 
 We were bothered some by Indians on this trip. 
 
 In 1881 I sold a herd of two thousand head of cattle to 
 be delivered at Ogallala, Nebraska, on the Platte River. 
 I did not go up the trail with this herd that year. 
 
 In 1883 I became part owner in a ranch in Jeff Davis 
 county. I shipped my cattle out there and ranched them 
 ten years with the Toyah Land & Cattle Company. In 1885 
 
 I drove three thousand steer yearling out there, which 1 
 bought at Columbus, Texas. We went by way of Blanco, 
 Fredericksburg, Mason San Angelo, up the Main Concho 
 and across the plains to Fort Stockton. We also had ninety 
 ponies along. That was too many cattle to have in one 
 herd, and they did not do well. Water was scarce, and 
 being late in the season , one sixty mile drive from the head 
 of the Concho to the Pecos River without water, was a pretty 
 hard trip, worse than going to Kansas. 
 
 In 1887 we shipped two thousand head from the ranch 
 to Big Springs, and drove them across to Coolidge, Kansas, 
 where we sold them out. Part of them were shipped west 
 to Pueblo, Colorado, and part of them were driven back to 
 Fort Sill in the Indian Territory, and delivered there. 
 
 In 1888 we drove two thousand head to Panhandle City. 
 We sold some of them to be delivered above Amarillo, and 
 the remainder were driven on to Kiowa and sold there. In 
 driving this herd across the plains from the Pecos River to 
 Warfield, a station ten miles west of Midland, 1 had made 
 arrangements with a ranchman at Warfield to have enough 
 water pumped up for two thousand head of cattle. He had 
 a windmill and troughs for watering and charged five cents 
 per head. We could water only about one hundred and fifty 
 head at a time, so it took some time to water them all. 
 When we had the last bunch in the pen late that evening 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 95 
 
 a heavy hailstorm and rain came up and scattered our herd. 
 Everybody stayed with the herd which began to drift with 
 the storm’s course. Some of the boys used blankets and 
 heavy gloves to protect their heads. We had one bald- 
 headed man in the outfit, and when the hailstorm was 
 over he was a sight to behold. He had welts and bruises 
 all over, and lots of hide had been peeled off. The hail 
 had beaten the grass into the ground, and killed lots of 
 jack rabbits in the vicinity. We lost about a hundred head 
 of cattle during the storm, and they were the last ones to 
 water in the pen. We found them the next day several miles 
 away. 
 
 In the fall of 1888 we shipped about two thousand head 
 to Colorado City and Sweetwater to winter on account of 
 no grass at the ranch, and in the spring of 1889 we gathered 
 them to ship out. Those at Colorado City were put in a 
 small five section pasture for a few days before shipping 
 them north. While they were in this little pasture a cyclone 
 came along and killed about one hundred and fifty two to 
 five-year-old steers and crippled about a hundred others for 
 us. The cyclone was only about one hundred yards and 
 went through about a mile of pasture, leaving everything 
 trimmed clean in its path. Even the mesquite switches had 
 all the bark pulled off. Deer, rabbits, owls, snakes, and 
 many other animals were to be found in its wake. 
 
 In 1889 the trail driving was at an end, and cattlemen 
 generally began shipping by rail. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF OLD TRAIL DRIVING 
 
 By J. M. Hankins, 2923 South Presa St. 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 
 
 1 was born in 1851 near Prairie Lea, in Caldwell county, 
 Texas, and remember when the Civil War began and the 
 many hard trials experienced during that period. 
 
 It was in 1868 that I recall the first herd of cattle driven 
 from Prairie Lea “up the trail,” though possibly Col. Jack 
 Myers and others at Lockhart had driven earlier. That year 
 
96 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Baker & Duke, merchants, bought some steers and ex- 
 changed merchandise for them. Father and others put in 
 a- few head, and I put in a five year old steer for which I 
 received a pair of shoes, a straw hat and a linen coat, the 
 value of all being about ten dollars, but I was fully rigged 
 out for Sunday wear, and was satisfied with my deal. 
 
 After 1868 the drives became general and large herds 
 could be seen on the Lockhart trail from March to August. 
 I very often helped local buyers get up bunches of Kansas 
 cattle as they were called, and in 1871 I was employed by 
 Smith Brothers at Prairie Lea to go “up the trail.” I furnished 
 my own mounts, three corn-fed horses, which they agreed to 
 feed until grass came. We left Prairie Lea the latter part of 
 February for San Miguel Creek, went to San Antonio, and 
 expected to be absent about thirty days. We failed to 
 gather the cattle we expected to on the San Miguel, so we 
 were ordered to move on to the Nueces River where Jim 
 and Tobe Long and others put up a herd for them. We got 
 back to the San Marcos River about the 1 5th of May, with- 
 out having had a bushel of corn for our horses after leaving 
 San Antonio. The country was very dry, no water from one 
 river to the other, no grass nearer than three miles out. Those 
 who worked soon got afoot. Between the Cibolo and Guad- 
 alupe Rivers, I swapped horses twice in one day, the last 
 time with a negro, and got a small pony which seemed to be 
 fat. That was all I saw until he took his saddle off, when 
 a foot of hide stuck to the blanket. The boys set up a big 
 laugh, but 1 “scaffold’ up, threw my “hull’ on and galloped 
 around the herd. It beat walking and punching the “dogies” 
 at the rear. I was promoted right then to the flank. 
 
 That night 1 experienced the first stampede. Early in the 
 night it had rained, and I was on the watch. The herd 
 began drifting, and the boss and several others came out to 
 help with the cattle, and after the rain ceased we got them 
 stopped, when Rany Fentress, a negro who had been in 
 stampedes before, came to where I was in the lead and told 
 me to move further away. About that time some of the boys 
 struck a match to light a pipe, and the flare frightened the 
 big steers, and they began to run. 1 was knocked down three 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 97 
 
 W. E. LAUGHLIN 
 
 M. A. WITHERS 
 
 JUDGE S. H. WOODS 
 
 C. H. RUST 
 
98 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 times, but managed to stay with my pony, and came out with 
 the drags which I stayed with until daylight. 
 
 After we crossed the San Marcos River the boys began 
 leaving for home, but I remained until the boss said I could 
 not go until the others returned. At this I rebelled, “cut 
 my bedding,” rounded up my “crow bait” and pulled 
 out for home, where I stayed two days. Father insisted 
 that I go back. I told him I had nearly killed three horses, 
 which they never fed as they agreed to. But 1 went back 
 with a fresh mount, and got “fired” just as the herd was 
 ready to start on the trail. Smith Bros, went “busted” that 
 year. 
 
 In 1874 I left home again in February with Ellison & 
 Dewees, with young Jim Ellison as boss. We went to San 
 Antonio where we received a bunch of cow ponies, and then 
 established camp near the Cibolo, where the Lowe cattle 
 were received and started. Our camp was the catch and 
 cut-out for all the other bosses. Young Jim Ellison took the 
 first herd with all negro hands about the 9th of March. 
 Jim Rowden took the second herd, and so on, till all the 
 Lowe cattle were received and started. Our outfit then 
 went to Burnett county and received our herd from Oatman, 
 mostly wild mountain steers. 
 
 When we were nearing Red River we threw in with Peter 
 Smith, making one large herd, with which I stayed until we 
 arrived at Dodge City, Kansas. Our trip was like most 
 others, sometimes good, and at other times pretty tough, 
 especially when the cattle stampeded during stormy nights 
 and mixed with other herds, causing no end of worry and 
 trouble and often forcing us to go without our breakfast until 
 10 or 11 o’clock the next day. But as soon as we were filled 
 with frijoles and black coffee, and the sun shone clear, we 
 were jolly and happy again. 
 
 One little incident during a run on a stormy night was 
 amusing. The cattle had been running most of the night, 
 but at last they had quieted down. We saw a light a short 
 distance away swinging around, and heard a voice calling 
 out to us. We supposed it was the cook, and the boss said 
 some ugly words about the cook screaming at us, and sent 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 99 
 
 a man into the herd to find out what he wanted. It turned 
 out to be a man standing on the top of his dug-out, and he 
 was in great distress. The cattle had crushed in the roof of 
 his domicile and one had fallen through into his bedroom and 
 disturbed his peaceful slumbers. 
 
 The country was wild and unsettled then, and from the 
 Red River to the Kansas line was known as the Indian 
 Territory. Montague was the last town I saw until we 
 reached Great Bend, Kansas. I might add incidents but as 
 short sketches for this book are expected, will say to all the 
 old cow-punchers and trail drivers of Texas that I will be 
 glad to meet any of you and talk about the old times and 
 the pioneers of Texas. 
 
 GOT “WILD AND WOOLLY” ON THE CHISHOLM TRAIL 
 
 By J. N. Byler, of Dallas, Texas 
 
 I was raised in East Texas and worked cattle back in the 
 piney woods and cane brakes of that region. Went west 
 after the Civil War and worked cattle there. The range was 
 at that time somewhat overstocked with beef cattle and bulls. 
 A great many of the old bulls were shipped over to Cuba, 
 and supplied the natives there with beef. In getting them 
 ready to ship the cowboys would rope them on the range, 
 throw them down, and chop the points of their horns off with 
 an axe to keep them from hurting each other on the boats: 
 In those days beef cattle on the range were worth about $10 
 per head. A few were driven to Louisiana. 
 
 In 1866 Monroe Choate and B. A. Borroum drove a herd 
 to Iowa to find a market. They crossed Red River at Colbert’s 
 Ferry, went by way of Boggy Depot, crossed the Arkansas 
 at Fort Gibson, and then struck west of the settlements of 
 Kansas. 
 
 In 1867 Butler, Baylor & Rose drove a herd to Abilene, 
 Kansas, as did also Pucket & Rogers. 
 
 In 1868 the drives were pretty heavy, but further west, 
 crossing Red Rver at Gainesville In 1869 and 1870 they 
 were heavier still, most of the herds crossing at Red River 
 
100 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Station, passing east of old Fort Sill, and west of the Indian 
 and negro settlements, over which route water and grass were 
 plentiful. This was known as the old Chisholm trail. When 
 we reached Kansas we usually found plenty of buffalo. When 
 these animals were disturbed they would begin to travel 
 northward. That is where the expression “wild and woolly” 
 originated. When the boys reached Abilene or some other 
 Kansas town, they were usually long-haired and needing 
 a barber’s attention, as there were no barbers on the trail. 
 Upon being asked how they got there, they would sing out: 
 “Come the Chisholm trail with the buffalo wild and woolly.” 
 
 WITH HERDS TO COLORADO AND NEW MEXICO 
 
 By G. W. Scott, of Uvalde, Texas. 
 
 I was born at Comfort, Texas, September 3, 1871, and 
 was raised on a ranch. In 1876 my fahter moved to Cole- 
 man county, but in 1877 he moved to Frio county and bought 
 a farm. In 1888 I came to Uvalde, and in the spring of 
 1890 I hired to Paul Handy of Colorado to drive a herd to 
 that state. We left the Plank Pens on the Leona Ranch 
 south of Uvalde on March 10th, 'with our herd numbering 
 2221 two-year-old steers, sixty-four horses and eleven men, 
 including the cook. We crossed the Nueces and camped the 
 first night in the Moore & Allen pasture. After six or eight 
 days our herd was easily controlled, especially at night. 
 Grass and water was plentiful, and we had an easy time 
 until we reached Fort McKavett, where I accidently caused 
 the cattle to stampede one moonlight night. From here we 
 drove to San Angelo and stopped one night near that town, 
 which at that time was a wide-open place. Several of the 
 boys went in to see the sights and have a good time. We 
 drove our herd across the plains to Quannah where we were 
 quarantined for several weeks on account of Texas fever. 
 While we were here holding our cattle it came up a severe 
 rainstorm one night and we had another stampede, the steers 
 going in all directions, running over wire fences and going 
 across creeks that happened to be in their course. We had 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 101 
 
 thirteen steers killed by lightning that night. When day- 
 light came I was about four miles from camp with four 
 hundred head of the steers. We held these steers at Quan- 
 nah for seven weeks before being allowed to proceed on to 
 Colorado. 
 
 In 1881 I went with a herd to White Lake, New Mexico, 
 for James Dalrymple, starting from the Leona Ranch. Most 
 of the boys in this outfit were from the Frio Canyon, and I 
 recall the names of Sam Everts, George Leakey, Tobe 
 Edwards, James Crutchfield, Os Brown, Allison Davis and 
 Tip Davis. We drove 2178 two-year-old steers this trip, 
 crossing the Nueces River at Eagle Pass crossing. We headed 
 north toward Devil’s River, which we crossed above Paint 
 Cave. At this time the range was dry, and water scarce, 
 and many of our cattle gave out and had to be left on the 
 trail. We reached the Pecos River, at the mouth of Live 
 Oak, where we rested for a few days. We were in the Seven 
 D range at this time, and Taylor Stevenson was foreman of 
 the Seven D Ranch, and he brought his outfit and helped us 
 work up the Pecos from the mouth of Live Oak to Horse 
 Head Crossing, where we left the thinnest of our cattle, and 
 proceeded on our journey. Our next point was Midland, 
 where we found plenty of fine grass and water. After leav- 
 ing Midland we again found a dry range with no grass. 
 When we reached the Colorado River that stream was very 
 low. Here I saw my first buffalo, but it was a tame animal 
 and was branded a long S on each side. Ed Hagerman of 
 Kimble county, was ahead of us with a herd of the Half 
 Circle L C cattle. After a great deal of hard luck and 
 trouble we reached Yellow House Draw about ten miles from 
 Lubbock, where we encountered a heavy hailstorm. We had 
 lost a great many of our cattle on the trip, and the sudden 
 change chilled a number of others to death as well as five 
 saddle horses. We left the camp at this point with only 1072 
 head. We reached White Lake, New Mexico, on June 21, 
 and delivered to Mr. Handy. Here we found Ham Bee and 
 his outfit and accompanied them back to Midland, where we 
 took the train for Uvalde. 
 
102 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD TRAIL DAYS 
 
 By B. A. Barroum, of Del Rio, Texas 
 
 My first experience on the trail was in the year 1870. 
 About the first of April of that year I started from Monroe 
 Choate’s Ranch in Karnes county with a herd of cattle belong- 
 ing to Choate & Bennett. E. B. Rutledge was the boss and 
 part owner. Among the hands were Jesse McCarty, Drew 
 Lamb, Ben Johnson, George Blackburn, John Strait, and one 
 or two others whose names I have forgotten. Going north 
 all the time we crossed the Guadalupe at Gonzales, the 
 Colorado at Austin, the Brazos at Old Fort Graham, the 
 Trinity at Fort Worth, Red River at Red River Station, 
 the Washita at Dr. Steam’s, the Red Fork near Turkey 
 Creek Stage Stand in Kaw Reservation, the Salt Fork at Cow 
 Creek Station, the Arkansas at Wichita, the Smoky at Abilene, 
 Kansas, which was our destination, and where we arrived 
 about July first. 
 
 Like many others, when I had work for the time being 
 1 did not think I would ever make another trip up the trail, 
 but also like many others, when the next drive came I was 
 “rearing” to go. In the spring of 1871 I again went up with 
 a herd belonging to Choate & Bennett, with Jack Scroggin as 
 boss and part owner. The hands on this trip were W. M. 
 Choate, John Paschal, Monroe Stewart, Joe Copeland, John 
 Ferrier, myself and John Sumner, the cook. We started from 
 Rock Creek, Atascosa county, about the first of April, and 
 traveled the same trail after coming into it at Gonzales 
 through to Abilene. We went into the Chisholm Trail about 
 three miles below Red River Station, and just as soon as we 
 crossed River River all our stock seemed to go wild, especially 
 our horses, although we did not come into contact with any 
 buffalo until we reached a point between the Red Fork and 
 the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. Several herds lost 
 heavily at that time by cattle and horses getting into the 
 buffalo drifts, which were at that season drifting northward. 
 These animal were in countless numbers, in fact the whole 
 face of the earth seemed to' be literally covered with them, 
 all going in the same direction. The drovers were compelled 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 103 
 
 to send men on ahead to keep them from stampeding their 
 herds. On a plain about half way between the Red Fork 
 and the Salt Fork we had to stop our herds until the buffalo 
 passed. Buffalo, horses, elk, deer, antelope, wolves, and 
 some cattle were all mixed together and it took several hours 
 for them to pass, with our assistance, so that we could pro- 
 ceed on our journey. I think there were more buffalo in 
 that herd than I ever saw of any living thing, unless it was an 
 army of grass-hoppers in Kansas in July, 1874. Just after 
 we crossed the Red Fork I went on ahead of the herd to the 
 Trinity Creek Stage Stand, a distance of about six miles, and 
 at this place I found the present president of the Old Trail 
 Drivers’ Association, George W. Saunders, surrounded by a 
 big bunch of Kaw Indians. George was mounted on a little 
 gray bob-tailed pony, his saddle had no horn, and one stirrup- 
 leather was made of rawhide and the other was a grass 
 hopple. He was trying his best to trade those Indians out 
 of a buffalo gun, as he was in the buffalo range. And he 
 made the deal. I never saw him again until after we reached 
 Kansas, when the drovers made up an outfit to bring their 
 horses back to Texas. George and I were in this outfit and 
 we came back the trail we had gone up, except we crossed 
 Red River at Gainesville instead of at Red River Station. 
 
 I went up the trail again in 1874, starting from Druce 
 Rachel’s ranch on the Nueces bay in San Patricio county, 
 March 2 5th. This herd also belonged to Choate & Bennett, 
 with D. C. Choate as boss. We followed the same trail as 
 previously mentioned. After crossing Red River we stopped 
 on the Ninnesquaw for the summer, and shipped out in the 
 fall from Great Bend. The Osage Indians being on a war- 
 path, we had to detour our horses in bringing them back to 
 Texas, crossing the Arkansas River near Coffeyville into the 
 Cherokee, Creek, Chocktaw and Chickasaw nations,, crossing 
 Red River at Colbert’s Ferry near Sherman into Texas. 
 
 In the ’80s I drove several herds up the western trail to 
 Dodge City, Kansas, for the firm of Borroum & Choate. 
 I think every one of the boys that went up with the herds 
 mentioned above have passed- beyond the Divide from which 
 no mortal returns, except Brown (A. B.) Paschal and myself. 
 
104 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 SIXTY YEARS IN TEXAS 
 
 By William J. Bennett, of Pearsall, Texas 
 
 My father moved to Texas in 1848, from Randolph county, 
 Missouri, and settled on the Trinity River about five miles 
 from Fort' Worth, which was at that time an Indian Reserva- 
 tion with Lieutenant Worth in command of the post. There 
 was only one store there then. The Indians often came to 
 my father’s house and were friendly to the few white settlers 
 there. Game was plentiful, deer, turkey, buffalo and prairie 
 chickens, as well as the fiercer animals. We lived near Fort 
 Worth four or five years, until father sold out to a man 
 named Parker, and we moved above Fort Worth some twenty 
 miles to Newark. After remaining there a few years we then 
 moved down to Frio county in the fall of 1858, and located 
 on the Leona River, where we found a fine country, with 
 wild game and fish galore. We brought with us about four 
 hundred head of cattle, which were allowed to roam at will 
 over the excellent range, there being no fences to keep them 
 confined to the immediate vicinity of our ranch. But they did 
 not get far away from us for some time, or until other ranch- 
 ers began to locate around us, when the cattle began to mix 
 with other cattle and then began to stray off, some drifting 
 as far as the Rio Grande or the coast. Soon the settlers 
 began to organize cow hunts and work the cattle. I have 
 been on cow hunts when there were as many as one 
 hundred men working together from different counties. 
 Stockmen of today do not know anything about the hard 
 work and the strenuous times we encountered in those days, 
 Sometimes we would be out for weeks at a time, starting 
 every morning at daylight, and probably not getting in before 
 dark, tired and hungry, and having to do without dinner all 
 day. Our fare consisted of cornbread, black coffee and 
 plenty of good beef. 
 
 We were not bothered by the Indians very much until the 
 Civil War, when the troops were largely withdrawn from 
 the frontier posts, and the country was left unprotected. 
 The Indians came in great numbers then, killing many 
 settlers and driving off a great many of their stock. Also 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 105 
 
 Mexican cattle thieves became troublesome, and stole thous- 
 ands of cattle off the range which they would drive across 
 the Rio Grande into Mexico. Many of the ranchmen were 
 compelled to take their families back to the settlements for 
 protection. After the Civil War cattle soon became plenti- 
 ful on the range, and Sam Allen of Powder Horn soon 
 had a monopoly on the shipping by chartering every boat 
 from there to New Orleans. He sent men out all over the 
 country to buy fat cattle, which made times pretty good for 
 awhile, but as no one could ship by water except Allen, the 
 demand was soon filled, and in order to reach the market 
 for their stock the cattlemen began driving their cattle to 
 Kansas. In 1872 I took my first herd, starting from Uvalde 
 and going up that long and lonesome trail to Wichita, 
 Kansas. We had a pretty good time going up, with only 
 a few storms and stampedes, and lost no cattle. We crossed 
 the Red River at Red River Station, then took the old Chis- 
 holm Trail and went out of Indian Territory at Caldwell, 
 Kansas. After holding my herd at that point about three 
 months I sold to A. H. Pierce, and came home by way of 
 Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, Galveston, and then 
 to Austin on the new railroad, and from Austin by stage to 
 San Antonio and Uvalde. 
 
 In 1873 I took another herd of steers up the trail. Had 
 a pretty hard time that trip and lost many head of cattle and 
 about all I received from them. Nearly all of the Texas 
 cattlemen went broke that year as it was the year of the 
 severe panic, when silver was demonetized. 
 
 During the years 1874 and 1875 occurred what is still 
 remembered to the old timers as the “Big Steal.” Cattle 
 were driven off and the country was left bare. They drove 
 them off in all directions, some to Kansas, Wyoming, Colo- 
 rado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. 
 
 Then came the sheepmen with large flocks, and prosperity 
 again smiled upon us. With the advent of the man with 
 the plow, the sheepman moved further west, and the scream 
 of the panther and the howl of the wolf began to give place 
 to the whistle of the locomotive and the hum of the cotton 
 gin. It would require volumes to record all of the hardships 
 
106 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 and dangers we went through during the sixty years 1 have 
 lived in the west, and 1 merely contribute this brief sketch 
 to add my testimony to that of the other pioneers that 
 helped to blaze the trail through the wilderness. 
 
 During the Civil War and for many years after the war 
 the people of this station hauled their supplies out from 
 San Antonio in ox wagons, and in looking back to those 
 times and comparing them with the present we cannot but 
 discern the great change that has been wrought. Our 
 manner of travel was necessarily slow in those days. 
 Sometimes we were on the trail for four and five months. 
 It usually required three months to take a herd to the Red 
 River. Only a few days ago the papers gave an account 
 of an aviator flying from San Antonio to Oklahoma City, 
 a distance of over six hundred miles, in the short space of 
 three hours! Such a feat was undreamed of in those old 
 days, and if even a prediction of such things happening had 
 been made no one would have believed it would ever come 
 to pass. May we not venture to predict that in another sixty 
 years somebody will have established a trail to Mars or 
 other planets, and our descendants may be signalling the 
 latest market quotations to the cowmen of those parts? 
 
 HIGH HEELED BOOTS AND STRIPED BREECHES 
 
 By G. O. Burrows, of Del Rio, Texas. 
 
 1 had my share of the ups and downs, principally downs, 
 on the old cattle trail. Some of my experiences were going 
 hungry, getting wet and cold, riding sore-backed horses, 
 going to sleep on herd and losing cattle, getting “cussed’ 
 by the boss, scouting for “gray-backs,” trying the “sick 
 racket” now and then to get a night’s sleep, and other 
 things too numerous to mention in this volume. But all 
 of these were forgotten when we delivered our herd and 
 started back to grand old Texas. Have often stopped a few 
 days in Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, but always had 
 the “big time” when 1 arrived in good old Santone rigged 
 out with a pair of high-heeled boots and spotted breeches, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 107 
 
 and about $6.30 worth of other clothes. Along 4 about 
 sundown you could find me at Jack Harris’ show occupying 
 a front seat and clamoring for the next performance. This 
 “big time” would last but a few days, however, for I would 
 soon be “busted” and would have to borrow money to get 
 out to the ranch, where I would put in the fall and winter 
 telling about the big things I had seen up north. The next 
 spring I would have the same old trip, the same old things 
 would happen in the same old way, and with the same old 
 wind-up. I put in eighteen or twenty years on the trail, 
 and all I had in the final outcome was the high-heeled boots, 
 the striped pants and about $4.80 worth of other clothes, 
 so there you are. 
 
 THE GOOD OLD COWBOY DAYS 
 
 By Luther A. Lawhon 
 
 Mv fancy drifts as often, through the murky, misty maze 
 
 Of the past — to other seasons — to the good old cowboy days, 
 
 When the grass wuz green an’ wavin’ an’ the skies wuz soft 
 and blue, 
 
 And the men were brave an’ loyal, and the women fair an’ 
 true! 
 
 The old-time cowboy — here’s to him, from hired hand to 
 boss! 
 
 His soul wuz free from envy and his heart wuz free from 
 dross, 
 
 An’ deep within his nature, which wuz rugged, high and 
 bold, 
 
 There ran a vein uv metal, and the metal, men, wuz gold! 
 
 He’d stand up — drunk or sober — ’gin a thousand fer his 
 rights; 
 
 He’d sometimes close an argument by shootin’ out the 
 lights; 
 
 An, when there was a killin’, by the quickest on the draw, 
 
 He wern’t disposed to quibble ’bout the majesty uv law; 
 
 But a thief — a low-down villain — why, he had no use for 
 him, 
 
108 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 An’ wuz mighty apt to leave ’im danglin’ from a handy 
 limb. 
 
 He wuz heeled and allers ready — quick with pistol or with 
 knife, 
 
 But he never shirked a danger or a duty in his life! 
 
 An’ at a tale uv sorrow or uv innocence beguiled 
 His heart wuz just as tender as the heart uv any child. 
 
 An’ woman — aye, her honor wuz a sacred thing; an’ hence 
 He threw his arms around her — in a figurative sense. 
 
 His home wuz yours, where’er it wuz, an’ open stood the 
 door, 
 
 Whose hinges never closed upon the needy or the poor; 
 
 An’ high or low — it mattered not — the time, if night or day, 
 The stranger found a welcome just as long as he would stay. 
 
 Wuz honest to the marrow, and his bond wuz in his word. 
 
 He paid for every critter that he cut into his herd; 
 
 An’ take your note because he loaned a friend a little pelf? 
 No, sir! indeed! He thought you wuz as worthy as himself. 
 An’ when you came and paid it back, as proper wuz an’ 
 meet, 
 
 You trod upon forbidden ground to ask for a receipt. 
 
 In former case you paid the debt (there wern’t no intres’ 
 due), 
 
 An’ in the latter — chances wuz he’d put a hole through you! 
 
 The old-time cowboy had ’is faults; ’tis true, as has been 
 said, 
 
 He’d look upon the licker when the licker, men, wuz red; 
 His language wern’t allers spoke accordin’ to the rule; 
 
 Ner wuz it sech as ye’d expect to hear at Sunday school. 
 
 But when he went to meetin’, men, he didn’t yawn or doze. 
 Or set there takin’ notice of the congregation’s clothes. 
 
 He listened to the preacher with respect, an’ all o’ that, 
 
 An’ he never failed to ante when they passed aroun’ the hat! 
 
 I call to mind the tournament, an’ then the ball at night; 
 
 Of how old Porter drawed the bow an’ sawed with all ’is 
 might; 
 
SAM NEILL 
 
 One of the Best Cowpunchers on the Trail 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 109 
 
110 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Of how they’d dance — the boys an’ girls; an’ how that one 
 wuz there 
 
 With rosy cheeks, an’ hazel eyes, an’ golden, curly hair; 
 
 An’ I — but here I’m techin’ on a mighty tender spot; 
 
 That boyhood love, at this late day, had better be forgot; 
 
 But still at times my heart goes back agin and fondly strays 
 
 Amidst those dear remembered scenes — the good old cow- 
 boy days! 
 
 The old-time cowboy wuz a man all over! Hear me, men! 
 
 I somehow kinder figger we’ll not see his like agin. 
 
 The few that’s left are older now; their hair is mostly white; 
 
 Their forms are not so active, and their eyes are not so 
 bright 
 
 As when the grass wuz wavin’ green, the skies wuz soft an’ 
 blue, 
 
 An’ men were brave an’ loyal, and the women fair and true, 
 
 An’ the land wuz filled with plenty, an’ the range wuz free 
 to graze, 
 
 An’ all rode forth as brothers — in the good old cowboy days! 
 
 COURAGE AND HARDIHOOD ON THE OLD TEXAS 
 CATTLE TRAIL 
 
 Sol West, one of the best-known cattle men in Texas, 
 who is a part owner of a ranch of 30,000 acres in Jackson 
 county, worked a whole year for 75 cents and board, when 
 a young man. Mr. West belongs to the old school of cattle 
 men. He received his business training in the early days 
 in Texas when the chief occupation of its citizenship was 
 raising cattle, but the more difficult proposition was to find 
 a market for them. Texas had no railways then except in 
 the eastern portion of the state, and these were not available, 
 for the reason that they did not go to Kansas and the north- 
 west. Men were forced to do some farming, for they had 
 to raise corn in order to have bread. 
 
 In the early days an occasional buyer who resided in 
 Southwest Texas, would purchase a herd of 8,000 or 10,000 
 steers on time. There was no payment made at the time 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 111 
 
 of the purchase, for the reason that the buyer needed all the 
 money at his disposal to defray the expense of the drive. 
 The seller did not even take his note for the purchase price, 
 because he knew he was dealing with an honest man. 
 The only evidence of debt was the tally of the cattle, giving 
 the numbers in each class, including the mark and brand 
 they bore. The purchaser would head north with them. 
 Sometimes he would go to Ellsworth, Abilene or Dodge City, 
 Kansas, or some other point at the southern terminus of 
 railroad transportation where the chief occupation of the 
 cowboy at times was to see that his shooting irons were in 
 good working order. Sometimes the herd would be headed 
 for Montana, Dakota or Nebraska. The seller did not exact 
 any promise from the purchaser to pay for the cattle at a 
 certain time, for neither of them knew whether it would 
 take one, two or three years for the buyer to dispose of his 
 holdings and get back to Texas again. There was always 
 a satisfactory settlement, however, when he returned. If 
 he had the money to pay for them it was all right, but if he 
 had lost half of them in a blizzard, the seller did not take his 
 note for the balance due and insist on its being secured by 
 a mortgage. The slate was wiped clean and work began 
 again shipping up another herd on the same terms. 
 
 The trite old saying that “man’s inhumanity to man makes 
 countless thousands mourn” had no place in the lexicon of 
 the Texas cattlemen in those days. He was then, as he 
 is now, ready to lend a helping hand to a deserving fellow- 
 man, and he could shed tears as easily as a woman when 
 his friends were bowed in grief. 
 
 It was amid such surroundings that the firm of McCut- 
 cheon & West of Lavaca county, composed of the late 
 Willis McCutcheon of Victoria and George W. West was 
 preparing another herd of cattle to go north. Sol West, 
 now a resident of San Antonio was a younger brother of 
 George W. West. While still a mere strippling he had 
 made three previous trips up the trail, and the firm made 
 a deal with him in 1874 to take a herd to Ellsworth, Kan., 
 for half the profits. He was the youngest man who ever 
 “bossed” a herd up the trail. 
 
112 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 “It was a trip fraught with some adventure, considerable 
 responsibility, and very little cash,” said Mr. West a few 
 days ago, while he was in the reminiscent mood. “1 was 
 the first man to reach Ellsworth that spring, notwithstanding 
 the trials and tribulations, which beset us, and as a mark of 
 their appreciation, the business men of the town presented 
 me with a suit of clothes, hat, boots, and in fact, a new 
 outfit entirely. I stayed around up there all year, selling 
 a few steers here, a few there. There never had been 
 such a spree of weather as greeted us in the Indian territory 
 on our way up. Myself and the men got back to Lavaca 
 county about December 1st. My brother George was the 
 bookkeeper for the firm of McCutcheon & West, and when 
 1 turned over to him the list of my receipts and expenditures, 
 and what cash I brought back with me, he proceeded to 
 figure up results. I had to check it up very carefully to 
 be sure that he made no mistake. We had agreed on a 
 price for the cattle when I started with them, and I was 
 to have one-half of all they brought over that price, after 
 deducting the expenses incident to the trip. The net profit 
 on the year’s work was $1.50, and when my brother 
 handed me the 75c he made some jocular inquiry as to 
 whether I expected to buy a herd of my own, or start a bank 
 with it. 
 
 “I left Lavaca county on February 27th, 1874, with the 
 herd, and on the night of the 28th reached Gonzales Prairie 
 in Gonzales county. On the 1st day of March we crossed 
 the Red River into the Indian territory without any mishap, 
 having had a splendid drive, with clear open weather all 
 the way. But this was not to last long. We pushed on 
 north, and late in the afternoon of April 6th, we reached 
 Rush Creek, where the two prongs came together just above 
 the trail. The range had been burned off by the Indians 
 and was black, but, being protected by two streams, the 
 grass between these prongs was fine. We stayed there for two 
 days, and on the morning of the 8th took an early start for a 
 camp, on Hell Roaring Creek, about fifteen miles further 
 north, which I had selected because grass and water were 
 plentiful there. The cook with the wagon had preceded 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 113 
 
 us, but we got in sight of camp about three o’clock in the 
 afternoon. The day had been a bad one, misting rain 
 and snowing lightly all day, with a brisk wind from the 
 north. Just as the head cattle came within about one hun- 
 dred yards of camp at the foot of some high hills the bliz- 
 zard broke forth with increased fury. The cattle at once 
 turned their heads to the south and began to drift with the 
 wind. I knew we were in for a bad night of it, and there 
 was not a man in the outfit over 20 years old. We held 
 them back as best we could until after dark. In the mean- 
 time the horses ridden by the boys had actually frozen to 
 death, and their riders on them during our progress of about 
 five miles. My horse was the last to go down. 
 
 “I had instructed the boys that when the horses went 
 down they should go back to camp. When I was forced to 
 leave my horse there were two men with me, both on foot, 
 of course. One of them was Charles Boyce of Goliad 
 county, who is now a prosperous stock farmer, and who 
 will easily recall that fearful night. The other was Jake 
 Middlebrack of Lavaca county, who returned to that county 
 with us, but of whom 1 have lost sight of for many years. 
 We finally got the cattle checked after the wind had subsided 
 a little, and as we had not touched a bite to eat since early 
 morning we began to cast about for something to break 
 our fast. We had each a box of matches, but our hands 
 were so numb that we could not ‘Trike one, even if we 
 could have gotten the box out of our pockets. 
 
 “Presently I saw a light in the hills about two miles away. 
 We started for it and reached the dug-out, for such it proved 
 to be, after a weary trudge of an hour or more. The dug- 
 out had two rooms and the men took us in after we told 
 them our hard luck story. They gave us a fine supper and 
 put us to bed in the spare room, with plenty of good warm 
 bedding. The next morning at the peep of day I roused 
 out the boys. I found a dun pony under a shed on the 
 outside with a bridle and saddle convenient and 1 appropri- 
 ated it and told the boys to follow me down in the direction 
 of the herd, provided it was where we had left it. They 
 followed me down and I found the herd intact, just where 
 
1 14 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 we had left it the night before, after one of the coldest 
 nights I ever experienced. 
 
 “Soon after I reached the herd the other boys hove in 
 sight and we started the cattle back towards the camp, 
 the snow, sleet and ice being a foot and a half deep. Hell 
 Roaring Creek and all the other streams in that section 
 were frozen hard. We had traveled a couple of miles down 
 the creek when 1 discovered a man on foot coming toward 
 us. He proved to be A1 Fields of Victoria. He was what 
 was known as my neighbor on the trail, having a herd just 
 behind me. He was overjoyed to see me, as he feared we 
 had all frozen to death that night before. All of his horses 
 and work oxen had frozen to death and his herd was 
 scattered to the four winds. When we finally reached the 
 camp Jim Taylor, the man who had entertained us in the 
 dug-out the night before, and about fifteen of his men were 
 there. 
 
 “Charles Boyce had told me previously that he was not in 
 a very good humor about the plan I had adopted to borrow 
 his horse. 1 proved to be a good talker, however, and 
 when I got through Jim said he guessed $1.50 would be 
 enough for the use of the horse. 1 told him that the price 
 was cheap enough, but I didn’t tell him there was only 
 
 ten cents in cash in the whole outfit. I traded him some 
 
 steers for three horses and a mule, and included the $1.50 
 in the trade. Our troubles were not to end here, however. 
 
 “Two men were behind with the ‘remuda’ of 65 horses 
 used by the men on alternate days in coming up the trail. 
 I sent two of the boys back to meet them, and led them into 
 camp. Going back about eight miles they met the men 
 coming toward camp on foot, as the whole 65 head had 
 frozen to death the night before in a space not larger than 
 an ordinary dwelling house, and the boys had only saved 
 themselves from a like fate by building a fire in the black- 
 jack timber and keeping it going all night. We held the 
 herd there for a couple of days with the three horses and 
 the mule, and I traded some steers to the Indians for three 
 more horses. We then started on north and reached 
 
 Ellsworth on May 20th. This heavy loss of horse flesh 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 115 
 
 was a prominent factor in the hindrance which cut the net 
 profits of the drive down to $1.50. Not a single one 
 out of 78 head of horses survived the terrible blizzard of 
 four or five hour’s duration.” 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sol West now reside at 422 Pershing Avenue, 
 San Antonio, Texas. Their two sons, George W. West, Jr. 
 and Ike West are ranching in Zavalla county, Texas. Their 
 daughter, Mrs. Alfred Pierce Ward lives in San Antonio, — 
 all enjoying good health and prosperous. 
 
 Mr. West made twelve successive trips over the trail from 
 the coast of Texas to Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and 
 other northern markets with large herds of Texas cattle. 
 His first trip was in 1871, — a good many trips for a boy 
 to make without break, and he didn’t ride in any automobiles 
 on these trips. 
 
 PLAYED PRANKS ON THE TENDERFOOT 
 
 By Henry D. Steele, San Antonio, Texas 
 
 Early in the spring of 1882 I was employed by Mark 
 Withers of Lockhart, to go up the trail with a herd to 
 Kansas. Before starting on the trip I went to San Antonio 
 and purchased a complete cowboy equipment, broad-brimmed 
 hat, leggins, Colt’s pistol, scabbard, cartridges, and the 
 usual trimmings. We went down into McMullen county 
 to get the cattle, and I was selected as horse-wrangler for 
 the outfit. The cattle were bought from a man by the 
 name of Martin. While we were at Tilden, George Hill 
 came up with some of the boys and helped to gather the 
 herd. I was pretty much of a “tenderfoot,” just a slip of 
 a boy, and the hands told me this man Hill was a pretty 
 tough character and would steal anything he could get his 
 hands on, besides he might kill me if I didn’t watch him. 
 They loaded me up pretty well on this kind of information, 
 and 1 really believed it. They would steal my matches, 
 cartridges, cigarette papers and handkerchiefs, and tell 
 me that Hill got them. I reached the time when I was 
 deprived of almost everything I had and even had to skin 
 prickly pear to get wrapping for my cigarettes, believing 
 
116 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 all the while that the fellow Hill had cleaned me up. 
 
 Things were getting serious and 1 was desperate, and 
 if Hill had made any kind of a break the consequences 
 would probably have been disaster. At last Hill, who was 
 fully aware of the game that was being played on me, 
 
 called me aside and told me that it was all a put up job, 
 
 and said it had been carried far enough. We all had a 
 good laugh and from that time forward harmony reigned 
 in camp. 
 
 John Story was our cook until we reached Coleman 
 
 county, but there he left us and returned to Lockhart, to 
 engage in the blacksmith business. After Story left us I 
 had to do the cooking some time, and getting tired of that 
 work 1 quit the herd and returned home, George Hill accom- 
 panying me as far as Austin. 
 
 In the spring of 1883 I was employed by Dick Head of 
 Lockhart to go with a herd. Monroe Hardeman was boss. 
 We gathered the cattle in Mason and Coleman counties. 
 The cattle were pretty thin, as the range was dry and had 
 little grass. We passed through McCulloch county, through 
 North Texas, and into the Indian Territory. Crossed the 
 Washita River when it was on a big rise. That night we had 
 a severe thunderstorm and I lost my hat during the rain. 
 
 When we reached Dodge City, Kansas, we remained 
 there several days to allow the herd to rest, and from here 
 we proceeded to Ogallala, Nebraska, where Mr. Head sold 
 the cattle, and most of the crew came home, but Joe 
 Lovelady, Pat Garrison, myself and Charlie Hedgepeth, 
 a negro, went on with the herd to Cheyenne, Wyoming, 
 where he arrived in August. When we started back we 
 bought our tickets for Austin, and the price was $33.35 each. 
 
 It has been just thirty-seven years since I went over the 
 trail. I do not know what has become of the men who 
 went with me on that trip. One of the hands, Charlie 
 Hedgepeth, the negro, was hanged at Seguin by a mob some 
 years ago. I saw Mark Withers at the Old Trail Drivers’ 
 reunion in San Antonio in 1917. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 117 
 
 WHEN A MAN’S WORD WAS AS GOOD AS 
 A GILT-EDGED NOTE 
 
 By George N. Steen, Bryan, Texas 
 
 Taking the advice of Jake Ellison in 1867, I decided to 
 go into the cattle business. I had no money, but the people 
 let me take their cattle on credit, and I gathered enough to 
 start a herd from San Marcos, Texas, to Abilene, Kansas, 
 in the spring of 1868. I had six cowboys and only one 
 hundred dollars to start on the trip with, but 1 knew 1 would 
 get through somehow. When we reached Gainesville, my 
 money was all gone, and our stock of grub was low. 1 
 went into the town to see if 1 could buy enough groceries 
 to last until we could get through the Indian Territory. 1 
 was a perfect stranger there, and did not know a man in the 
 town. I went into George Howell’s store, told Mr. Howell 
 my circumstances, and asked if he would credit me for what 
 I needed. He looked me straight in the eye for a few 
 
 seconds and said he would do so. And he didn’t ask for 
 a mortgage or a note or anything to hold me bound except 
 my word to pay. 
 
 Our bread gave out before we got through the Indian 
 
 Territory, and I started foraging. One of the boys in my 
 
 outfit had a ten dollar gold piece and loaned it to me to 
 
 use in buying flour. 1 struck a small trail and followed 
 it until it led me to a little old log cabin. I got off my 
 horse and went inside and found an old Indian who could 
 not speak very much English, and did not seem to under- 
 stand what 1 wanted. Looking around the room I saw a 
 sack of flour and said to him, “How much take?” He said 
 “Ten dollars,” so 1 gave him the gold piece and went back 
 to camp rejoicing. 
 
 Capt. Bill George of Seguin, joined me while going 
 through the Indian Territory. We had some trouble with 
 Indians on the trip. One night our herd was stampeded 
 and we discovered that it was a ruse played by the Indians 
 to get possession of our horses. 1 heard them rustling about 
 and put in after them with the result that I captured a horse 
 and bridle. Next morning when we started the herd we tied 
 
118 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the horse at the edge of a mot of timber, and I concealed 
 myself in the thicket to watch for developments. Pretty 
 
 soon an Indian came to the horse, and I covered him with 
 my gun. He thought his time to depart to the happy 
 hunting grounds had arrived. After giving him a good 
 scare I made him promise to quit thieving and to never 
 again attempt to steal horses from trail drivers. Then I let 
 him go, 
 
 I was in Abilene when Tom Bowles and Wild Bill, the 
 city marshall, had a shooting scrape and a policeman was 
 killed by a stray bullet. While we were there one night 
 a man was drinking at a bar in a saloon, and somebody 
 fired in from outside, the bullet striking him in the mouth 
 and instantly killing him. Later one of the boys with a 
 Texas herd was shot and killed by one of the Mexican 
 hands. The Mexican skipped out. A reward was offered 
 for his capture dead or alive, and Wesley Hardin got the 
 reward. 
 
 LIVED ON THE FRONTIER DURING INDIAN TIMES 
 
 By Joe F. Spettel, Riomedina, Texas 
 
 I was born in the Haby settlement in 1856, and have 
 lived in Medina county all my life. My parents were Castro 
 colonists and came to this country in 1844, locating in the 
 Haby settlement. My father, John Spettel was a “Forty- 
 Niner,” and went to seek his fortune in the California gold 
 fields. He, with two companions made quite a lucky strike, 
 but in returning homeward they were overtaken by a band 
 of robbers, his companions were killed and father received 
 a bullet wound which eventually caused his death, although 
 he lived for several years afterward. He came home 
 and remained awhile, and again went to California, but 
 did not find mining so successful as on his former trip. 
 However, he brought back some gold nuggets that are still 
 in the possession of our family. 
 
 In 1852 he married Miss Mary Haby, and of this union 
 were born three children, respectively John B., Mary, and 
 Joseph F. Spettel. My father died in 1857, his early demise 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 1 19 
 
 being due to the wound he received while prospecting. 
 My sister became the wife of my partner, Louis Schorp, 
 and she died in 1905. My brother died in 1909, so I am 
 the sole survivor of one of the most courageous men that 
 ever resided in this vicinity, who overcame all obstacles 
 to penetrate the unknown western land to accumulate a 
 fortune. 
 
 After my father’s death my mother had to depend on 
 hired help, as we were not large enough to take care of the 
 farm and stock. At this time we had but one horse, and 
 the Indians stole him. As time went on we began to 
 prosper, our cattle increased and we had a fine bunch of 
 saddle horses, but fate was against us it seemed, for in 1866 
 the Indians made another raid in our settlement and drove 
 off every cow pony we owned. We did not let this mis- 
 fortune discourage us, but purchased more horses and soon 
 were able to take the proper care of our cattle. 
 
 During the Civil War we were troubled a great deal by 
 the soldiers who would come into the community and 
 gather up all the able-bodied men and boys. But the 
 
 settlers would keep out of their way as much as possible 
 and hide out their work oxen and horses to keep the soldiers 
 from taking them. 
 
 In 1870 the Indians made another raid in our neighbor- 
 hood but failed to take any of our horses, as we had heard 
 
 of their approach and penned our stock. My uncle had 
 two horses in a small pasture which he trained to come 
 
 home when he whistled to them. That night he called 
 them up and staked them near the house, armed himself 
 with a shot gun, concealed himself behind a tree and awaited 
 the results. About one o’clock the horses began to snort, 
 and caper around and he knew Indians were near. Looking 
 around he saw three Indians coming along the rail fence in 
 a trot. Just as the Indians were opposite him the foremost 
 put his head inside the fence between the upper and second 
 rails, and my uncle cut down on him with that old shot gun 
 which was loaded with buckshot. The Indian dropped in his 
 tracks, and his companions instantly vanished. The follow- 
 ing full moon another raid was made, probably by the same 
 
120 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 band, but they did not steal any horses this time. They 
 went into a field about three hundred yards from home 
 and cut up many melons. One of our dogs came home 
 with an arrow sticking in his neck. 
 
 During the seventies two companions and myself drove 
 a hundred fat steers from Medina county to Luling, the 
 nearest railway station, from where they were loaded and 
 shipped to New Orleans. 
 
 In the spring of 1873 I assisted in driving five hundred 
 aged steers from Haby settlement to a place above San 
 Antonio, where we delivered them to John F. Lytle and 
 Bill Perryman, and were met by another herd owned by 
 the same men, who drove them up the Kansas trail to 
 northern markets. 
 
 In 1875 Julius Wurzbach, my brother and I put up a 
 herd of eleven hundred steers for the firm of Lytle & Mc- 
 Daniel. It was in charge of Gus Black, who now resides 
 in Kinney county. We continued to gather herds for Lytle 
 & McDaniel for several years. 
 
 In 1878 while on a round-up near the Medina and Uvalde 
 county line, one night the Indians made a raid and tried to 
 steal our horses, but succeeded in getting only four. 
 
 From 1878 to 1887 my brother and I looked after our 
 stock and sold steers near our home. In 1883 Louis Schorp 
 married my sister, and we formed a partnership, and our 
 ranches are still known as the Schorp & Spettel property. 
 In 1887 we purchased a ranch in Frio county, and drove 
 our aged steers there every fall and shipped them to market 
 each following June. 
 
 MADE A LONG TRIP TO WYOMING 
 
 By H. D. Gruene of Goodwin, Texas 
 
 In the spring of 1870, William Murchison, who was living 
 on the Colorado River, told me that William Green of Llano 
 and Colonel Myers of Lockhart were getting ready to take 
 a herd of cattle to Kansas, and asked me to go along as 
 he had hired to them. I secured the consent of my father, 
 as I was only nineteen years old at that time, and Bill and I 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 12 1 
 
 GEO. H. MOHLE 
 
 W. B. HARDEMAN 
 
 W. P. LOCKE 
 
 W. H. ADAMS 
 
122 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 pulled out for Llano where I was engaged by Mr. Green 
 at $30.00 a month. After several days gathering the cattle 
 we started on our trip with two wagons carrying grub and 
 luggage, going by way of Burnett and Belton, where we had 
 an awful rain one night and all of our cattle got away. 
 We finally succeeded in getting them together without loss 
 of a single head. When we reached Fort Worth the Trinity 
 River was on a rise, and we were compelled to drive our 
 cattle some distance up the river to swim them across. 
 From there we had good going and crossed Red River at 
 Red River Station into the Indian Territory. In the Terri- 
 tory during the rainy nights we had several stampedes, and 
 they came so often we soon got used to them. When we 
 reached Abilene, Kansas, where we were to deliver the 
 cattle, we held the herd for several weeks and were surprised 
 to learn that the cattle would have to be driven to 
 Cheyenne, Wyoming. All of the Texas boys quit the herd 
 and returned home, with the exception of four, myself being 
 one of the number who consented to remain with the outfit. 
 Brace Lincecum of Lockhart, was the boss of the bunch 
 that was to take the cattle to Cheyenne. After many days 
 hard driving we reached our destination. There the cattle 
 were sold to another party who wanted them delivered at 
 Bear River, 110 miles above Salt Lake City, Utah, and our 
 boss, Mr. Lincecum was employed to take them there. 1 
 went along on condition that 1 was to receive $60 per month 
 and that I would not have to work at the rear of the herd, 
 John Riggs of Lockhart, was my companion on this drive. 
 
 We had to take the cattle through the Rocky Mountains, 
 and we found the nights so cold we had to burn sage brush 
 to keep warm. 
 
 After the cattle were delivered all of the boys were paid 
 off, and 1 received my wages in twenty dollar gold pieces. 
 We boarded a train to Odgen, where we stopped off and 
 went to Salt Lake City. There we bought some new 
 clothes, and had a general “cleaning-up” for we were 
 pretty well inhabited by body lice, the greatest pest en- 
 countered on the trail. The next day we took the train 
 for Abilene, Kansas, and there we each bought a horse 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 123 
 
 and rode as far as Baxter Springs, Missouri, where we met 
 up with some people named Wilks, who were living at 
 Mountain City, Hays county, Texas. They were returning 
 to Texas, and as they had four wagons we made arrange- 
 ments to travel with them. For our passage and board 
 we agreed to do the cooking for the crowd. We finally 
 reached home after a trip that covered nine months. 
 
 The following year, 1871, I made another trip, but went 
 only as far as Kansas City. I had 335 head of cattle which 
 1 put in with a bunch belonging to William Green. When 
 we reached the end of our trip we found cattle were selling- 
 very cheap, and we had to sell on credit. The party to 
 whom I sold went broke and I lost all that was due me. 
 This was my last trip. After a year at home I married 
 and settled at Goodwin, my present home, where with 
 much hard labor, in which my wife bore more than her 
 part, we have prospered and are living very contented. 
 I am in the merchantile business, and handle lumber and 
 implements as well, besides having a cotton gin, and own 
 some good farms. We have four children, two boys and 
 two girls, and they are all right here with me helping to 
 conduct my business. Our place is better known as Gruene’s 
 and any time any of my old friends come this way I will 
 appreciate a visit. 
 
 MY EXPERIENCE ON THE COW TRAIL 
 
 By F. M. Polk of Luling, Texas 
 
 My first experience on the cow trail was in 1872. I 
 went with Joe Tennison and Warnell Polk, my father. We 
 traveled the trail known as “the Old Chisholm Trail.” 
 We left for Lockhart, Texas on the first of April and went 
 by way of Fort Worth. Fort Worth was a new town then 
 and, of course, we had to stop over and see the sights. 
 After leaving Fort Worth we made good time until we 
 reached Red River, which we crossed at Red River Station. 
 The river was swollen by the heavy spring rains and we 
 were forced to swim our cattle through very deep and swift 
 watre. We lost a few, but felt lucky in getting off light. 
 
124 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We were a care-free bunch, had lots of fun and also 
 lots of hard work. It was the spring of the year and the 
 woods were very beautiful. We would pitch our tents 
 at night, get our work all done and after supper would 
 
 light our pipes and sit or lounge around the campfire and 
 listen to the older men spin their hair-raising yarns of their 
 earlier trips. We would then make our beds, using our 
 saddles for pillows, stretch our tired limbs and soon be 
 
 sound asleep and know nothing else until morning, unless 
 something happened to disturb the cattle, when we would 
 bound up and be ready for action. 
 
 I recall one stampede especially on this trip. We had 
 camped on the south side of the North Canadian River one 
 stormy night and after retiring we heard a big noise and 
 we were up and out to the cattle in a very few minutes. 
 
 We soon realized that we had our hands full, for the 
 
 cattle had scattered everywhere and it required two days 
 to get them back together again. 
 
 As we went through the country, it kept us busy looking 
 out for Indians and buffalo. One man was always sent 
 ahead to keep the buffaloes out of the herd and scout for 
 Indians for they were very savage at this time and we never 
 knew when they would attack us. We landed in Wichita, 
 Kansas, some time near the middle of July without serious 
 mishaps or the loss of very many cattle. 
 
 I decided 1 would take it easier coming back so bought a 
 wagon and left Wichita the middle of August. I came down 
 through Arkansas and the edge of Missouri and landed at 
 home the 20th of September with five head of horses. 
 
 As 1 was only eighteen years old, my father thought I 
 was too young for such a strenuous life and persuaded me 
 to farm a few years before returning to the trail, but I did 
 not like farming and after two years trial of it, 1 was more 
 than ready to go back to the wild carefree life of a cowboy. 
 In 1875 I went to work for J. W. Montgomery, better 
 known among the cowmen as “Black Bill”. He moved 
 his cattle to Lampasas county and I worked for him there 
 three years, 1875, 1876 and 1877. I returned home then 
 and worked on a ranch until the spring of 1881, when I 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 125 
 
 went to work for W. H. Jennings and John R. Blocker. 
 I bought cattle over Caldwell county until the first of April. 
 
 We left the ranch near the San Marcos River on the 
 first day of April for Kansas. We landed at the Blocker 
 ranch in five days and received twenty-eight head of outlaw 
 horses. Blocker and Jennings always took several herds up 
 the trail at the same time. On this trip they bought 200 
 head of Spanish horses from someone on the Rio Grande. 
 Bob Jennings, the boss of our herd, and I, were sent a f 
 this bunch of horses. They were the worst horses we ever 
 handled. We had lots of fun and lots of falls trying to 
 ride them. It was Ab and Jenks Blocker’s job to rope, down 
 and put shoes on them, and let me tell you it was a worse 
 job than some ladies have in trying to put a No. 3 shoe 
 on a No. 5 foot. 
 
 We made our way to Taylor, Texas, and received 300 
 head of steers. It was then the 18th day of April and it 
 required several days to put the road brand on this bunch 
 before we were ready for the long, long trail. The boys 
 had a rough time, but we certainly had lots of fun. Noth- 
 ing ever happened that we didn’t get a good laugh out of 
 it. We had one “greener” with us on this trip and we 
 never missed a chance to play a prank on him. His name 
 was Joe Hullum. Cal Tuttle, Charlie Roberts and I all 
 knew him well and, of course, delighted in teasing him. 
 When we reached Lampasas County, we told him we were 
 getting into a country where the Indians were very bad 
 and that they didn’t mind wearing a few scalps on their 
 belts. He pretended not to care, but before we had gone 
 very much further he bid us farewell, saying that he didn’t 
 care anything about being buried on the lone prairie for 
 the wild coyotes to howl over his grave and besides, he was 
 getting too far away from “dear old Caldwell county.” He 
 bade us good luck and the last we saw of him he was tak- 
 ing the newly traveled end of the trail, and he wasn’t slow 
 about it either. 
 
 For the next few days everything went on fine, the 
 weather was fair, the cattle were quiet, and we began to 
 say to each other: “Cattle driving is just about the easiest 
 
126 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 job I know of,” but, alas, peace never lasted long on the 
 cattle trail. I don’t remember just where we strucK the 
 Western Chisholm trail, but as we neared Little River we 
 had a terrible storm and rain. The cattle became fright- 
 ened and pulled off a big show. It took us three days to 
 get them all together again and when we reached the river, 
 we had to swim the cattle. They were restless and unruly 
 and it took us two days to get them all across. We had a 
 fellow by the name of Rufe Fuller taking care of the horses 
 and in crossing the river he drowned the horse he was rid- 
 ing and one of the bunch he was driving. We made pon- 
 toons and fastened to our wagons to float them across. We 
 made good time after that until we reached Pease River, but 
 here we had a big stampede and had to lay over two days 
 to gather up our cattle. The country was lined with ante- 
 lope and prairie dogs and we found great sport killing 
 them. 
 
 We crossed the Red River into the Indian Territory at 
 Doans’ Store and here we struck the Indians by the thou- 
 sands. We kept our eyes open and managed to keep peace 
 by giving them a beef every day. They would come to us 
 fifty and one hundred at a time. Some would ride with us 
 J all day and they always asked for a cow, which they called 
 “Wahaw,” and, of course, we acted like we were glad to 
 give it to them, but we were not very badly frightened. We 
 all had our guns and knew how to use them if we got in 
 a tight. As we went through this part of the country, we 
 had great sport roping buffalo and elk. You could look 
 
 across the prairie and see hundreds of them in droves. 
 
 J. R. Blocker and W. H. Jennings overtook us at Bitter 
 Creek. They were to deliver the cattle at Mobeetie, a lit- 
 tle town in the Panhandle. I quit the herd at Bitter Creek. 
 Mr. Blocker sent Will Sears and I on to overtake Givings 
 Lane, one of Blocker & Jenning’s bosses. We overtook Mr. 
 Lane in three days at Bluff Creek, and while camped there 
 we had a big rain storm which put the creek up and caused 
 a big stampede among our cattle. We stayed with Mr. Lane 
 until he got the cattle rounded up and across the creek, 
 when we decided to go to Lajunta, Colorado. I had a cousin 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 127 
 
 there running a ranch for J. J. Jones. We left Dodge City 
 the first of August and traveled up the Arkansas River horse- 
 back. We reached the Jones ranch on the fifth of August. 
 I rested one day and went to work. J. J. Jones was at that 
 time the biggest cattleman in Colorado, so you may guess 
 that we had lots of work to do. 1 worked here until the 
 first of December and as it was getting very cold up there 
 by that time and we were having some heavy snow tails I 
 decided I would strike for a warmer climate, and back to 
 Texas I came. 
 
 I hired to M. A. Withers on April the first, 1882, and 
 struck the trail again. He sent several herds this time and 
 1 went with a bunch undei Gus Withers. We had lots of 
 hard work and plenty of bad horses to ride. They were the 
 worst bunch I ever saw with the exception of the Blocker 
 bunch. The stampedes were so numerous that I could not 
 keep track of them, but we had a well trained bunch of 
 men and lost no cattle, but had to work hard and sleep with 
 one eye open. 
 
 There was so much rain and the cattle were so restless, 
 we never knew what to expect. Lots of times 1 never pulled off 
 my boots for three days and nights. After one of these 
 strenuous times, we would lay over some place and rest for 
 a few days. We would have lots of fun trying to prove 
 wb.o was the best rider, but oftentimes the horse would prove 
 that he was onto his job better than any of us. 
 
 At Pease River we had a big stampede and would have 
 lost a great many cattle if we had not been near Millet’s 
 Ranch. Millet worked only desperadoes on this ranch, but 
 they were all good cattle men and came nobly to our res- 
 cue. We ran across one boy in that crowd from Caldwell 
 County. He had decided quite a while ago that Caldwell 
 County was getting too warm for him and his cattle rust- 
 ling and had struck for a cooler climate. It seemed awfully 
 good to' us to see anyone from home, even a cattle rustler. 
 He enjoyed our stay very much as he learned of lots that 
 had happened at home since he left. We rested here a few 
 days and struck out again. 
 
128 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We crossed Red River at Doan’s Store and there we 
 found a large number of Indians camped, but they were 
 peaceable, for they were fast finding out that it didn’t pay 
 to molest cattle drivers. M. A. Withers overtook us here 
 and sent Gus Withers on with his herd, which was going to 
 Dodge, while he went ahead to get Mr. Johnson, who had 
 bought these cattle for an English syndicate, to come to 
 Mobeetie to receive our herd. He put Tom Hawker over 
 us and also changed my brother, Cal Polk, to our bunch, 
 which pleased me very much. We had been separated for 
 quite a while and had lots to tell each other. 
 
 After leaving Doan’s Store, we traveled up Bitter Creek 
 for forty or fifty miles and then turned west to Mobeetie, 
 when we turned our herd over to John Hargroves to hold 
 on the L. X. Ranch until fall, as we could not take them on 
 to Tuscosa until after frost on account of a quarantine they 
 had on at that time. 
 
 After Mr. Johnson received our bunch, he and M. A. 
 Withers returned to Dodge to receive the herd he had sent 
 there. After reaching Dodge and counting the cattle, Mr. 
 Johnson was struck and killed by lightning while returning 
 to camp. Mr. Withers was knocked from his horse, but 
 wasn’t hurt further than receiving a bad fall and shock. 
 
 About the first of October, the boss and I had a row and 
 1 decided I was ready for the back trail. I took the buck- 
 board for Dodge, which was about 300 miles from Mobeetie. 
 On reaching Dodge, I bought a ticket for San Antonio. On 
 my way home, I reviewed my past life as a cow-boy from 
 every angle and came to the conclusion that about all I 
 had gained was experience and 1 could not turn that into 
 cash, so I decided I had enough of it, and made up my mind 
 to go home, get married and settle down to farming. 
 
 PUNCHING CATTLE ON THE TRAIL TO KANSAS. 
 
 By W. B. Hardeman, of Devine, Texas. 
 
 I was just a farmer boy, started to church at Prairie Lea one 
 Sunday, met Tom Baylor, (he having written me a note sev- 
 eral days before, asking if I wanted to go up the Trail) and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 129 
 
 the first + hing he said was, “Well are you going? ” I said 
 “Yes.” So he said, “Well, you have no time to go to church.” 
 So we went back to my home, got dinner and started to the 
 “chuck wagon and remuda, ” which was camped some six 
 miles ahead. There I was, with a white shirt, collar and 
 cravat, starting on the Trail. You can imagine just how 
 green I was. 
 
 We put the herd up below Bryan. We were gone seven 
 months, so I had plenty of time to learn a few things in re- 
 gard to driving cattle. We were a month putting up the 
 herd. I was always left to hold the cattle, and when we final- 
 ly drove out of the timber and reached the prairie, the grass 
 was ten inches in height, green as a wheat field and the cat- 
 tle were poor, and hungry, so went to chopping that grass 
 as though they were paid. There was a nice little shade tree 
 right near, so 1 got off my horse to sit in the shade for a few 
 minutes and watch the cattle. The first thing I knew Tom 
 Baylor was waking me. I thought, “Well, 1 have gone to 
 sleep on guard. 1 had just as well put my hand in Col. El- 
 lison’s pocket and take his money.” I never got off of my 
 horse any more when on duty, though I have seen the time 
 when I would have given five dollars for one-half hour’s 
 sleep. I would even put tobacco in my eyes to keep awake. 
 Our regular work was near eighteen hours a day, and twen- 
 ty-four if a bad night, then the next day, just as though we 
 had slept all night, and most of us getting only $30.00 per 
 month and grub, bad weather making from twenty-four to 
 forty-eight hours, never thinking of “time and over-time,” 
 or calling for shorter hours and more pay. 
 
 In Kansas one day for dinner we bought some pies, eggs 
 and milk from a granger. He informed Baylor that a certain 
 section of land that had a furrow plowed around it, did not 
 belong to his neighbor, but was railroad land and the num- 
 ber was 115. When I came to dinner, Baylor told me about 
 the section. He also told me we would not strike any more 
 water that evening. This creek on Section 115 had fine wa- 
 ter, and he asked me if I thought best to water there. 1 
 said, “Yes,” knowing I had to herd that afternoon. Ham 
 Bee protested, and said we should not treat that old man that 
 
130 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 way, but Ham did not have to hold the herd that evening, 
 so I insisted, and Baylor said, “Get your dinner and fresh 
 horses, 1 will start to the water.” The old man lived in a 
 dug-out on the side of a hill where he could see everything, 
 so when he saw the cattle cross that furrow, he came out 
 with a shot gun, rolling up his sleeves, waving his arms and 
 shouting, “Take those cattle off my land, or I will have 
 every damn one of you arrested.” Baylor, being in the lead 
 came in contact with him first. He said, “Old man there 
 must be a mistake, we have some fat cattle and the agent of 
 the railroad (some four miles to the depot) said he had no 
 stock cars and for us to throw the cattle on Section 115.” 
 Well, sir, you should have heard that old man curse that (in- 
 nocent) agent, as well as the country in general, stating he 
 had moved his family out there, the drouth came and it 
 looked like starvation, so he was trying to save that little grass 
 for winter. Baylor compromised by telling him he had a 
 family and knew how it was, and would be willing to water 
 on one-half of the section and would give him a dogie calf 
 that had got into the herd several days before and we did not 
 want it. The old man got in a fine humor, had us to send the 
 wagon by the house to get a barrel of spring water — that was 
 the kind of a neighbor the old man had. 
 
 While in the Indian Territory one day at noon, about a 
 dozen head of range cattle got in the herd. We did not dis- 
 cover them until we threw the herd back on the trail, so we 
 had to cut them out and run them back some three miles. 
 Some time during the night they trailed us up, and came into 
 the herd and we did not discover it until we were out of that 
 range. After we got up into Kansas, I saw two men riding 
 around the herd with Baylor and when he left them he came 
 to me and said, “Bud, those men are butchers, and said they 
 would give us $300.00 for those range cattle and do not 
 want a bill of sale.” I said, “Tell them the cattle are not 
 ours, so we can’t do that; we will turn them over to Col. 
 Ellison and he can find the owner,” and we took them on. We 
 delivered that herd at Ogallala, Nebraska, took another from 
 there to the Bell Fourche in Wyoming — a 60-mile drive with- 
 out water for the cattle. We were just twelve miles from 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 131 
 
 the buffalo. By the time we branded out the herd, we were 
 short of grub, so did not go buffalo hunting, and right there 
 I lost my only chance to kill buffalo. We were five hundred 
 miles from a railroad, but I wish I had gone any way. 
 
 Tom P. Baylor was a son of Gen. John R. Baylor. He 
 died some twenty-one years ago. He was as fine a man as 
 I ever knew. Ham P. Bee is now in San Antonio, express 
 messenger on a railroad. 
 
 In 1883, I went on the trail with W. T. Jackman of San 
 Marcos. We started the herd from Colorado County at 
 “Ranches Grande” owned by Stafford Bros. While in the 
 Indian Territory one evening, two Indians ate supper with us. 
 I was holding the herd while first relief was at supper. Dan, a 
 fifteen year old boy was holding the “remuda” (saddle 
 horses). We really had two herds with one wagon, had 
 three thousand cattle, four hundred horses and one hundred 
 saddle horses, fifteen men in all, and only three six shooters 
 in the outfit. Just as 1 went to eat my supper and the horse 
 herders were going to relieve Dan, we heard him give a 
 distress yell and shoot several times. Jackman and Lee 
 Wolfington mounted their horses, drew their guns and 
 started in a run for Dan. That was one time I wished for 
 a gun. Twelve men and nothing to defend ourselves with. 
 So you know I was like the little negro, “Not scared, just 
 a little frightened,” knowing four hundred Indians were in 
 camp, just three miles away. Those two Indians that had 
 eaten supper with us had mounted their horses and osten- 
 sibly started for their camp, but slipped around and drove 
 off two saddle ponies. Dan discovered them by skylight, 
 hence the alarm. Jackman and Wolfington followed them 
 and recovered the horses, but did not see the two Indians. 
 W. T. Jackman is postmaster at San Marcos. He was 
 
 sheriff there for 20 years, and as good as Texas ever had. 
 
 In 1886, I went with J. C. Robertson. We drove for 
 Blocker, Davis & Driscoll. They drove forty thousand head 
 of cattle, and had fourteen hundred horses. We started for 
 Uvalde, went up the East Fork of the Nueces River, the 
 roughest trail I ever went. We could not see all of the cattle, 
 
132 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 only at bedding' time. When nearing the Territory one even- 
 ing, a young man and young lady came galloping by us — the 
 girl was well mounted, and had on a handsome riding habit. 
 We had not seen a woman for months, so we were all 
 charmed and thought she was the most beautiful object we had 
 ever beheld. All wanted to see more of her. Joe Robertson be- 
 ing the boss, found out we would pass near where the family 
 lived the next evening and there was a fine spring of water 
 where they lived, so that noon he had me to trim his hair 
 and whiskers, his intention being to take the chuck wagon 
 by to get a barrel of spring water. Of course we all knew 
 it was just an excuse to get to see that pretty girl once more. 
 Sandy Buckalew called out to me to “fix the boss right” 
 and I did my best. Sandy was pointing the herd, and 
 had a chance to pass right near the house before Robertson 
 could get up there, so he galloped over to the house to get 
 a drink of water. The old mother who was a very kind 
 and nice lady, brought him some water. He thanked her 
 and began to brag on the beautiful country, to all of which 
 she agreed, but deplored the fact that there was no school. 
 Sandy saw his chance and said, “Well, that can be arranged 
 I think, as our boss is married and his wife is a splendid 
 school teacher, and he is well pleased with the country, so 
 1 feel confident that you will have no trouble in having him 
 to locate here. He will be by to get a barrel of water and 
 you can mention it to him.” You can imagine how the boss 
 felt when the good mother did all the entertaining all the 
 time, urging him to bring his fine little wife and teach their 
 school. I don’t think he even got a glimpse of the girl. 
 We had lots of fun out of it anyway, though none of us ever 
 laid eyes on that most beautiful woman again. Joe has 
 never married, but has more children to look after than any 
 of us, as he has charge of the San Pedro Springs Park 
 in San Antonio and looks after the children there, and a 
 better man can’t be found. In the final round up, may we 
 all meet again. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 133 
 
 JOHN YOUNG 
 
134 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 EXCITING EXPERIENCES ON THE FRONTIER 
 AND ON THE TRAIL 
 
 By C. W. Ackermann of San Antonio 
 
 I was born in the year 1855 on the Salado Creek four 
 miles east of San Antonio, Bexar county, Texas. 
 
 My first adventure I can remember was when I was six 
 years old. One day my brother, ten years old, asked me 
 to go with him to hunt some cows. We both rode on one 
 horse. After we had ridden for several miles we found a 
 cow with a young calf. My brother told me to stay with 
 that cow while he hunted others, then he would return for 
 me. While he was gone the cow and calf rambled off and 
 I got lost from them in the high grass. I kept on hunting 
 the cow and in the meantime my brother returned for me 
 but could not find me. After hunting for me awhile he 
 concluded I had followed the cow home, so he went on 
 home. 
 
 My parents immediately began to search for me. 
 
 In the meantime I kept on walking in the direction the 
 cow went believing 1 was going home till night came. The 
 wolves began to howl and scared me so I climbed up a 
 little tree where I remained till they stopped howling. Then 
 I crawled down and slept soundly under the tree till the sun 
 woke me up. I got up and started off again. 
 
 I walked all day with nothing to eat but chapparal berries 
 and I was fortunate enough to find a small pool of water that 
 afternoon. By night I had not reached home so I made 
 my bed under a tree as I had done the night before. 
 
 That night there was a big thunder storm and rain. 1 
 was completely drenched. But my courage never failed 
 so in the morning bright and early I started out. 
 
 I heard some roosters crowing so I went in that direction 
 thinking I had at last found home. But to my disappoint- 
 ment it was only a Mexican house. The dogs began to 
 chase me, but the old man called them back, then took me 
 in his house where they were just ready to eat breakfast. 
 
 I was scared almost lifeless, for I could neither speak 
 nor understand Spanish. I could picture them roasting me 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 135 
 
 for dinner and all kinds of horrible things they might do 
 with me. Nevertheless I greedily drank the cup of coffee 
 and ate the piece of bread they gave me and asked for 
 more, because I was almost starved, but they would not 
 give me any more. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast the old “hombre” saddled 
 his horse, tied a rope around me and put me behind him 
 on his horse. Then he rode to an American family and 
 got a written note from the white man that he, the Mex- 
 ican, had not kidnaped me, but was taking me home. 
 
 The old Mexican took me on home and received a gen- 
 erous reward from my father. 
 
 Afterward I learned that I had roamed to Chipadares, 
 a distance of about twenty miles from my home. At that 
 time that was the nearest settlement southeast of home. 
 
 During the Civil War I was just a mere boy of nine years, 
 nevertherless I can recall some thrilling adventures. 
 
 My father was exempted from the army on account of 
 owning a flour mill. This mill was located on the San 
 Antonio River about sixteen miles from our farm. Father 
 had to run the mill himself so he and mother moved there 
 and left my older brother, 13 years old, and I at the farm 
 to take care of the stock and everything. 
 
 One day while I was alone the Confederate soldiers 
 came around gathering up horses. They threatened to 
 take mine and had me scared to death. I begged hard for 
 my horse and I told them that I needed him to get supplies 
 with. After frightening me real good they told me I could 
 keep my horse. I was the only one they left with a horse 
 around that neighborhood. 
 
 The schools in those days were very much different to 
 the schools of today. We only had private schools and 
 these lasted the entire year, our only vacation was two 
 weeks in August. 
 
 The only subjects they taught were reading, writing, 
 arithmetic, spelling, history, geography, and grammer. On 
 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we studied reading, 
 writing, spelling, and arithmetic. On Thursday and Friday 
 we had history, grammer and geography. 
 
136 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 I started to school when I was eleven years old and 
 attended three years. After that I was sent to San Antonio 
 where I studied surveying. 
 
 When I was a boy rounding up cattle was a very exciting 
 event. In those days people did not have their pastures 
 fenced so the cattle often wandered many miles from home. 
 
 About the beginning of spring we would start on the 
 round up. Three or four neighborhoods would send out ten or 
 fifteen men together. Out of these, one man was selected 
 as captain. I was just fourteen years old when I went out 
 on my first round up. My father put me in the care of our 
 captain and from him I learned how to rope and brand 
 cattle and many other important things one should know 
 abount round ups. 
 
 I often roped and branded as many as eight or ten 
 calves by myself in a day. Branding was not a very easy 
 task either for we had to run the brand. We had no ready 
 made brands as now. Many times we had to gather the 
 
 wilder cattle at night. When they went out on the prairie 
 we would sneak a tame bunch of cattle in with them and 
 thus drive them in a corral. Sometimes we would build 
 a stockade around water holes leaving only one opening 
 for the cattle to get in. Even with such a trap we were 
 often unable to hold the wildest ones in. 
 
 Licenses permitting one to carry arms was unheard of in 
 my earlier days. Every man always carried his “six-shooter” 
 buckled to his side. This was necessary on account of 
 there being so many robbers. There were about forty 
 or more highway robbers scattered over the country in 
 squads of five or six men. 
 
 I remember one time as three of the other boys and 
 myself were coming from the market in San Antonio we 
 were waylaid by some robbers. Fortunately we spied them 
 in time and each of us galloped off in different directions. 
 They fired at us, but we all escaped unharmed. 
 
 When I was sixteen years old I had a little experience 
 with horse thieves. 
 
 My father noticed a suspicious looking man riding around 
 our place one day so he told us boys we had better watch 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 137 
 
 the horses. My brother and I went out to guard the horses 
 that night and just about mid-night the thieves came in two 
 or three different squads. How many there were we never 
 knew. We watched them give signals to each other with 
 the fire of their cigarettes. Then we fired at them and 
 scared them away. We hit one of them, but never knew 
 if we killed him or not. After that we were never bothered 
 with horse thieves. 
 
 The robbers were certainly skillful. I recall one day when 
 my brother and I were out on a hunt, we laid down to rest. 
 We used our saddles for pillows and put our belts and “six 
 shooters” under them. And while we were resting someone 
 sneaked up and stole my belt and “six shooter” right from 
 under my head. I suppose whoever it was thought I had 
 money in the little money pouch on my belt, but they sure 
 got fooled. 
 
 In 1872 we were not allowed so much liberty. A law 
 was passed which prohibited men from carrying concealed 
 arms. 
 
 In 1874 horse thieves and highway robbers were so bad 
 
 something had to be done. The ranchmen formed an 
 
 organization known as the “Stock Association” to rid the 
 country of these marauders. I was one of the fifty deputies 
 
 elected. After a year’s time we ' had Bexar county clear 
 
 of robbers. 
 
 My first trip up the old cow trail to Kansas was in the 
 
 year 1873 when I was just a boy of eighteen. My father 
 
 decided to take some of his cattle to the Kansas market 
 
 as they sold so cheap here. At that time, one thousand 
 
 pound beeves sold in San Antonio for $8.00 per head and 
 in Wichita, Kansas, for $23.00 per head. 
 
 Father asked a bunch of young cowboys if we thought 
 we could take his cattle to Kansas. As we were all young 
 fellows, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, 
 eager for adventure, we willingly consented. So on the 
 first day of February we began gathering our cattle and 
 finished rounding up a herd on March 14th. Early next 
 morning we started on our journey. We traveled all day 
 and that night made our first camping place where Converse, 
 
138 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Bexar county now stands, but at that time it was only an 
 open country. 
 
 That first night was one never to be forgotten. It rained 
 all night long and our cattle stampeded eighteen times. 
 During one stampede they ran into one of our men. His 
 horse was run over by the cattle and crippled, while the 
 man was carried off about a fourth of a mile on top of the 
 cattle. He escaped with only a few bruises. We were lucky 
 not to lose any cattle that night, but fifteen head were crip- 
 pled. 
 
 The next morning we bought a two-wheeled cart to carry 
 our bedding and provisions in. Then with a yoke of oxen 
 hitched to it we began our journey again and made our 
 next stop on the Santa Clara where now stands the little 
 town, Marion. That night there was an electric storm which 
 was followed by cold weather and frost. After a few days 
 rest we resumed our trail. When we reached the Guada- 
 lupe River it was up about six feet. Our cattle had to 
 swim across and our cart was taken over on a ferry boat. 
 
 At our next camping place we had another stampede 
 and lost thirty-five head of cattle which we never found. 
 
 When we reached the Colorado River it also was up 
 about four feet. After swimming that we kept on the trail 
 to Round Rock where our yoke of oxen was stolen, so we 
 had to rope and hitch two wild steers to the cart. When 
 we reached Fort Worth, at that time a small town of one 
 hundred inhabitants, we sold our cart and bought a wagon 
 and team of horses. 
 
 It was a very rainy year and every river we came to 
 was up; however we crossed them all without loss. When 
 we reached Washita River, in Indian Territory, we had to 
 stay there eight days on account of heavy rains. There 1 
 had my hardest time of the trip. For six nights I slept 
 only about one and a half hours and never pulled off my 
 slicker and boots. 
 
 Upon reaching the Canadian River we found that so high 
 we could not cross for two days. 
 
 Our next stop was on Bluff Creek on the line of Kansas. 
 There one of our men, Joe Menges, roped a buffalo calf 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 139 
 
 which we carried with us to Wichita and sold it to “Buffalo 
 Joe,” who was running a beer garden for the amusement 
 of the trail men. 
 
 We camped on the river called Ninnesquaw for three 
 months in order to fatten our cattle for the market. Then 
 my father came to Kansas by train and sold them. 
 
 On the seventh of September we began our return trip 
 bringing with us forty-five head of saddle ponies. It took us 
 twenty-seven days to make the return trip to San Antonio, 
 Only five of us made the return trip, Hartmann, Eisenhauer, 
 Markwardt, Smith, and myself. 
 
 On my journey I saw many buffalo but killed only one 
 great big one. I also killed seven antelopes. 
 
 One morning while I was eating breakfast one of the boys 
 came running up and said, “Chris, come on quick, buffalo 
 ran in the herd and they have stampeded.” I jumped on 
 my horse and went with him. The first thing I saw was one 
 of the boys, Phillip Prinz, galloping after some buffaloes 
 trying to rope one. When he spied me he came and asked 
 me for my horse. I would not give it to him and told him 
 to let the buffalo alone if he didn’t want to get killed. He 
 got a little sore at me, but we rode on back to camp together. 
 
 I think we were the youngest bunch of trailmen on the 
 “Trail” that year. The oldest man, Ad. Markwardt, our 
 cook, was only twenty-five years old, and the rest were 
 between eighteen and twenty-two years. Those that rode 
 the “Trail” with me were Alf. Hartmann, Steve Wooler, 
 Joe Menges, Phil. Prinz, Louis Eisenhauer, Ad. Markwardt, 
 Henry Smith, a negro, and my brother Fred. 
 
 Besides making trips over the “Trail” to Kansas, I often 
 made trips to the coast. 
 
 Years ago there were no trains we could ship our cattle 
 on as nowadays. Whenever we wanted to take cattle to 
 the seaport we had to drive them. We usually drove them 
 in herds of about two hundred head. 
 
 In the spring of the year we would begin rounding up 
 our cattle, as the beef buyers usually came in the early 
 fall. Our captain would give us orders for the trip, then 
 
140 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 we would start out, each man with his pack-horse and two 
 saddle horses. 
 
 There were large stock pens scattered over the country. 
 We would each go in different directions and all meet at 
 one of the pens. At night when we went into camp we 
 would hobble our tamest horses with buckskin hobbles, 
 and staked the wilder ones. We hung our “grub” up in a 
 tree so nothing could bother it. 
 
 After we had all the cattle together we would start for 
 home. As we came near to each man’s house he would 
 cut his cattle out of the herd. 
 
 Then came the beef buyer. After he bought as many as 
 he wanted, he would get ready for the drive to the seaport. 
 I helped him out many times just to take the trip. 
 
 We would often lose cattle on these trips for they would 
 stampede and of course we seldom found those that got lost. 
 At one of our camping places an Irishman had built a pen 
 on rollers. When the cattle stampeded in that pen there 
 was no danger of losing any. When they would run the 
 pen went right with them. It was often carried as far as 
 fifty yards. 
 
 In the year 1874 I had another very thrilling experience. 
 On account of such a dry year my father decided to move 
 to a different location. He did not know where to go so 
 he gave me the job of hunting a suitable place. 
 
 In August of that year 1 started out with two saddle horses 
 and one pack horse. 1 went in a northwestern direction 
 then turned toward the Concho country. I went as far as 
 the New Mexico boundry line, then started back home. 
 
 The country 1 traveled through was very wild. There 
 were just a few small settlements scattered here and there 
 and the people even seemed uncivilized. 
 
 I saw antelope and buffalo by the thousands. It was that 
 year the government was trying to kill out the buffalo. 
 I passed many mule trains loaded with buffalo hides. Even 
 though the country was wild I found some excellent locations 
 for a ranch, especially in the Concho country. 
 
 When I returned home and told father about the wild 
 country and people he decided not to move so far away. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 141 
 
 So he bought a ranch close to where now stands Wetmore. 
 Later he gave me this ranch. 1 moved up there in 1877 
 and lived a bachelor’s life till I married Emma Bueche in 
 1882 . 
 
 We lived on that same ranch until 1905. Then I bought 
 a small farm of 500 acres at Fratt about nine miles from 
 San Antonio, and left one of my sons in charge of the ranch. 
 
 I am now living a quiet, peaceful life on my farm. 
 Every time I go up to my ranch memories of those old 
 wild, happy days come back to me. 
 
 Now I am 65 years old and have a clear record of never 
 being arrested and never was involved in any kind of law 
 suit. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF BYGONE DAYS 
 
 By Louis Schorp of Rio Medina, Texas 
 
 In the spring of 1873 John Vance, a merchant of Castro- 
 ville, decided to drive a herd of cattle up the Kansas trail. 
 In company with my neighbors I helped to round up and 
 deliver steers to Mr. Vance, this being my first work along 
 this line. Bladon Mitchell, a pioneer of Bandera county, 
 was engaged by Mr. Vance as trail boss. All of the cattle 
 were received by Mr. Mitchell, and driven to Bandera county, 
 to a point about two miles north of the Mormon Camp, 
 where Mr. Mitchell had his herding pens, and what was 
 known as the Mitchell crossing. This property was pur- 
 chased during the early eighties by the firm of Schorp & 
 Spettel, but at the present time it is entirely covered by the 
 Medina Lake, a vast body of water empounded by a great 
 concrete dam. After delivering my bunch of steers I went 
 over to Elm Creek, a tributary to the Medina River, where 
 I found a crowd rounding up cattle for Perryman & Lytle, 
 among whom were the Spettels, Habys and Wurzbachs. The 
 following day five men out of this crowd, including myself, 
 were going to Bandera to see the Vance cattle inspected and 
 road branded. As we were getting ready to start, the steers 
 became frightened and stampeded. I was the only one on 
 horseback, and one of the men yelled to me to “turn the 
 
142 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 leaders toward the bluff and mill them.” I did not under- 
 stand the meaning of this, for I had never seen a stampede 
 before. I knew how to turn the crank on a coffee-mill but 
 when it was necessary to “mill’ a bunch of outlaw steers I 
 did not know where to look for the crank. I turned the lead 
 cattle from running into camp and crowded them against 
 the bluff, but they did not mill, and when I looked back I 
 saw that most of the cattle had turned behind me. By this 
 time all of the men in camp were on their horses and it took 
 about an hour to get all of the cattle together again. Every 
 steer had his tongue out, and ox tongue never looked so 
 cheap to me before or after. 
 
 The next day 1 went with the boys to take the herd out 
 to graze, and when several miles southwest of Bandera one 
 of the men pointed to a large live oak tree and said six 
 men were hung to its branches during the Civil War by 
 Confederate soldiers. The next day the cattle were inspected 
 by a man named Pue. During the inspection a dispute 
 arose about a certain steer belonging to a Frenchman named 
 Cordier at Castroville. 1 had delivered this steer to Mr. 
 Mitchell, and knew it by the flesh marks and it was branded 
 R I, but the party calling the brand called it B 1. The 
 inspector asked for water with which to dampen the brand, 
 and finding the bucket empty he took out a bottle of 
 whiskey, wet the brand with the liquor, smoothed the hair, 
 and the brand showed R I very plainly. Thus twelve dollars 
 were saved for the old Frenchman. 
 
 1 rounded up steers every spring thereafter, and delivered 
 most of them to Lytle & McDaniels of Medina county. 
 
 During the year 1874, while riding over the range one 
 day looking after stock I noticed a cow running about and 
 bellowing, and rode over to see what was the matter with 
 her. 1 found she had a very young calf by her side and 
 three wolves were trying to get the calf. I chased the wolves 
 away, and drove the cow toward shelter. The calf had 
 been wounded, and had I not happened along when I did the 
 wolves would have killed it I am sure. I have been on the 
 range more or less ever since 4 870 and this is the only time 
 that 1 ever saw wolves attack a calf. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 143 
 
 During- the winter of 1878 and 1879 grass in the Medina 
 Valley was very short, and many of the stockmen lost 
 heavily. My father at this time owned about five hundred 
 cattle, and I remember that 1 skinned seventy head of 
 father’s cattle that winter. In the fall of. 1879 I moved 
 the remainder of our cattle to San Miguel in Frio county, 
 to where the Keystone pasture is now located. In the spring 
 of 1880 I purchased all of the stock belonging to my father. 
 I sold the steers to John Lytle, and delivered them to him 
 in the Forks Pasture at the mouth of the Hondo. This was 
 the last bunch of steers 1 sold and delivered to go up the 
 trail. 
 
 In the fall of 1882 the land in this particular part of Frio 
 county where I ranched was purchased by a company from 
 Muscatine, Iowa, known as the Hawkeye Land & Cattle Co. 
 I sold all my land and stock to this company and moved 
 back to Medina county, where I have resided ever since. 
 
 In the spring of 1884 I formed a partnership with Ed 
 Kaufman, who now resides in San Antonio, and we drove 
 a herd of horses to Pueblo, Colorado. I went with the herd 
 only as far as Mason county. In the outfit were George 
 Gerdes, now with the Schweers-Kern Commission Co.; 
 John Saathoff of Hondo, Eames Saathoff of New Fountain, 
 and a cook whose name I have forgotten. 
 
 MET QUANNAH PARKER ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By John Wells, of Bartlett, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Gordon county, Georgia, July 19, 1859. 
 My father died when I was three years old. I left home 
 in July when only ten years of age and from that time on 
 earned my way. The family moved to Texas in ’66, and in the 
 winter of ’67 to Bell county. First started on the trail when 
 1 was 23 years of age with thirteen men, including boss, cook 
 and horse rustler. Worked for Hudson, Watson & Com- 
 pany in spring of ’83. Gathered about eight thousand cat- 
 tle from Lampasas, Burnet, Llano, Williamson, Gillespie and 
 San Saba counties. The company sold three thousand cat- 
 
144 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 tie to Bob Johns, and two thousand cattle to Bill Shadley, 
 also eighty-five horses, chuck wagon and trail outfit, drove 
 them to Taylor and shipped to Wichita Falls. Alex Webb 
 and 1 were sent to San Antonio to receive and bring two 
 thousand cattle and twenty-four horses to Wichita Falls. 
 This bunch was then unloaded and thrown with the Burnet 
 county herd making a total of about four thousand cattle 
 and one hundred and fifteen horses. The cattle ranged 
 from one year olds to seven. We held them fifteen miles 
 from the town between Wichita and Red River for a rest 
 period of ten days to fit them for the trail. While cross- 
 ing at the mouth of Pease River, we had ten steers to bog 
 in the quicksand, and after digging them out we threw the 
 herd on the prairie and camped for the night. The boys 
 were all thirsty, having nothing to drink but gyp and alkali 
 water. I saw a settlement down the draw, a mile away, and 
 went down and asked the people for a drink of water. They 
 told me to ride to the spring where I would find a cup and 
 help myself. I went and found a bubbling spring as clear 
 as crystal which on tasting was gyp water too. So I went 
 to the house and asked if they had some buttermilk they 
 would sell. They sold me about two gallons for fifty cents. 
 I took it back to the herd and I and four other boys drank 
 it. We were very glad to get our thirst quenched. The 
 next evening we camped near Doan’s Store and there we 
 saw our first Comanche braves. The next day the range 
 men cut the herd. We crossed the South Fork of Red River 
 that evening where thirteen steers bogged and had to be 
 dug out. One steer was bogged and I and Henry Miller, the 
 boss, went to dig him out. The boss hobbled his horse. I 
 told him he had better hitch to the horn of my saddle, as the 
 steer might catch him before he could unhobble his horse. 
 I hitched my horse to his saddle, but being the boss 1 guess 
 he thought he needed no advice. He had the spade in his 
 hand and we walked down and dug out some sand from the 
 animal. The steer began to lunge and I thought he was 
 going to get out and so 1 got my horse in between the steer 
 and my boss in time to keep him from being run over by 
 the steer. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 145 
 
 JOSEPH F. SPETTEL 
 
 JAMES E. PETTUS 
 
 W. E. CURETON 
 
 M. L. BOLDING 
 
146 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We continued up Red River for four or five days’ drive. 
 Had plenty of grass and a good supply of fresh lakes of wa- 
 ter until we came to Wichita Mountains where we crossed 
 the North Fork of Red River. There we found Quanah Parker 
 and his friend waiting for us. He wanted a yearling do- 
 nated, and said “Me squaw heap hungry.” After the boss 
 and five of the boys had gone to dinner I and four of the 
 others were left on herd. I rode around the herd to where 
 I came up to Quanah Parker and his friend. Quanah was 
 dressed like a white man. His friend wore breech clout and 
 hunting shirt with a winchester to his saddle. Quanah had 
 on a hat and pants with a six-shooter in cow-boy style. I 
 made friends with Quanah; but 1 didn’t like the looks 
 of his friend. When the boss returned to the herd after 
 dinner he gave Quanah a yearling and by that time four or 
 five other warriors had appeared. They drove the yearling 
 to their camp. 
 
 We passed through a gap of the Wichita Mountains and 
 camped on the east side of the trail. After we had bedded 
 our cattle and eaten our supper we saw a prairie fire in the 
 foot hills on the west side of the trail. The first relief was 
 on herd. The boss was afraid the fire might cross the 
 trail and burn out over camp or cause a stampede, so he 
 called the boys up and told them to get their horses and 
 named two to go to the herd, the remainder to go with 
 him. Alex Webb was to go to the herd but the cook asked 
 Webb if he was going to leave his six-shooter with him. 
 Webb told him no, he needed it. The cook says, “By Jacks, 
 when it begins to thunder and lightning you fill this wagon 
 full of six-shooters, but when the Indians are around the 
 guns are all gone and who is going to protect me?” The 
 men rode far enough to find out that there was no danger of 
 fire crossing the trail, then they returned to camp and all 
 spent a peaceful night. 
 
 We saw no more of the Comanches and the next tribe 
 was Kiowas who were frequent visitors to the camp. There 
 were seventeen for dinner one day. Three squaws sat down 
 together, and two or three papooses went to looking for 
 lice on each mother’s head and eating them. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 147 
 
 While passing through the Kiowa Indian country one of 
 our men at Alverson had a close brush with one of the war- 
 riors which might have resulted seriously had it not been that 
 the boss was close at hand with his six-shooter. The In- 
 dian, after being forced to put up his winchester, ran into the 
 herd and killed two steers before he stopped. 
 
 1 was riding with the herd in the Cheyenne country when 
 a brave asked for a cartridge from my belt. I told him my 
 cartridges were forty-fives and his gun was a forty-four. He 
 made signs to show me how he would reload it and 1 had 
 to give him one. Then he wanted to run a race. Our 
 horses were not at all matched, mine being far superior, but 
 I managed to hold him in for a short distance alongside the 
 herd, so the brave could join. The Indian parted with me 
 saying, “Me heap hungry.” I told him to come to Po Cam- 
 po at night. He came, bringing three friends, one of them 
 a youngster from college, out in full war paint, breech clout 
 and hunting shirt. He traded quirts with Jim Odell, giving 
 him a dollar to boot. The Indian wanted the quirt to ride 
 races with. About that time Frank Haddocks rode up and 
 was mistaken by a two hundred pound warrior for one of 
 their tribe. He began talking to Frank in Cheyenne, at the 
 same time advancing for a friendly bout. The college In- 
 dian acting as interpreter called him aside, and told him that 
 a family in their tribe had lost a baby years before and they 
 believed Frank was this child. They concluded then that 
 Frank had been stolen from the Kiowas and that white people 
 had stolen him before he learned to talk. Nothing seemed 
 to shake their belief that he was an Indian. They urged 
 him to go to their camp. Frank asked me to go with him 
 and I believe he would have gone had I consented. 
 
 While we were at supper the Indians were sitting on piles 
 of bedding which the cook had thrown from the chuck wagon. 
 One of the boys said, “Those damned Indians will put lice 
 on our beds.” The cook heard this and angry at having extra 
 company said, “I’ll get the fire shovel and get them off.” 
 The young Indian of course understood and at a word from 
 him they moved and sat on the grass nearby. Early next 
 morning the Indian who supposed himself to be Frank’s 
 
148 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 brother came and for an hour or more tried to persuade him 
 to come and live with them. Frank asked me again to go 
 along, and finally refused, when he saw I couldn’t be 
 persuaded. Looking back I can see we might both have 
 been benefited by staying. 
 
 We reached Dodge City, Kansas, about six weeks after 
 leaving Wichita Falls. There the boss bought provisions and 
 after crossing the Arkansas River, threw the cattle out on the 
 table-land and camped for the night. One incident broke 
 into the regular trail life between this place and Buffalo 
 which it might be well to relate. A Kansas jay-hawker had 
 been in the habit of exacting toll from the herds crossing his 
 land at Shawnee Creek. The boss riding ahead found out 
 that he asked a cent apiece for the cattle and decided to put 
 one over on the gentleman. At noon the boss came back to 
 us with instructions to get the cattle across as quickly as 
 possible and not tell the Kansas man how many head we car- 
 ried. To say about twenty-five hundred if he pressed us. The 
 next morning the boss wrote him a check for twenty-five dol- 
 lars and proceeded at once to Buffalo, where he wired Bob 
 Shadley the owner, not to honor this check. 
 
 The trail led through Buffalo and on beside the grave 
 of two of Sam Bass’ men, Joel Collins and his partner, who 
 were killed by officers at that place some years before. 
 
 Through Kansas and Nebraska we had good water, plenty 
 of grass and the cattle thrived. Reaching Ogallala our 
 cook quit and his cloak fell on my shoulders as the only 
 one of the bunch qualified to fill it. We crossed the South 
 Platte River and hiked out up the North River about sixty 
 miles, where we stopped to brand for nearly ten days. We 
 proceeded to Sydney Bridge and crossed below the Block 
 House. From this place we took the right hand trail and 
 went to Fort Robertson on the White River, past the famous 
 Crow Burke Mountain — through the Bad Lands of Dakota and 
 crossed the Cheyenne River three miles below Hot Springs, 
 at the foot of the Black Hills. We proceeded seventy-five 
 or a hundred miles further to the Company Ranch on Drift- 
 wood Creek. Webb and Odell stayed at the ranch. The 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 149 
 
 remainder went to Julesburg, Nebraska, with the provision 
 wagon, where we bought tickets and came back to Texas. 
 
 Should any of my companions read this sketch I would 
 be glad to have them write John Wells at Bartlett, Texas, 
 or better known on the ranch as John Arlington. 
 
 TEXAS COWBOYS AT A CIRCUS IN MINNEAPOLIS. 
 
 Bv S. H. Woods of Alice, Texas 
 
 1 was born in Sherman, Grayson county, Texas, January 
 29th, 1865, and left home in Sherman in the spring of 1881, 
 when a lad sixteen years of age and worked for Suggs 
 Brothers on the IS ranch, near the mouth of Beaver Creek 
 in the Chickasaw Nation, about 25 miles north of Montague, 
 in Montague county, Texas. 
 
 In the month of July, 1881, we left the IS ranch for 
 Wyoming with about 3000 head of southern steer yearlings. 
 I was the second boss — the horse rustler. We started from 
 the Monument Hills, about 15 miles north of Red River 
 Station on the old Chisholm trail, which was known at that 
 time as the Eastern Trail. About the third night out the In- 
 dians stampeded our herd at the head of Wild Horse Creek, 
 which delayed us for a few days. Leaving this point, we 
 had fine weather and moved along rapidly until we left the 
 Eastern Trail, at Red Fork Ranch on the Cimarron River 
 in the Cherokee Strip, and started up the Cimarron River to 
 intersect the Western Trail. Here we had some trouble, 
 but nothing serious. When we arrived within eight or ten 
 miles of Dodge City, Kansas, a beautiful city, situated on 
 the north bank of the Arkansas River, and about one months’ 
 drive from Red River, we could see about fifty different 
 trail herds grazing up and down the valley of the Arkansas 
 River. That night, we had a terrible storm. Talk about 
 thunder and lightning! There is where you could see phos- 
 phoresence (fox fire) on our horses’ ears and smell sulphur 
 We saw the storm approaching and every man, including the 
 rustler, was out on duty. About 10 o’clock at night we 
 were greeted with a terribly loud clap of thunder and a flash 
 
1 50 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 of lightning which killed one of our lead steers just behind 
 me. That started the ball rolling. Between the rumbling, 
 roaring and rattling of hoof, horns, thunder and lightning, 
 it made an old cow-puncher long for headquarters or to be 
 in his line camp in some dug-out on the banks of some little 
 stream. After the first break, we were unable to control the 
 cattle longer, for just as soon as we could get them quiet, 
 some other herd would run into us and give us a fresh start. 
 Finally so many herds had run together that it was impossible 
 to tell our cattle from others. When lightning flashed, we 
 could see thousands of cattle and hundreds of men all over 
 the prairie, so we turned everything loose and waited 
 patiently for daybreak. The next morning all the different 
 outfits got together and we had a general round up. It took 
 about a week to get everything all straightened out and 
 trim up the herds. We then crossed the Arkansas River 
 just above Dodge City, and traveled north-west across the 
 State of Kansas and struck North Platte River at Ogallala, 
 Nebraska. Following the North Platte River, we passed 
 Chimney Rock, old Fort Fetterman and Fort Laramie and 
 camped on the north bank of the North Platte River where 
 we rested one day grazing cattle, bathing and washing our 
 saddle blankets. We then started on a four days’ drive 
 without water (about sixty miles) across the mountains 
 from the North Platte River in Nebraska to Powder River 
 in Wyoming. When we arrived on the divide or the back- 
 bone, between the two rivers, we passed along where a 
 train of emigrants had been murdered by the Cheyenne 
 Indians about two years before. For about the distance 
 of half a mile, the trail on both sides was strewn with oxen 
 bones, irons, and pieces of wagons where they had been 
 burned but did not see any human bones because I didn’t take 
 time to make a close examination. From the appearance 
 of the surroundings there must have been twenty-five or 
 thirty wagons and ox teams. We were told by old Indian 
 fighters that there were 150 persons in the train, including 
 the women and children, all murdered — none left to tell 
 the tale. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 1 5 1 
 
 By this time the cattle were getting dry. They had 
 been two days without water and these little southern steers 
 began to look like race horses. All the men were 
 in front of the cattle except myself, the drag driver 
 and the cook. Of course, we had to take good care of the 
 grub wagon and cook. This was in the evening about 4 
 o’clock, and we did not see the men nor the lead cattle 
 until the next day about 5 o’clock in the evening. The 
 boys reported that the lead cattle reached Powder River 
 about 10 o’clock, while we did not arrive until about 5 
 o’clock. After resting two or three days, we proceeded 
 down Powder River to the mouth of Crazy Woman, 
 a small stream that empties into Powder River, and then up 
 Crazy Woman River to near the foot of the Big Horn 
 Mountain to our Wyoming headquarters. It took us just 
 exactly three months and twenty days to drive a herd of 
 southern “dogies” from Red River and deliver them at the 
 Wyoming ranch. We rested a few days while the Wyom- 
 ing outfit gathered a beef herd for market and delivered it 
 to us and then we continued our northward drive with the 
 beef herd to a station on Northern Pacific Railroad called 
 Glendive, on or near the Yellow Stone River in Montana. 
 When we loaded our cattle on the railroad for Chicago, all 
 the Texas outfit numbering about twelve, took the cow 
 trail for Texas by the way of Chicago. 
 
 Our first stop was at St. Paul in Minnesota to feed and 
 water the cattle, and while the cattle were resting, we all 
 took the interurban street car for Minneapolis, about five 
 miles from St. Paul, to see the Barnum & Bailey circus. 
 We arrived at the circus, still wearing our trail garb, just 
 a short time after the performance had begun. Of course 
 we were feeling good by this time, and just as we entered, 
 the clown had his trick mule in the ring and was offering 
 any one $5.00 that could ride him. Twelve Texas cow boys 
 fresh from the range, thought that was easy money, and 
 all wanted to win the $5.00, so we selected one of our party 
 to earn the money. (He is now one of the wealthiest and 
 most prominent stockmen of Texas, but I won’t tell his 
 name). The clown let out his mule and we let out our 
 
152 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Texas cow boy. One of the boys had a pair of Texas spurs 
 in his pocket and we fastened them on the boots of the 
 party that was to pull off the wild west stunt. The mule 
 was blindfolded and our man got on, and when the word 
 was given, one of our boys pulled off the blindfold halter 
 and all and left the two in the ring ready for business. The 
 rider fastened his spurs in the mule’s shoulders and struck 
 him in the flank with his Texas hat and that started the 
 performance. There were thousands of people in the au- 
 dience to witness the stunt. The mule made two or 
 three jumps and roared like a mountain lion and our rider 
 yelled like a Comanche Indian; the mule would pitch and 
 roar, but our rider stuck to him like a postage stamp. As 
 the rider could not be dismounted the mule laid down on 
 the ground and rolled over like a ball. Our rider stood by, 
 and when the mule would get on his feet he would find 
 our rider again on his back until, finally, the mule sulled 
 and just stood in the middle of the ring with our rider still 
 on him spurring and whipping him with his hat. The au- 
 dience went wild and uncontrollable and the police had to 
 interfere and pull our rider off the mule. The $5.00 was 
 given the rider, and after the performance we returned to 
 St. Paul, reloaded our cattle and continued our journey for 
 Chicago, where we delivered them and left for Texas. 
 
 I stopped at Sherman and went to school that fall and 
 winter and the next spring I returned to the IS ranch in 
 the Indian Territory. 
 
 For -six years I worked for Suggs Brothers during each 
 spring and summer, returning in the late fall to Sherman 
 where I attended school during the winter months. After 
 those six years spent on the trail and the range T returned 
 to Sherman and attended one full term of school after 
 which I took up the study of law in the office of Woods 
 & Brown, of Sherman, was admitted to the bar in the year 
 1888, then left for the west to grow up with the country. 1 
 first located in Haskell, Haskell county, Texas, but in the 
 spring of 1890 one of those blizzards struck me and 1 drifted 
 south and as there were no wire fences to stop me, I landed 
 in Laredo, Webb county, Texas, on the Rio Grande River 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 153 
 
 where I remained a short time, then moved to San Diego, 
 in Duval county, Texas, where I hung out my “shingle” 
 and commenced the practice of law. In the spring of 1893 
 I was appointed county judge of Duval county, but in the 
 spring of 1894 I resigned as county judge to accept the ap- 
 pointment of district attorney for the old 49th Judicial Dis- 
 trict of Texas, (a warm district about that time) composed 
 of the counties of Webb, Duval and Zapata. I received this 
 appointment from the Hon. C. A. Culberson, then governor 
 of Texas. I served as district attorney for one term and in 
 1896 I was again elected county judge of Duval county, 
 which office I held continuously until August, 191 5, when 
 I resigned and moved to Alice in Jim Wells county, Texas, 
 where 1 am now practicing law. 
 
 THE REMARKABLE CAREER OF COLONEL 
 IKE T. PRYOR. 
 
 A history of the trail drivers of Texas would not be com- 
 plete without a sketch of the career of Colonel Isaac Thomas 
 Pryor, whose achievements during the past sixty years have 
 been remarkable, to say the least. His life story reads like 
 a romance, for it is made up of thrills and pathos, struggles 
 and hardships, failures and triumphs that befell but few men 
 who successfully overcame such obstacles that Colonel 
 Pryor met and conquered. A pioneer of the early days 
 of the unfenced range, he has become the most widely 
 known cattleman of America, and his reminiscences if ever 
 written would afford a complete panorama of the cattle 
 industry of the United States. From the early days of 
 the grass trails when the great herds of the Texas long- 
 horns were driven thousands of miles to market down to 
 the present with its bred cattle, its modern marketing sys- 
 tem and rail transportation, he has been an active partici- 
 pant. At all the various stages that mark this period of 
 Texas’ development his has been an important part. His 
 has been the directing mind in determining many of those 
 steps where the decision meant either the advancement or 
 downfall of the live stock industry. At these times of peril 
 
154 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 he became the trusted leader, just as in the earlier days of 
 his young manhood he was looked upon to lead and direct 
 when brawn and courage were needed to assure right by 
 might. 
 
 Born at Tampa, Florida, in 1852, the third child of three 
 boys, the subject of this sketch was left fatherless in 1855 
 at the age of three years, through his father’s death. Short- 
 ly after his father’s death, Mrs. Pryor took her three boys 
 to Alabama, where two years later she passed away. She 
 gave one each of the boys, ranging in age from five to 
 nine years, to her three sisters. Ike, the last one being with 
 an uncle at Spring Hill, Tennessee. 
 
 At the age of nine years he ran away from the home of 
 his relative and boldly struck out into the world for himself. 
 He plunged at once into some of its most awesome and 
 thrilling scenes. It was in the year 1861 with the Civil 
 War just beginning its devastating reign. Into the midst of 
 it he entered. Attaching himself as a newsboy to the Army 
 of the Cumberland he lived among the hardships of the 
 campaign. He witnessed the scenes enacted at Murfrees- 
 boro, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain and other desperate- 
 ly fought actions of the war between the States in which 
 the loyal sons of the North and of the South fought to the 
 end, each for what they held was right. 
 
 It was in such environment that tried the very souls of 
 men, that an impressionable boy not yet in his teens, had 
 the early molding of his character. In it was seasoned the 
 courage that had sent him, inexperienced and frail, to chal- 
 lenge for life and fortune. In these scenes in which were 
 born the reunited nation with its brilliant future he imbibed 
 the spirit of empire, the broadness of vision and the inspira- 
 tion of immensity that determined the wide bounds his later 
 activities in life were to reach. 
 
 In addition to helping mold his character, the great 
 
 maelstrom of war into which he had thrust himself had a 
 
 decisive effect upon determining his immediate life and ac- 
 tions. The little newsboy unafraid, where many a man 
 
 knew fear, won numerous friends among both enlisted men 
 and officers. So personal was the interest they took in 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 155 
 
 him that after his pony had been shot from under him in 
 one of the sharpest engagements, an army surgeon decided 
 it was no place for a boy of his years and had him sent to 
 his home in Ottawa, Ohio, where he arrived in 1863. 
 
 As a background to this remarkable part of Colonel Pry- 
 or’s boyhood there is a story of a kind woman’s influence 
 over a motherless boy and her persevering search for him 
 that ended in a manner that cannot but be considered provi- 
 dential. 
 
 In one of the former homes to which the boy was sent, 
 he found an elder cousin, a beautiful young girl just enter- 
 ing into womanhood, who felt the warmest sympathy for 
 the orphaned boy brought into the home of her sisters and 
 brothers. She was his defender in the reckoning over child- 
 ish scrapes and his comforter in times of childish grief. Fol- 
 lowing his transfer to the home of his uncle at Spring Hill, 
 this girl had married Mr. John O. Ewing and removed to 
 Nashville, Tenn. The orphan boy frequently thought of her 
 in his new home and longed for her comforting. It ac- 
 cordingly happened that when he was severely, and, as he 
 felt, unjustly punished for a prank in which he had played 
 an unwilling part, he determined to leave his uncle’s home 
 and go to Mrs. Ewing, who he felt, would gladly give him a 
 home with her. 
 
 He was resolutely making his way toward Nashville when 
 a sudden advance of Federal forces passed beyond him and 
 left him within the Union lines thus determining his further 
 wanderings. Incidentally the sudden shifting of battles 
 around interrupted the pursuit of the runaway and prevented 
 his being returned to Spring Hill, Tenn. 
 
 More remarkable still was the manner in which eventually 
 he was found by Mrs. Ewing. Never losing faith that ul- 
 timately he would be located she religiously asked every per- 
 son who came from the Union lines for information of 
 him. One day a Federal forage party reached the country 
 home where she was living outside Nashville. The com- 
 manding officer, after taking the supplies wanted, courteous- 
 ly offered to issue a receipt for the property taken so that 
 later claim might be made for the amount. He approached 
 
156 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Mrs. Ewing to give her the document and pursuing her 
 usual course, she asked him if by chance he knew aught of 
 a boy she described who was thought to be among the 
 Federal troops. To her unbounded surprise and joy the 
 officer not only knew the boy; he had frequently shared his 
 couch with him, bought papers from him and assisted him. 
 More important still he knew of his being sent to Ottawa, 
 Ohio, by the Federal surgeon. Means were at once adopted 
 to get in communication with the boy in his new home. It 
 was just in time, for the adventurous lad, thus placed on the 
 very shores of Lake Erie, had determined upon a maritime 
 career. He had even selected the vessel upon which he was 
 to embark and had made overtures to her captain. Only 
 the strong love he felt for the good woman who had pro- 
 tected him in his earlier childhood deterred him from be- 
 coming a seaman. 
 
 President Johnson, himself, became interested in the 
 story of the boy, which reached him and in 1864 had him 
 returned to his relatives in Tennessee. He remained with 
 them until 1870, when he took the step that was the real 
 determination of his future career. At that time he turned 
 his steps to the wide expanse of Texas. His first employ- 
 ment was as a farm hand. For this he received $15 a 
 month. The next year he entered the cattle industry. His 
 first connection with it was as a trail hand, driving his cat- 
 tle to Coffeyville, Kansas. This was but the first of a 
 
 number of trips he made over the now almost forgotten 
 trails upon which are found today some of the greatest 
 cities of the country as successors of the hamlets of those 
 times. In 1872 he helped drive a herd of cattle from 
 Texas to Colorado. From then on his activities for many 
 years were uninterruptedly in the raising and marketing of 
 live stock as practiced in those years. In 1873 he was em- 
 ployed on the Charles Lehmberg ranch in Mason county 
 and there he really began his upward climb in the cattle 
 business. Within a short time he had become ranch man- 
 ager and in 1874 he had the responsibility of driving the 
 cattle to Fort Sill, then Indian Territory, in fulfillment of 
 contracts for their delivery to the Indians. The following 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 157 
 
 COLONEL IKE T. PRYOR 
 
158 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 year he was engaged largely in driving cattle to Austin for 
 sale to the butchers there. 
 
 In 1876 he became a ranch owner, buying land and cat- 
 tle in Mason county. The next year he again had charge 
 of a herd of cattle driven overland, this drove including 
 250 head of his own cattle, which together with those of 
 John W. Gamel, were taken to Ogallala, Nebraska. Each 
 season he reinvested and as the years passed in succession 
 he drove ever increasing herds of his own to the Northern 
 markets. In 1878 he drove 3,000 head on his own ac- 
 
 count, in 1879 he drove 6,000 and in 1880 he drove 12,- 
 000. About that time he formed a partnership with his 
 brother in Colorado and by 1884 he had so increased his 
 drive that the total that year was fifteen herds of 3,000, 
 making a total of 45,000 head in a single year. These 
 were taken to the North and Northwest over the much dis- 
 cussed Chisholm Trail, being marketed in Kansas, Nebras- 
 ka, Wyoming and the Dakotas. Profits of from $3 to $5 
 a head were reckoned for the enterprise but a period of re- 
 verses came with the winters of 1884 and 1885, and despite 
 the large operations that had been carried on, Pryor Broth- 
 ers showed a loss of half a million dollars and their liquida- 
 tion resulted. 
 
 Nothing daunted, Mr. Pryor again resumed his operations, 
 centering his activities again in the Texas field, where he 
 had achieved his first successes. By this time the innova- 
 tion of the railways and barbwire fencing had greatly changed 
 the conditions that existed in the earlier days of the open 
 range and the trails. Adapting himself to the new condi- 
 tions, Colonel Pryor again achieved success and this time a 
 lasting one. 
 
 The Texas Cattle Raisers’ Association had been organ- 
 ized by leading cattlemen of the State in order to afford 
 themselves mutual protection for their cattle. Colonel Pryor 
 early became identified with the organization and in 1878 
 he was elected a member of its executive committee. This 
 was the beginning of a long and distinguished service in the 
 interest of organized cattle industry. In 1902 Mr. Pryor 
 was elected first vice president of the Texas Cattle Raisers’ 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 159 
 
 Association and in 1906 he became its president under con- 
 ditions which made the honor one especially great. This 
 was due to the fact that Colonel Pryor was one of the heads 
 of one of the largest live stock commission firms in the 
 country (the Evans-Snider-Buel Company.) Some oppo- 
 sition developed in the convention to electing as president 
 a man who was so prominently engaged in the commission 
 business, where it was felt that there might arise conditions 
 in which the interests of the cattle raisers and the commis- 
 sion merchants would be at variance. Those who knew 
 him personally and therefore trusted him to the limit were 
 sufficiently strong to bring about his election. During his 
 administration for the year the others became so thor- 
 oughly convinced of his unfaltering devotion to their in- 
 terests that the 1907 convention witnessed the dramatic 
 and touching incident of his re-election without opposition by 
 unanimous consent, attested by a rising vote. It was thus 
 he was recognized by an organization that had grown to a 
 membership of 2,000 cattlemen, owners of an aggregate 
 of 5,000,000 head of cattle. Even this tribute was not the 
 full measure of their reliance upon him. The succeeding 
 year, the members of this organization, which had grown 
 to be one of the most important in the commercial life of 
 the nation, broke the time-honored rule of limiting the 
 presidency to two terms. They passed an amendment to 
 the constitution permitting a longer term and enthusiastically 
 named him for his third term. In 1909 he was again im- 
 portuned to stand for re-election but resolutely declined. 
 
 In the meantime, Colonel Pryor had also been elected 
 president of the Texas Live Stock Association, which in- 
 cluded all classes of interest in the live stock industry of 
 the State. He was importuned to accept another term as 
 its head but declined re-election. Later he was chosen to 
 head the National Live Stock Shippers’ Protective League, 
 which was organized at Chicago for the purpose of pro- 
 tecting the interests of live stock shippers all over the United 
 States. 
 
 On January 8, 1917, at the convention held at Cheyenne, 
 Wyo., there was added to the other honors conferred upon 
 
160 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 him by the live stock interests of the country, the presi- 
 dency of the American National Live Stock Association. 
 Again at the convention held in January, 1918, at Salt 
 Lake City, Utah, he was elected to succeed himself. A 
 
 speech made by Colonel Pryor before that convention made 
 definite recommendations to Congress for national legisla- 
 tion affecting the cattle and meat packing industry and at- 
 tracted nation-wide interest and endorsement. This was per- 
 haps the beginning of the active campaign in behalf of the 
 Kendrick or Kenyon bill, as it is generally known. In 
 
 1919, Colonel Pryor retired from the presidency of the 
 American National Live Stock Association being succeeded 
 in that office by Senator J. B. Kendrick. Last September 
 Colonel Pryor went to Washington and testified before the 
 Senate Agricultural Committee favoring the Kendrick or 
 Kenyon bill. This testimony was given wide publicity 
 through the American press at that time and is believed to 
 have exerted a wide influence. 
 
 While centering his greatest efforts in the live stock busi- 
 ness, Colonel Pryor has not attained prominence in it 
 alone. He was first chairman of the Texas Industrial Con- 
 gress. In 1908 he was elected president of the Trans-Mis- 
 sissippi Commercial Congress at Denver, Colo., and it was 
 in a large measure through his instrumentality that San 
 Antonio was selected for the 1909 session of that great 
 body. In 1909 he organized and accepted the presidency 
 of the City National Bank of San Antonio. He was at the 
 same time vice president of R. E. Stafford & Company, 
 bankers, of Columbus, Texas, and vice president and one 
 of the managers of the Evans-Snider-Buel Company. 
 
 Keeping constantly in touch with all conditions affect- 
 ing the cattle market, he has been able successfully to man- 
 age affairs that many would deem impossible. At the out- 
 break of the Spanish-American War he sent a special agent 
 to Cuba to keep him advised as to the cattle conditions on 
 that island. This foresight and enterprise resulted in his 
 sending the first ship load of beeves that arrived in Cuba 
 after the blockade had been lifted. Other shipments fol- 
 lowed in quick order until 7,000 head in all had been landed 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 161 
 
 at Havana, bringing the unusually high prices that they 
 could command. Interested with Colonel Pryor in this bit 
 of enterprise was J. H. P. Davis of Richmond, Texas. 
 
 Such is his character that it is his great fortune not to be 
 envied in his success and honors. This is because in his rise 
 to prominence and wealth he has never been other than 
 the same true-hearted man of the plains. To this day his 
 office in San Antonio is the gathering place of the great- 
 est of that great clan of Texas empire builders, the early 
 cattlemen. 
 
 HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF EARLY TEXANS. 
 
 By L. B. Anderson, Seguin, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Amit county, Mississippi, March 24, 1849. 
 Came overland with my parents to Texas in the spring of 
 1853. Our outfit consisted of two wagons and a buggy, 
 and we also brought several of our negro slaves. My 
 mother and the youngest children rode in the buggy which 
 was drawn by an old mule. We crossed the Mississippi 
 River on a ferry boat. 1 do not know how long it took us 
 to make the trip but we must have made very slow progress 
 for the older children walked almost all of the way and 
 drove an old favorite milk cow that we called “Old Cher- 
 ry.” I remember one amusing incident about that old cow. 
 She had a growing hatred for a dog, and never failed to 
 lunge at one that came near her. One evening about dusk 
 as we were driving her along the way we came to a large 
 black stump by the roadside, and Old Cherry, evidently 
 thinking it was a dog, made a lunge at it and knocked her- 
 self senseless. 
 
 The one thing that stands out most vividly in my recol- 
 lection of that trip is the fact that I was made to wear a 
 sun-bonnet all of the way. 1 hated a bonnet as much as 
 Old Cherry hated a dog, and kept throwing my bonnet 
 away, and going bareheaded, so finally my mother cut two 
 holes in the top of the bonnet, pulled my hair through them 
 and tied it hard and fast. That was before the days of 
 clipped hair and as mine was long enough to tie easily, that 
 
162 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 settled the bonnet question, and I had to make my entrance 
 into grand old Texas looking like a girl, but feeling every 
 inch like a man. 
 
 We stopped in Williamson county, near Georgetown, 
 then in the fall of the same year we came to Seguin, Gua- 
 dalupe county, where I have lived ever since, except when 
 I was following the trail. My father bought a tract of land 
 west of Seguin for $1000 cash. As it had not been sur- 
 veyed by either the buyer or the seller neither of them knew 
 how much land the tract contained. Twenty years later 
 father sold it for just what he had paid for it and when it 
 was surveyed it was found to be several hundred acres, and 
 is now worth $100 per acre. 
 
 There was but little farming carried on in those days, the 
 settlers depending on grass for feed for their work teams 
 and other stock. The crops of corn and cane were made 
 with oxen. Many times I have seen the heel-flies attack a 
 yoke of oxen and they would run off, jump the rail fence 
 and get away with the plow to which they were attached, 
 and sometimes it would be several days before they were 
 found. Of course we did not make much farming after 
 that fashion, but we did not need much in those days. We 
 lived care-free and happy until the outbreak of the Civil 
 War, when father and my older brother went into the 
 service to fight for the South, leaving me, a lad of only 1 1 
 years, the only protection for my mother and younger 
 brothers and sister-s, but mother was a fearless woman and 
 the best marksman with a rifle I ever saw, so we felt able 
 to take care of ourselves. My duties during the war were 
 many and varied. 1 was mail carrier and general errand 
 boy for all of the women in the neighborhood. Among 
 other things it was my duty to look after the cattle. Dur- 
 ing this trying time the cattle accumulated on the range and 
 afer the war when the men returned cow-hunting became 
 general. From ten to twenty men would gather at some 
 point, usually at old man Konda’s, in the center of the cow 
 range and round up the cattle. Each man would take an 
 extra pony along, a lengthy stake rope made of rawhide or 
 hair, a wallet of cornbread, some fat bacon and coffee, and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 163 
 
 plenty of salt to do him on the round-up. Whenever we 
 got hungry for fresh meat we would kill a fat yearling, eat 
 all we wanted and leave the remainder. On these trips I 
 acquired my first experience at cow-punching. Our route 
 usually would be down the Cibolo by Panamorea and old 
 Helena to the San Antonio River, and up Clate Creek gath- 
 ering all the cattle that belonged to our crowd and some 
 mavericks besides. The drives would generally wind up at 
 old man Konda’s, from where we had started, and here di- 
 vision was made, each man taking his cattle home where 
 they would be branded and turned out on the range again. 
 Some of the men who went on these trips were Gus Konda, 
 considered the best cow-man in Guadalupe county, John 
 Oliver, Frank Delaney, Dud Tom, Whit Vick, W. C. Irvin, 
 John and Dud Jefferson, Pinkney Low and sons, and Gen- 
 eral Wm. Saffold. 
 
 There was no local market for the cattle, and the Kan- 
 sas drives started about that time. Eugene Millett and his 
 two brothers, Alonzo and Hie, engaged in buying beeves 
 and work oxen to send up the trail in 1869. My father 
 sold them several yoke of old oxen which he had freighted 
 to Mexico with, and I helped deliver them to Mr. Millett at 
 the Three Mile Water Hole north of Seguin. I was already 
 a cowboy in my own estimation, those hunts on the range 
 having given me a taste of the life. Hearing Millett’s men 
 tell of their trips up the trail I decided at once that that 
 was the life for me, so I told my father I wanted to go 
 with the herd. He very reluctantly gave his consent, but 
 made me promise that if I was going to be a cow man that 
 I would be “an honest one.” He then proceeded to give me 
 a lot of good advice, and presented me with a ten dollar 
 gold piece for use on the trip. My mother sewed that 
 
 money in the band of my trousers (breeches we called them 
 in those days) and I carried it to Kansas and back that 
 way and when I returned home I gave it back to my 
 father. 
 
 The next fall and winter I worked for Pinkney Low 
 gathering cattle on the range to be taken up the trail in 
 the spring. 1 went on the trail every year thereafter until 
 
164 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 1887, when the trail was virtually closed. I went twice 
 as a hand and sixteen times as boss of the herd. I drove 
 over every trail from the Gulf of Mexico to the Dakotas 
 and Montana, but the Chisholm trail was the one I trav- 
 eled the most. The men I drove for were E. B. Millett, 
 Alonzo Millett, Hie Millett, Colonel Seth Maberry, W. C. 
 Irvin, Tom and John Dewees and Jim SherrilL The places 
 I most often delivered cattle to were Baxter Springs, Great 
 Bend, Newton, Abilene, Ellsworth and Dodge City, Kansas, 
 Ogallala and Red Cloud Agency, Nebraska, Fort Fetterman, 
 Wyoming, and Dan Holden’s ranch in Colorado on Chug 
 River. Some of the most prominent cattlemen I knew in 
 those days were Pressnall and Mitchell, John Blocker, Jim 
 Ellison, D. R. Fant, John Lytle and Dick Head. 
 
 My experiences on the trail were many and varied, some 
 perilous and some humorous. I remember one exciting 
 time in particular, when I was taking a herd for Millett & 
 Irvin from their Panhandle ranch to Old Fort Fetterman in 
 the Rocky Mountains. The Sioux Indians made a raid on 
 us, got off with most of our horses and all of our pro- 
 visions. We had nothing to eat except buffalo and antelope 
 meat until we reached North Platte City, a distance of two 
 hundred miles. 
 
 In 1871 I went up the trail with T. B. Miller and Bill 
 Mayes. We crossed at Red River Station, and arrived at 
 Newton, Kansas, about the time the railroad reached there. 
 Newton was one of the worst towns I ever saw, every ele- 
 ment of meanness on earth seemed to be there. While in 
 that burg I saw several men killed, one of them I think was 
 Jim Martin from Helena, Karnes county. 
 
 One fall after I returned from Wyoming, Millett sent me 
 to the Indian Territory to issue beef to the Indians on a 
 government contract. I was stationed at Anadarko on the 
 Washita River, and issued but once a week at Fort Sill and 
 Cheyenne Agency on the Canadian River. There I saw my 
 first telephone. It was a crude affair, and connected the 
 agent’s store and residence, a distance of several hundred 
 yards. The apparatus consisted of one wire run through 
 the walls of the store and house with a tube at each end 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 165 
 
 through which you had to blow to attract the attention of 
 the party called, and then you could talk over it as well as 
 any phone of the present time. 
 
 1 was in Abilene when Wild Bill Hickok had full sway 
 in that town and it was .dangerous for a man to walk the 
 streets. I was there when he killed Phil Coe. 
 
 Some of the old cowboys who followed the trail from 
 this country were the twin brothers, Cap and Doc Smith, Dud 
 Tom, Joe Ellis, Haynes Morgan, Mit Nickols, John and Fen- 
 ner Jefferson, Whit Vick, Bill Coorpender, Frank Rhodes, 
 Leroy Sowell, Billie McLean, Billie Thompson, Pat Burns, 
 Tom Terrell, John and Tom Lay and many others. 
 
 The journeys up the trail were beset by many dangers and 
 difficulties. Savage Indians often attacked the herd in at- 
 tempts to cause a stampede. Few outfits were strong enough 
 to repel the Indians by force and were compelled to pay 
 them tribute in the form of beef. To do the work required 
 on those drives took men of strong nerves, iron bodies and 
 alert brains. 
 
 The last trip I made was in 1887, when I drove horses. 
 1 bought them from Redman and his partner, through Mr. 
 George Saunders. They were a bunch of Spanish mares 
 just from Mexico, and I remember a squabble I had with 
 two other buyers over a big white and black paint stud that 
 happened to be in the bunch. I got the stud all right, and 
 made big money on him as well as all of the other horses. 
 
 In 1888 I married and settled down on my farm, but 
 never could quite give up the cattle business, and on a small 
 scale have handled some kind of cattle ever since, but the 
 Jersey or any other breed of milk cow has never appealed 
 to me as the Texas longhorn did. After thirty years of 
 settled life the call of the trail is with me still, and there is 
 not a day that I do not long to mount my horse and be out 
 among the cattle. 
 
166 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 HIT THE TRAIL IN HIGH PLACES. 
 
 By Jeff Connolly, of Lockhart, Texas. 
 
 I was born at Prairie Lea in 1863 and moved to Lock- 
 hart in 1876. My experience in the good old days gone by, 
 was as follows: 
 
 Drove on the trail for old Captain King of Nueces Coun- 
 ty in 1880 with a man by the name of Coleman as boss 
 and when I got as far as Taylor, King sent me back and I 
 helped another brother of this man Coleman drive another 
 herd of the King cattle to Red River. The only white men 
 with the herd was Coleman and myself, the balance of the 
 bunch being Mexicans. All the old timers know how King 
 handled the Mexicans — he had them do the work and let 
 the white men do the bossing. 
 
 I was on the trail that year about three months and drew 
 a salary of $1.50 per day and board was furnished me. 
 
 During the winter of ’81 and spring of ’82 I drove cat- 
 tle for Geo. W. Littlefield of Austin, who I am sure all the 
 old timers remember and regard very highly. I went with 
 A. A. Woodland, who all the old timers in Lockhart knew 
 very well and who lived here during his latter days. When 
 we got to old Fort Griffin we cut the stock cattle all out 
 which amounted to about 1000 cows at that time. Myself 
 and two other men held these at Foil Creek this side of 
 Fort Griffin until another herd reached us, which was about 
 thirty days. Then we turned them in with another herd of 
 Littlefield’s cattle that was being handled by a man by the 
 name of McCarty, another Irishman who looks about like 
 I do. From there we went on to the Pecos River where the 
 L F D ranch of Littlefield was established, known to be one 
 of the foremost ranches in that part of the country. We 
 had plenty of good horses on this drive and McCarty and 
 Littlefield bought fifty more when we reached Fort Griffin, 
 from a Mexican at that place. These last horses they 
 bought had a colt every once in awhile as we were mount- 
 ing them in the mornings. 
 
 This herd of cattle McCarty was looking after was bought 
 from Jim Ellison, a noted cow man in Caldwell county in 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 167 
 
 the seventies, who owned what was then known as the El- 
 lison ranch where these cattle were delivered to Littlefield. 
 
 I came back that fall with old Tom Mumphers of Gon- 
 zales and another man whose name I have forgotten. 
 
 Last time 1 was in Austin, about six years ago, 1 went 
 in to the American National Bank with a friend of mine and 
 I asked the teller of the bank where the Major was. He 
 told me he was back in his private office. This friend of 
 mine wanted to know why 1 was asking about Major Lit- 
 tlefield and asked me if I knew he was a millionaire. 
 I told him that I knew that, but that 1 used to drive on the 
 old trail for him and was anxious to see him. 1 went back 
 and told the Major who 1 was and he treated me as fine as 
 any man was ever treated. If 1 had been a millionaire my- 
 self he could not have treated me any better and that’s what 
 makes us common fellows like him. He is just as plain as 
 if he didn’t have any more than we have. We talked about 
 old times when other fellows like Bud Wilkerson, Phelps 
 White, Tom White, some of his men, used to work with 
 me for him. He told me these three fellows were still with 
 him on the ranch and making good. 
 
 In 1884 1 drove a herd of horses from Banquette in 
 Nueces county for a man by the name of Frank Byler. Right 
 at the edge of Lockhart, where we camped that night, and 
 from where we started to town next morning, we were ar- 
 rested by Sheriff Allie Field, for trespassing. We had 
 no money and Frank did not know what in the world to do 
 and I told him to go to Dr. Blanks of Lockhart, a great 
 friend of the old trailers and he would loan us the money to 
 pay the fine. We borrowed $50.00 in money and bought 
 $50.00 worth of grub on credit and when we got to Onion 
 Creek we sold two horses for $100.00 and in a few days 
 we were in Manor where we sold several head of horses and 
 sent the money to Lockhart and from that time on we had 
 plenty of money to do us. 
 
 When we got to Hillsboro, it was very cold and raining 
 and we broke our wagon down and had to stop. Our horses 
 stampeded all over that country and twenty-seven froze to 
 death that night. 
 
168 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We remained there about four days waiting for it to 
 thaw out and when it did, we sold about forty-five saddle 
 horses to an old cowman of the Red River country. We 
 headed from there to Red River and when we got there the 
 river was up and we got a little of that stuff that livens up. 
 The herd attempted to stampede, but we held them and put 
 them across all right. 
 
 Everything went well until we got to the Washita where 
 the herd stampeded again and we were two days' crossing 
 the river. One night 1 stayed over there with the Indians. 
 This side of Okmulgee we went out hunting a place to 
 camp one evening and come across a little clump of trees 
 where we saw a man hanging there by the neck with a sign 
 on him, “Death to the one who cuts him down.” We saw 
 he was dead and we did not cut the rope — we went on fur- 
 ther to camp that night. 
 
 We reached the Arkansas River in a few days where we 
 had to lay four days on account of the river being up. Just 
 before we crossed we found that the Indians had stolen a lot 
 of blankets from our Mexicans. I made our bunch of Mexi- 
 cans go up to their camp and steal some of the Indians’ 
 blankets and slickers and the next day when we crossed the 
 river, the Indians were pointing at the Mexicans, noticing 
 that they had stolen their blankets and slickers. They were 
 talking Indian and our Mexicans did not know what they 
 were talking about. We had no further trouble until we got 
 to Baxter Springs, Kansas. The first night we were camped 
 on the state line, we had a big stampede. The Indians were 
 there to count us up for grass fee and we run them through 
 so fast they could not count them and lost count. They 
 accepted our count and of course we guessed them low 
 enough to take care of ourselves. 
 
 We did very well selling these out to people all over the 
 United States as there were traders there from everywhere. 
 
 In 1885 1 drove cattle with Bill Jackman of San Marcos, 
 the herd belonging to Hez Williams and Bill Goode of Kyle. 
 This herd was put up at Rancho Grande in Wharton county 
 by Bob Stafford of Columbus. When we got to old Texar- 
 kana we had a big stampede that night and whipped them 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 169 
 
 SAMUEL D. HOUSTON 
 
 A. HUFFMEYER 
 
 G. W. MILLS 
 
 R. F. SELLERS 
 
170 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 in and ran them over one another trying to hold them until 
 they looked like they had been in a wreck. They had “run” 
 on the brain all the way until we got to Kyle. When we 
 reached there every fellow was about on foot as our horses 
 had played out, so we put the herd in Desha Bunton’s pas- 
 ture, and stayed there several days to get a new outfit of 
 horses and had them all shod up to go through the moun- 
 tains and get a new outfit of men also as the boys all quit 
 except Fisher, Jackman and myself. We pulled out from 
 there with a new set of men and horses headed for Deer 
 Trail, Colorado, south of Cheyenne. A few nights after we 
 left Kyle, we had a big rain and the cattle drifted pretty 
 well all night and Tom Fisher and myself came up on a 
 man camped in a wagon and told him to get up for it was 
 daylight. When he got up, we both crawled in with our 
 wet clothes on and went to sleep and left him on the out- 
 side. When morning came, we got up and began rounding 
 up the herd and none of the bunch had missed us. We 
 traveled along all right then until we reached Bell Plains one 
 evening. There a Dutchman came out and told us to move 
 on and we told him to hunt a warmer climate, that we were 
 going to camp there that night. About twelve o’clock that 
 night, he and the sheriff came to our camp hunting the boss 
 and couldn’t find him. They went away and next morning 
 before breakfast they came back again and wanted to know 
 where the boss was and we told him we didn’t have any. 
 He wanted to stop our herd of cattle but we told him if they 
 did they would have to give a $30,000 bond as these cattle 
 were mortgaged and could not be stopped without somebody 
 giving bond. The sheriff called us off and talked with us 
 awhile and told us he would see us about it and this was 
 the last we ever heard of the matter. 
 
 Everything went all right from here until we got up to 
 Doan’s Store, when one night the wagons caught fire and 
 burned the wagon sheet. We got busy just at this time 
 trying to save our coffee and a little meat we had picked up 
 from the 3 D cattle. 
 
 From there we had to rustle a wagon sheet to keep every- 
 thing dry when the rains came up. We got along all right 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 171 
 
 from here until we got to Wolf Creek at old Camp Supply, 
 where they quarantined us and we had to go down to No 
 Man’s Land, a strip between the Panhandle and Kan- 
 sas, now a part of Oklahoma. Crossing the plains it drizzled 
 very nearly every night, just enough to make the cattle walk 
 till about eleven o’clock at night. When we got to Beaver, 
 this side of the Arkansas River in Colorado, we sold the cat- 
 tle. After we turned them over Bill Jackman and myself 
 came back over the trail and met Alex Magee and his cat- 
 tle and stopped him for a few days to let his cattle rest up 
 as we knew the people that had contracted his cattle were 
 waiting for him and we wanted his bunch to look good 
 when he got there. Wanted them to show up all right so 
 there would be no kick. When we brought the cattle up to 
 turn them over to the buyers, they received them with the 
 understanding that we had to brand them. We carried them 
 up Beaver Creek for about 40 miles where we branded 
 them, and after we had done this, they asked us to carry a 
 bunch of about three hundred white face Herefords, the first I 
 ever saw, up in the Rocky Mountains and put them in win- 
 ter quarters. When we got them there, he fitted us up with 
 fresh horses and everything and started us for West Los An- 
 geles to ship us back home. 
 
 In 1886 I started to go up with Bill Jackman again, but 
 when 1 got to the Hutcheson ranch near San Marcos, Jack- 
 man was there and told me he had sold the cattle to John 
 Blocker who would be there directly with his outfit to re- 
 ceive them. When they came he recommended me to the 
 man who was in charge of the cattle — a man by the name 
 of Murchison, who was also in charge of the horses and out- 
 fit. Next day we rounded up the pasture but they didn’t 
 take the cattle, and we went from there on to Kyle to the 
 Vaughn pasture. Arch Odem in a few days bought about 
 1500 head of cattle down on the Guadalupe River and 
 brought them up to where we were and turned them over 
 to us. We went on up in a few days to the Hez Williams 
 ranch and got about 800 more steers. In a few days we 
 got about 700 head more from places near there, then pulled 
 out for the trail, being the first herd of the Blocker cattle for 
 
172 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 that year. When we got between Runnels and Abilene we 
 laid in wait there until ten more herds of the Blocker cattle 
 caught up with us. Then we shaped up ten herds to go on 
 to Colorado and 1 and my bunch cut cattle all the way until 
 we got to Red River. At Red River we took the lead cattle 
 out of two herds and put them together in one herd and 
 left the drags together in another herd. 
 
 When we reached the Wichita mountains in Indian Ter- 
 ritory the Indians met us there and wanted beef. I had a 
 big black range steer I had picked up in Texas and when I 
 got up in the roughest part of the mountains, 1 cut this 
 steer out and told them to go after him. The steer out ran 
 them and got away and directly I saw them coming back, 
 one after another like they travel, but without any beef. The 
 next day the trail cutters looked us up and did not find 
 
 anything. Then we went on until we got to Camp Supply 
 
 where we had to go across the plains again and it was 
 very dry. The first evening we struck the plains we drove 
 right square until night and I held up the lead cattle 
 
 and the wagon was not in sight at this time. We 
 
 camped there that night and there came the hardest rain 
 I ever saw fall and it was so cold we nearly shook ourselves 
 to death. It rained all the time from there on to Hugo, 
 Colorado, where Blocker turned these cattle loose and where 
 they were re-branded and turned loose again. 
 
 From Hugo I helped take about 1000 head of saddle 
 horses and put them in winter quarters and when that was 
 done I came back home. 
 
 THE MEN WHO MADE THE TRAIL. 
 
 By Luther A. Lawhon, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 We can scarcely estimate the debt which we owe to the 
 men who made the Trail. Lest we forget — those pioneer 
 settlers and ranchmen were not only empire builders, but 
 were also the “mudsillers” upon which has been erected 
 that supberb structure of productive wealth — the American 
 live stock industry, as it exists today west of the Mississippi. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 173 
 
 It is indeed a far stretch from the domesticated gentle 
 thoroughbred to the wild, untamable “longhorn.” But is it not 
 well that at times we take a retrospective view, and con- 
 trast the present with the past? By so doing, we may the 
 better determine the extent to which this all important in- 
 dustry has progressed, with our geographical development, 
 and also incidentally keep alive the memories and the tra- 
 ditions of a bygone age. 
 
 By a degree of good fortune, it fell to me to be reared 
 from infancy to manhood in Southwest Texas, in the midst 
 of that favored section when it was one vast breeding ground 
 for cattle and horses, and from which was afterward to be 
 driven those herds that, moving across the prairies of Texas 
 and through the Indian Territory, from 1869 to 1886, 
 poured into the wild and unsettled area from Kansas to the 
 British Dominions. In the days and in the section of which 
 I treat the railroad, the telegraph and the telephone were 
 unkown. A greater part of the land still belonged to the 
 State, and was prized in the main for the grasses which 
 grew upon it; fencing wire had not been invented, and in 
 consequence, the entire country, except where dotted with 
 ranches, was unfenced and uncontrolled — a common pasture 
 in which thousands of horses and cattle roamed at will. 
 
 In imagination reverting again to those bygone scenes, 
 I shall endeavor to describe briefly some of the conditions 
 which surrounded the old time Texas ranchman, his peculiar- 
 ities and his customs. The country at large was sparsely 
 settled. In a majority of the counties there was barely suf- 
 ficient population for county organization. The largest and 
 in most instances, the only town in the county, was the 
 county seat village, with its rock or lumber court house, 
 which was rarely of two stories, and near by, as an adjunct, 
 a one-cell rock or lumber jail. Around the public square 
 
 were built the few unpretentious store houses, that flaunted 
 
 the proverbial signs, “Dry Goods and Groceries” or “Dry 
 Goods, Boots and Shoes,” as the case might be. That the 
 weaknesses as well as the social predelictions of the sturdy 
 citizenship might be readily and conveniently catered to, a 
 
 saloon or perhaps several, could always be found on or 
 
174 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 near the public square. Clustered about the commercial 
 center, and growing further apart as the distance increased, 
 were private residences which went to make up the hamlet. 
 After the court house and jail, the hotel — generally a two- 
 story building — was considered the most important, as it 
 was frequently the most imposing structure in the village. 
 In addition to the official and business edifices, there was 
 always a well constructed school house (there were no 
 free schools in those days) and a commodious, comfortable 
 church house at convenient distances. I purposely use church 
 house in the singular, for in the days under consideration, 
 the tabernacle of the Most High was a union structure, 
 erected by the joint contributions of the various and diver- 
 gent church members, as well as of philanthropic citizens 
 who made no “professions,” and in which those pioneer 
 men and women with their families, irrespective of denomin- 
 ation, met together with good and honest hearts, and 
 worshiped God in spirit and in truth. 
 
 Such in brief, was the frontier village. Beyond its con- 
 fines the country, as stated, was unfenced and uncontrolled. 
 Luxuriant grasses and fragrant wild flowers covered prairie, 
 hill and valley for two-thirds of the year. Herds of cattle 
 and horses grazed in every direction, and each ranchman, 
 by his mark and brand, was enabled to identify his stock 
 and secure its increase. Trained to the range and keen of 
 eye as they were, the old time ranchmen and their cow- 
 boys would necessarily fail to find some of the year’s in- 
 crease when they worked this vast territory. As a result, 
 there was a small percentage, yearly, of unmarked and un- 
 branded calves. These animals, after being weaned from 
 the mothers cows, would thenceforth be abroad on the 
 prairies, the property of whomsoever found and branded 
 them, and in cowboy parlance were called “mavericks.” This 
 name had its origin in the fact that Mr. Sam Maverick, now 
 deceased, an honored and wealthy citizen of San Antonio, 
 was the owner of a large brand of cattle that ranged 
 throughout Southwest Texas. During the Civil War he was 
 unable to “brand up” the increase in his stock, and in con- 
 sequence there was a marked augmentation of unbranded and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 175 
 
 unmarked cattle on the range from San Antonio to the 
 coast. This fact, and the cause of it, was a matter of general 
 knowledge throughout this section. Therefore, when the old 
 time ranchman and his cowboys in this territory, found an 
 unmarked and unbranded yearling or two year old on the 
 range, it was assumed that the animal had at one time been 
 the property of the San Antonio citizen. Hence the term 
 “maverick,” soon became universal as a designation for 
 an animal whose owner could not be definitely determined, 
 and has now become a permanent fixture in our English 
 nomenclature. The “round up” with its chuck wagon, 
 its high priced chef and bill of fare a la carte, had not as 
 yet been introduced. Those old time ranchmen were con- 
 tent to simply cow hunt twice • a year, and brand their 
 calves. As a rule those whose ranches were the nearest, 
 hunted together and thereby made up an “outfit.” Their 
 provision, flour, coffee and dried beef, with the beddin’, was 
 loaded on a pack horse, which was driven with the saddle 
 ponies. They worked the country and branded through the 
 day, and camped at night where water was in abundance 
 and where grass was good. 
 
 There was an unwritten law, recognized by the good 
 women of the towns as well as of the country, that when- 
 ever a party of cowhunters rode up and asked to have 
 bread baked, it mattered not the time of day, the request 
 was to be cheerfully complied with. Not from fear of 
 insult in case of refusal — for each and every cowboy was 
 the champion defender of womanhood, and would have 
 scorned to have uttered a disrespectful word in her presence 
 — but from an accommodating spirit and a kindness of 
 heart, which was universally characteristic in those frontier 
 days. My father was a lawyer, and therefore my boyhood 
 home was in the village, but I remember the many times 
 that cowhunters rode up to my father’s house, and telling 
 my mother they were out of bread, asked that she would 
 kindly bake their flour for them. Everything was at once 
 made ready. The sack was lifted from the pack horse and 
 brought in, and in due time the bread wallets were once 
 more filled with freshly cooked biscuits, and the cowboys 
 
176 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 rode away with grateful appreciation. These acts of con- 
 sideration on the part of my mother were entirely gratuitous, 
 but the generous-hearted cowboys would always leave either a 
 half sack of flour or a money donation as a freewill 
 offering. 
 
 One of the cardinal virtues of the old time ranchman 
 was hospitality. This commendable trait was not alone 
 possessed by him, but was an attribute of his entire family. 
 The cordial welcome was not restricted to nearby neighbors, 
 friends and acquaintances, but was as freely extended to 
 “the stranger within the gates.” The wayworn traveler was 
 never turned aside, and while a guest at the ranch, did illness 
 overtake him, the watchful vigils and tender hands of the 
 ranchman’s wife and daughters ministered to his sufferings 
 as though he was one of the family, until health was re- 
 stored, and he was sent on his way rejoicing. The wife of 
 the old time ranchman! How kind, how considerate she 
 was! It mattered not that at the approach of every full 
 moon the saddle horses were rounded up and more closely 
 guarded, and the guns and pistols on the ranch were over- 
 hauled and minutely inspected in anticipation of an Indian 
 raid — there was no excitement or complaint on her part! 
 Amidst the dangers and the deprivations of frontier en- 
 vironment, she gathered her little ones closer about her, 
 and with faith in God, and reliance on the strong arm of 
 husband, neighbors and friends, went forward uncomplain- 
 ingly with the stern duties of life. All honor to those noble 
 mothers in Israel! 
 
 The methods of business were in keeping with the primi- 
 tive conditions of society. There were no banks in the 
 country. Owing to this fact every ranch home was the 
 depository of more or less money. The coin, if of consider- 
 able amount, was put in saddle bags, morrals, etc., and se- 
 creted in remote corners of the house or up under the 
 roof, or buried on or near the premises, and was brought 
 forth from its hiding places as occasion demanded. A some- 
 what ludicrous incident arose from this peculiar custom. 
 One of the “old timers,” whose ranch was near the line of 
 Karnes and Goliad counties, finding himself with consider- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 177 
 
 able money on hand, and having no immediate use for it, 
 decided to bury it. Choosing an especially dark night, he 
 went down to his cowpen and removing one of the posts of 
 the fence dropped his bag of gold in the post hole. He then 
 replaced the post and returned, satisfied that he had put 
 his treasure where moth and rust could not corrupt nor 
 thieves break through and steal. After considerable time 
 had elapsed, he found himself in a position to use his 
 secreted fund. But unfortunately he had failed to note the 
 particular post under which he had buried his money, and 
 all signs of his former visit having been obliterated, he was 
 compelled to dig up one half of his cowpen before he secured 
 the coveted deposit. When the ranchmen bought stock of 
 any kind they brought the money in gold and silver to 
 where the animals were to be received, and paid it out, 
 dollar for dollar. They generally carried the money in 
 leather belts buckled around their waists, but the silver 
 being more bulky, was placed in duckin’ sacks, and was 
 loaded on a pack horse or mule. It was necessary in those 
 days to know the weight as well as the value of money, 
 and therefore it was a matter of current knowledge that 
 one thousand dollars in silver weighed sixty-two and one- 
 half pounds. Robbery was a crime unknown among those 
 rugged and honest old pioneers. 
 
 Brave, hospitable and generous, the old time ranchman 
 believed in justice, simple justice, stripped of all technical- 
 ities of law. According to his ethics, the man “who’d for- 
 sake a friend or go back on his word,” was a scoundrel, and 
 the thief, it mattered not who he was, had forfeited his 
 right to live. But those nice distinctions of judicial import, 
 murder in first or second degree, manslaughter, etc., did 
 not appeal to him. In the enforcement of the code, he 
 did not subscribe to the theory that an accused could be 
 morally innocent and at the same time legally guilty of a 
 crime. When a killin’ occurred, he asked, ‘‘Was ther a 
 grudge between ’em, an’ wuz it a fair fight?” If so, he 
 could not understand why, when the best shot or the coolest 
 nerve had slain his adversary, the great state of Texas 
 should want to prosecute and punish the survivor. And as a 
 
178 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 juror he would not be a party to such prosecution and 
 punishment. In illustration of his personal application and 
 influence in the enforcement of law, I am reminded of 
 the following occurrence: One of the old time ranchmen 
 and forceful characters in Southwest Texas, was a certain 
 Captain Blank. He had been at the head of a vigilance 
 committee which had hung a number of men under his 
 personal supervision. He was well known throughout his 
 section as a firm, fearless and implacable leader. During 
 the progress of a murder trial in his home county, he was 
 summoned to attend as a special venireman. In due time 
 he was called to the stand, and on voir dire the district 
 attorney propounded the statutory question, “Have you any 
 conscientious scruples in regard to the infliction of the 
 punishment of death, for crime?” To the surprise of the 
 district attorney, as well as of all those present, Captain 
 Blank replied, “1 have.” Then noting the incredulous smile 
 on the faces of the audience, he turned to the court and 
 said, “Jedge, its this a-way. 1 don’t want to hang a man 
 unless I’ve got somethin’ agin ’im.” 
 
 The old time ranchman never turned a deaf ear to a worthy 
 appeal. His generosity and his warm-heartedness knew no 
 bounds. On the other hand, he would not tamely submit 
 to what he considered an unjust imposition. With a Hampden 
 spirit, it was not the amount but the principle, for which 
 he was ever ready to fight, if need be to the death. The 
 following will perhaps serve to illustrate this phase of his 
 character: One of the cowboys on a Southwest Texas ranch, 
 in the olden time when gas was the principal municipal 
 illuminant, decided to go up to San Antonio for a few days, 
 and see the sights, and incidentally “pike” a little at the 
 Bull’s Head or the White Elephant gambling tables. In due 
 time he returned to the ranch. The boys gathered around him 
 to learn what had been his experiences in the big town. 
 After recounting at some length the incidents of his sojourn, 
 he casually remarked, “Fellers, I come damn near havin’ 
 to kill a hotel keeper.” “Why, how was that, Bill?” querried 
 his auditors. “Well, it wuz this a-way,” explained Bill. “The 
 fust night 1 wuz thar, when I got ready to go to bed, a 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 179 
 
 nigger showed me up to my room an’ lit the light. On lookin’ 
 around, I saw a great big sign tacked to the wall, sayin’, 
 ‘Don’t Blow Out the Gas.’ Of course then I didn’t blow 
 it out, bein’s as they said not to. I jest let the light burn, 
 an’ by pulling my hat over my face managed to sleep 
 tolerable well. The next mornin’ when I went to settle my 
 bill, that low down hotel keeper tried to charge me two 
 dollars extra, because I didn’t blow out the gas. He shore 
 did. An’ I jest looked that hotel keeper in the eye, an’ I 
 told him that I’d fight him till hell froze over, an’ then 
 skate with him on the ice, before I’d pay one cent of that 
 two dollars. And I meant jest what I said.” The boys all 
 unanimously agreed that if Bill had killed that hotel keeper, 
 under the circumstances, it would have been a clear case of 
 justifiable homicide. Such were some of the conditions, 
 characteristics and peculiarities of a society now long since 
 passed away. 
 
 To conclude: In .1880, a combination of circumstances 
 gave me the long coveted opportunity to go up the Trail. 
 1 was one of Mr. Cal. Mayfield’s “outfit” with a herd of 
 one thousand head of ML horses. Our party with but one 
 exception, was composed of Karnes county boys. We left 
 the Hill pasture in Live Oak county for the long and arduous 
 drive to Dodge, Kansas. After a halt of three days in the 
 vicinity of Fort Worth, where the chuck wagon was replen- 
 ished with food sufficient to sustain us to our destination, we 
 virtually bade adieu to civilizaton, and moved into the wild 
 section of Northeast Texas, and on, on, through the Indian 
 Territory, (crossing Red River at Doan’s Crossing) until 
 at last after many hardships and exciting experiences, we 
 again enjoyed the comforts of “God’s land,” in the frontier 
 town of Caldwell, Kansas. The year above mentioned was 
 one of the worst ever known on the Trail. Storms, rain and 
 lightning. We had our first stampede in the Blue Mounds 
 country, north of Fort Worth, and from there on it was 
 a run night after night, with but short intermissions. When 
 we had crossed the Cimarron River, out of the Indian Terri- 
 tory, and came to where the Dodge and the Caldwell trails 
 forked, Mr. Mayfield decided to follow the latter trail, as 
 
180 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Caldwell was somewhat nearer. After resting at Caldwell 
 a few days, the herd was “split up” and I was assigned to go 
 with a bunch which was loaded on the cars and shipped to 
 Kansas City. From there, back to Texas — and home. 
 
 In closing this article, I crave the reader’s pardon for 
 what may be an unwarranted intrusion of personal feeling. 
 But the old time ranchman, his bravery, his rugged honesty 
 and his nobility of character, is a theme which is near and 
 dear to me. The purest, sweetest draughts of happiness 
 that, I have quaffed in this life, were drawn in those good 
 old days, when as a boy and as a young man, I dwelt in the 
 little village of Helena, the then county seat of Karnes 
 county, in Southwest Texas, in the midst of a noble pioneer 
 people, among whom were many of the men who made the 
 Trail. Time’s cruel hand has wrought many changes. The 
 silken ties of early association have been severed for years, 
 but the treasured memories of that golden time have kept 
 green in my hearty throughout every change and vicissitude 
 of fortune. These hallowed recollections have walked with 
 me thus far, and will continue so to do to the end of the 
 chapter. Then: 
 
 “Let Fate do her worst, there ar£ relics of joy, 
 
 Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy; 
 Which come in the night time of sorrow and care, 
 
 And bring back the features that joy used to wear. 
 Long, long be my heart with such memories filled, 
 Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled — 
 You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will cling ’round it still.” 
 
 A FEW THRILLING INCIDENTS IN MY EXPERIENCE 
 ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By L. B. Anderson, of Seguin, Texas. 
 
 One trip I drove for Dewees, Ervin & Jim Ellison. 1 got 
 the herd at Rockport, in Coleman & Fulton’s pasture, and 
 drove to the Millett & Irvin ranch in the Panhandle, camp- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 181 
 
 HENRY STEELE 
 
 L. A. (AUS) FRANKS 
 
 J. W. JACKSON 
 
 LOUIS SCHORP 
 
182 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ing right where the town of Seymour is now located, and 
 remained there several months helping to round up several 
 thousand head of cattle. Among those who were with me 
 there on the range were Tom Peeler, Billie Bland, Sam and 
 John Wilson, Billie Gray, Charlie Reed and Whit Vick. We 
 started from that point with three thousand yearlings for 
 Major Wolcott’s ranch in the Rocky Mountains. Had good 
 luck all the way until we reached Fort McPherson on the 
 North Platte River, where our horses stampeded and ran 
 right through our herd causing the yearlings to stampede 
 also, going in every direction, several hundred running into 
 the river. We finally rounded all of them up and delivered 
 the herd in fine shape. 
 
 I took one herd of cattle up into Colorado for John and 
 Tom Dewees to a man named Cheatem. We killed many 
 buffalo on this trip, but in Kansas in 1871, on the Ninne- 
 squaw River, 1 saw more buffalo than I ever saw anywhere 
 else. As far as the eye could see over the plains was a solid 
 mass of moving buffalo, all drifting northward. I remember 
 my first experience in trying to kill one of these animals. I 
 did not know the huge hump on their back was a row of 
 ribs, and that I could not kill one unless I shot below that 
 hump, but I learned that much while trying to shoot my 
 first buffalo. I had an old cap and ball pistol and taking- 
 careful aim at a bull’s hump I began to shoot, but the 
 only effect my shots had was to make him run faster. I kept 
 up with him, firing as we ran, sometimes all six loads would 
 go off at the same time, and I would reload, going at full 
 speed. I ran him several miles before I finally killed him. 
 
 Besides buffalo, deer and antelope we used to kill ducks, 
 geese, prairie chickens and other wild fowls which were 
 plentiful in the uncivilized part of the state. I always enjoyed 
 hunting and I guess I killed as many deer as the average 
 man. Speaking of deer, reminds me of a peculiar thing 
 that happened in Atascosa county one day. The outfits of 
 Dudley Tom and myself were gathering cattle on Dewees’ 
 ranch, when one morning a negro and myself were rounding 
 up a bunch of cattle, when several deer jumped out of a 
 thicket directly in front of us. Of course we gave chase 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 183 
 
 and ran them so close one of the bucks ran against a tree 
 and broke his neck. 
 
 At another time when we were camped near John Tom’s 
 ranch in Atascosa county we were driving a herd of old 
 Mexican beeves down a long lane, and they stampeded, 
 turned around and started back up the lane. A man and 
 woman had just passed us, riding horseback. When they 
 heard the noise of the stampede and saw the herd coming they 
 began to ride for dear life to get out of the way of the 
 frightened cattle. The woman was riding sideways, as was 
 the custom in those days, and it seemed to us that the 
 cattle were surely going to overtake her. Looking back and 
 seeing the cattle gaining that woman suddenly swung her- 
 self astride of the horse she was riding, and pulled off a 
 race that beat anything I ever saw. She out-distanced every- 
 thing in that herd and rode safely away. 
 
 Stampedes were very common occurences, sometimes they 
 were just tame affairs, but at other times they afforded all the 
 excitement anyone could want. It was hard to tell sometimes 
 the cause of a stampede. Often during a clear still night 
 when the cattle were contentedly bedded and the night riders 
 were dozing in their saddles, a sudden run would take place 
 and the remainder of the night would be spent in trying 
 to keep the herd together. One of the worst stampedes I 
 ever witnessed was at Kilgore’s ranch near Hondo. Tom Lay 
 was having some fun with a negro boy and the cattle be- 
 came frightened at the noise the boys made and the stampede 
 that followed cost us several days’ hard work and some 
 money to get them together again. 
 
 Another bad stampede in which I had to do some tall 
 riding occurred while I was taking a big herd of the Millett 
 beeves to Paul’s Valley. When we reached the Devil’s Back- 
 bone, between Cash Creek and Washita River, we found 
 the country had been burned off except a small scope of 
 ground between the creeks where fire could not get to the 
 grass, and on that ground I camped at the edge of a 
 strip of timber. I think every prairie chicken in that whole 
 country came there to roost. They were there by the 
 thousands. The next morning when these chickens began 
 
184 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 to leave the noise they made frightened the cattle and 
 caused them to stampede. The three thousand beeves ran over 
 that rough country in every direction, and they went several 
 miles before we were able to check them. Several were killed 
 and about a hundred got away. 
 
 During the eighteen years that I followed the trail life 
 I was never arrested for any infraction of the law, but on 
 two occasions I came very near being arrested, the first 
 time just before we crossed a herd at Red River Station. I 
 had started a herd of the Millett cattle to the Indian Territory 
 to turn them into the corn fields to fatten. Mr. Millett said 
 he thought I could make it for a day or two without in- 
 spection papers, saying he would overtake me in a few 
 days and bring the papers with him. I got as far as Red 
 River Station without interference, and while we were stopped 
 there for dinner a cattle inspector rode up and demanded 
 my papers. When I told him Mr. Millett would come with 
 them in a few days he said nothing but turned and rode 
 away towards the county seat. I knew he was going to get 
 the officers and arrest me, so we hastily rounded up our 
 cattle and rushed them across the river. Just as I succeeded 
 in getting the last hoof across the inspector came with the 
 officers, but he was too late for I was out of their reach. 
 
 Mr. Millett arrived in a few days, and everything was all 
 
 right. 
 
 The next encounter I had with an officer of the law was 
 near Fort Worth. My outfit had encamped near a settlement. 
 The boys, in a spirit of fun, caught two or three hogs that 
 were foraging about the camp, and the squeals of the swine 
 led the settlers to believe that we were stealing the hogs. 
 Early the next morning just after we had strung the herd 
 out on the trail, and the cook was getting the chuck wagon 
 in shape to start, the officer rode up, threw a villainous 
 
 looking gun down on me and told me I was under arrest, 
 
 accused of stealing hogs. He said he would have to search 
 the wagon, and I told him to proceed, and gave orders for. 
 the cook to unload the chuck wagon. When the officer was 
 satisfied we had no hog in the wagon, he told us we were 
 free to continue on our trip. Then I sent him off on a “wild 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 185 
 
 ooose chase,” by telling him that there was another herd 
 several miles ahead of us, and the cowboys of that outfit 
 were the fellows who had stolen the hogs. 
 
 My experiences with the Indians were like my other ex- 
 periences, some laughable, and others serious. The friendly 
 Indians would sometimes follow us for days and torment us 
 with their begging. Old Yellow Bear, a chief came to our 
 camp one day at noon and wanted bread. I told the cook 
 not to give him anything, and this made the old chief so 
 mad he stamped his foot right down in the dough the cook 
 was working up to make bread for our dinner. 
 
 The Indians at the Red Cloud agency in Dakota did not 
 bury their dead under the ground, but would erect a scaffold 
 some eight or ten feet high, place the body thereon and 
 cover it with a red blanket, besides placing a bow and quivver 
 of arrows, with a pot of food on the scaffold for the de- 
 ceased Indian to use on his journey to the “happy hunting 
 grounds.” Every animal the dead Indian owned was brought 
 to the scaffold and killed. I have seen as many as twelve 
 dead horses at one scaffold and several dead dogs. 
 
 One of the most perilous things encountered on the trail 
 in those days was the electrical storm. Herds would always 
 drift before a storm and we would have to follow them for 
 miles, while vivid lightning and crashing peals of thunder 
 made our work awesome and dangerous. Only one who has 
 been in a Kansas storm can realize what it means. Sometimes 
 several head of cattle or horses were killed by one stroke 
 of the lightning, and many of the cowboys met their death 
 in the same manner. 
 
 ESTABLISHED THE FIRST PACKING PLANT IN TEXAS. 
 
 Sketch of W. S. Hall, of Comfort, Texas, 
 
 Mr. W. S. Hall was born in Athens, Maine, December 17, 
 1829, and came to Texas by boat in 1858, landing at 
 Indianola. He proceeded by stage to San Antonio to seek his 
 fortune in the cattle business. That same spring he purchased 
 a stock of cattle from Saul Childers and also made a deal 
 
186 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 for the Hornsby stock which had branded a thousand calves 
 the year previous, and also secured several smaller herds. 
 Thus he entered the stock business on an extensive scale 
 and became one of the most prominent cattlemen of his 
 time. At one time he owned forty thousand cattle which 
 ranged over a vast scope of country. 
 
 With characteristic foresight and wonderful business acumen 
 Mr. Hall saw the opening for a new industry in the South, 
 and accordingly established a packing plant at Rockport, 
 Texas, and for eight years successfully operated the plant. 
 In those days artificial ice and modern preservatives were 
 unknown, but with the aid of salt he prepared his products 
 in such a manner as to preserve and ship to New Orleans 
 and New York and even to European ports. During the 
 time he was engaged in the packing industry he slaughtered 
 more than forty thousand cattle, one year alone slaughtering 
 over eleven thousand head and marketing more than one 
 thousand barrels of meat in New Orleans. The tallow was 
 shipped to various countries, a thousand hogsheads going to 
 New York. The net weight of each of these hogsheads was 
 eleven hundred pounds, the product brought eight and one- 
 half cents per pound, which netted the packer a good profit. . 
 Mr. Hall had no difficulty in securing animals for his packing 
 plant, paying from $7.00 to $12.50 per head for the beeves,, 
 $5.00 to $9.00 for cows, and $3.00 to $4.00 for yearlings.' 
 Quite a difference in the price of prime stuff is to be seen 
 by comparison with present day market values. 
 
 The only trip Mr. Hall ever made up the trail was in 
 1872, when he started 4200 head of cattle from Atascosa: 
 county, and drove to Wichita, Kansas, where he sold them. , 
 
 While engaged in the packing business his brother was; 
 interested in the industry with him, but the brother died in: 
 the early sixties and Mr. Hall conducted the business alone. 
 In 1865 he had seven thousand head of cattle stolen from 
 him by Mexicans, and he followed them into Mexico, where 
 he found some of them, but the cost of bringing the cattle 
 back to Texas was so great he did not bring them. The 
 Mexican government requiied certain conditions and erms 
 and it would have cost more than the cattle were worth to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 187 
 
 oet them out of Mexico. The United States government sent 
 the Robb Commission to adjust claims in 1872 for cattle 
 stolen by Mexicans and when all differences had been settled 
 between the two countries the indemnity claims were pigeon- 
 holed in Washington, D. C., and are probably there yet. 
 
 Mr. Hall has two sons engaged in the cattle business, 
 W. S. Hall Jr., and James Beck Hall. 
 
 This venerable character, now in his ninety-first year, is 
 quite feeble, the services of a nurse being constantly re- 
 quired to minister to his infirmities. With his wife he lives 
 at Comfort, Kendall county, Texas, where he is spending his 
 declining years, surrounded by all the comforts that loving 
 hands can bestow. 
 
 Thus, in brief, we have the history of one of Texas’ most 
 useful citizens. He contributed to the making of the history 
 of the state, and with the names of many others his 
 achievements will be emblazoned on the scroll of Texas’ 
 glory and renown. 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE OLD COW TRAIL. 
 
 By C. H. Rust of San Angelo, Texas. 
 
 As one of the old cowpunchers that enjoyed the life on 
 the Chisholm cow trail that led from Texas to Kansas be- 
 tween 1867 and 1885, the object, as you will readily see, is 
 to keep alive the memories of those early pioneer days. My 
 own interest in these matters is no more than that of 
 any other old time cowboy who enjoyed the life of those 
 days, but I would like to see in my own day and time some 
 record left to perpetuate the memories of the life of the old 
 cowboy on the trails and the men that followed them. 
 
 What happened on these old trails, between 1867 and 
 1885, is history, but at this present time there is no mile 
 post or stone to mark their location. 
 
 I wish to call your attention to the information I can give 
 of those days, the conditions that led up to them, the effect 
 they had on the men who experienced them and on the 
 development of the great Southwest. 
 
188 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 In fact, it is not too much to say the reclamation of the 
 Southwest created a class of men that have made and will 
 make a deep and permanent impression on our government. 
 The conditions under which they lived prevented their being 
 bound by conventionalities of an established community. 
 They were creators of a new society. For nearly a hundred 
 years, some in Texas, men have been solving problems that 
 required courage, self reliance, willingness to assume re- 
 sponsibility and the peculiar quality called longheadedness, 
 which is the ability to foresee the effect of untried experiment. 
 The proof is shown in the influence, out of all proportion to 
 their number, that Texas representatives or delegates exercise 
 in legislative or deliberative bodies outside their own state. 
 The causes that produced this power should be preserved 
 for the study and instruction of those who come after us 
 and who will have to carry on our work. The preservation 
 is surely worth while, and for that reason I am willing to 
 give my own experience, much as 1 dislike recalling part of it. 
 
 1 was born in the old red hills of Georgia in 1850. My 
 father and mother emigrated to Texas in 1854. In 1863 my 
 father pushed far out, almost to the danger line, to where the 
 Caddo Peaks and Santa Anna mountains stand as silent 
 sentinels over-looking the valley of the Colorado River and 
 the great Concho country to the west, far out where count- ' 
 less thousands of buffalo roamed at will, where deer, antelope 
 and wild turkey seemed to have taken possession of the 
 whole country. This wonderful panorama loomed up to me, 
 as a boy, as the idle and happy hunting ground that I had 
 long dreamed of, with the silvery watered streams, like narrow : 
 ribbons, winding their way toward the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 I am so tempted that I cannot refrain from quoting from 
 Chapter 1, “The Quirt and the Spur,” by Edgar Rye, it fits 
 so well in the time and condition: “Far out beyond the con- 
 fines of civilization; far out where daring men took possession 
 of the hunting ground of the Indians and killed herds of 
 buffalo to make a small profit in pelts, leaving the carcass 
 to putrify and the bones to bleach on the prairies. Far out 
 where cattlemen disputed over the possession of mavericks 
 and the branding iron was the only evidence of ownership. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 189 
 
 Far out where a cool head backed the deadly six shooter 
 
 and the man behind the gun, with a steady aim and a 
 
 quick trigger, won out in the game where life was staked 
 
 upon the issue. Far out where the distant landscape melted 
 into the blue horizon and a beautiful mirage was painted on 
 the skyline. Far out where the weary, thirsty traveler camped 
 over night near a deep water hole, while nearby in the 
 green valley a herd of wild horses grazed unrestrained by 
 man’s authority. Far out where the coyote wolves yelped 
 in unison as they chased a jack-rabbit in a circle of death, 
 then fought over his remains in a bloody feast. Far out 
 where the gray lobo wolf and the mountain lion stalked 
 their prey, killed and gorged their fill until the light in the 
 east warned them to seek cover in their mountain lairs. 
 Far out where bands of red warriors raided the lonely 
 
 ranch house, killing, burning and pillaging, leaving a trail 
 of blood and ashes behind them as a sad warning to the 
 white man to beware of the Indian’s revenge. Far out into 
 this wonderful country of great possibilities, where the sun 
 looked down upon a scene of rare beauty.” 
 
 The sad thought to this writer is the passing out of 
 those scenes so well portrayed in the above by its author; 
 the old free grass, saddle warmer and line rider and 
 range, through mystic regions, it is strange. 
 
 I turn my face west. I see the red lines of the setting 
 sun, but I do not hear the echo come back, “Go west 
 young man, go west.” I turn my face east and 1 hear 
 the dull thud of the commercialized world marching west, 
 with its steam roller procession, to roll over me and flatten 
 me out. 
 
 1 ring my Ford car’s neck, and go off down the street. 
 
 I drifted down into San Antonio, Texas, in the winter 
 of 1869. I was about nineteen years old, long, lank and 
 lean; my height was full six feet. My weight was about 
 one hundred and forty. I had no business in San Antonio. 
 I just went there. I found board and room with a Mrs. 
 Hall on Alamo Street. 
 
 This being the largest town I ever was in I was some- 
 what “buffaloed,” but Mrs. Hall and her husband were 
 
190 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 old Texas folks. Mrs. Hall was good to me, tried to 
 advise me, but I knew it all. About all 1 did during my 
 stay in San Antonio was loaf around such places as the 
 Old Bullhead Saloon that faced south on Main Plaza, 
 piked at monte some, saw big old grizzly gamblers get rich, 
 and poor, in a few hours. 
 
 When the spring of 1870 opened up I found work with 
 Myers and Roberts. They had just recently bought out the 
 old NOX Ranch, seventy miles west of San Antonio on 
 the Frio River, thirty-five miles north of Uvalde. I be- 
 lieve it was about the first of April when Myers and 
 Roberts sold fifteen hundred head of mixed cattle to 
 Ewing and Ingrams of California. We began to put the 
 cattle up at once. About the middle of May we delivered 
 the fifteen hundred head near San Antonio, five miles 
 west of the Alamo. 
 
 Ewing and Ingrams made me an offer to lead the 
 herd up the trail to Kansas. This offer I accepted. We 
 held the cattle up a few days to organize, as the outfit 
 was all new hands — green. Some of them had never 
 seen a horse or a cow, much less rode one. Will say here, 
 1 had been over the trail as far north as Fort Worth. 
 My duty was to look out for good places to camp, bed 
 grounds and crossing of streams. We made only one drive a 
 day, eight to ten miles. We followed the old cow trail 
 from San Antonio to San Marcos, Austin, Round Rock, 
 Georgetown, Salado, Belton, Clebourne, Fort Worth, Boliver, 
 crossing the Red River near Gainesville, through Nation to 
 Oil Springs, Fort Arbuckle to Wild Horse and Washita. 
 
 Here we met forty Comanche Indians. Every one of 
 the red skins had a parasol. I asked them where they had 
 been. One spoke up, in fairly good English, and said they 
 had been in on the Arkansas River making a treaty with 
 another tribe. 
 
 We went through the Osage Nation, striking the line 
 of Kansas at Caldwell Bluff Creek. At Ninisquaw we 
 turned to the left up the Ninisquaw to the Sand Hill, crossing 
 the Arkansas River at Rayman, Kansas, to Great Bend. 
 Out ten miles north, on Walnut Creek, we held the cattle 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 191 
 
 up, cut out all the steers to fatten, leaving about eight 
 hundred cows — one, two and three year olds. They were 
 taken on to Nebraska and put on a ranch. 
 
 Here I left the outfit. Traveled down the Arkansas River 
 about ninety miles to Wichita, Kansas, all alone. Wichita 
 was then about a mile long, one hundred yards wide and an 
 inch thick. Here is where the Long and Short Horns met 
 and fought it out right. I remained here about ten days, 
 struck an outfit bound for Texas with a bunch of old trail 
 horses and chuck wagon. We travelled slowly back down the 
 trail, easy gait, telling each other our experiences on the 
 trail going up. 
 
 My last trail and range work was in 1877, around old 
 Fort Griffin. 
 
 I have been a citizen of San Angelo, Texas, for over 
 thirty years. It is not what I might have been, it is what 
 
 I stand for today. I believe I have made good. I was all 
 
 wrong at one time in my life. I am all for the right now. 
 My business is dealing in fuel. 1 have been right here in 
 one place for twenty years, handling coal and wood, and 
 belong to the old M. E. Church South and 1 am proud 
 of her record as a church. I am thankful for my own 
 
 record that I have lived to get right and do something. 
 I know there are hundreds of the old early day trail 
 
 hitters doing well and living good clean lives. 
 
 It might be that the old trail driver has something 
 buttoned up in his vest that he won’t tell. Well, he is 
 not supposed to tell all he knows, but will tell all he 
 can. I was a grown up man before I ever saw a Sunday 
 School, but I owe much to my mother for the lesson 
 she taught me at her knee. I departed from her advice 
 in early manhood, but I came back. She and my father are 
 buried side by side here in Fairmount Cemetery, in the 
 great Concho Valley, having lived to a good ripe old 
 age, over eighty years. 
 
 The boys’ that have passed over the Divide, I do 
 not where they are, but 1 hope they got right. 
 
192 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 TRAIL DRIVING TO KANSAS AND ELSEWHERE. 
 
 By W. F. Cude, of San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 There has always been history from the beginning of 
 the world. It is the duty of the cattle drivers to do their 
 bit in giving to the people of the great state of Texas 
 some important facts that happened more than two score 
 and ten years ago. 
 
 In the year 1861 war broke out between the States 
 and it lasted four years, and during all this time there was 
 no market, so the country was beginning to be overrun 
 with cattle so much that thousands died. Some people 
 went out with a wagon and an ax and killed and skinned 
 them for their hides which sold for one dollar apiece, 
 though there was not much killing of animals for the hides 
 except where the animal was down on the lift or in a 
 bog hole. This was in 1869 and 1870. 
 
 Up until 1872 there was not over 150 miles of railroad 
 in the state, that was from Galveston to Houston, and a 
 short line from Houston to Brazoria, twenty-five miles in 
 length, and one road from Harrisburg to Aleton, three 
 miles east of Columbus. 
 
 So the cattle driving to Kansas was the only hope at 
 that time, and it proved to be a great help before the rail- 
 roads got around. Trail driving to Kansas lasted from 1866 
 to 1886 and it was estimated that fully eight million head 
 of cattle and horses were driven and sold during the twenty 
 years above mentioned to Kansas, the drivers paying for the 
 cattle on an average of $10.00 per head, although most of 
 the horses came back to Texas and were used the next 
 year. There were all sizes of herds from five hundred to 
 twenty-five hundred cattle in a drove, usually seven or 
 eight men to the small herds and twelve to fifteen men 
 with the large herds. 
 
 My first trip to Kansas was in the year 1868. I went 
 with men by the name of Fore Han and C. Cockrell. The 
 cattle were steers, six hundred in number, and were gathered 
 near Cistern Postoffice, in Bastrop county. There were 
 eight hands besides the owners and the cook. After we 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 193 
 
 ALEX WEBB J. J. WELLS 
 
 South Dakota Bartlett, Texas. 
 
 Actual Photo Taken on the Trail 
 
194 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 passed Dallas lightning struck the boys in camp killing- 
 one and three others were so badly burned that one of 
 
 them quit, so we only had six all the way to Kansas. 
 We were told by the citizens of Dallas that we would 
 
 reach the Chisholm trail a few miles north of Dallas and 
 we followed it through Fort Worth, a small town, then 
 through the Chickasaw Nation on to Wichita, Kansas, and 
 thence to Solomon City on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, 
 nine miles west of Abilene. 
 
 There were but few settlements on the way after we 
 
 passed Dallas and when we reached the settlements in 
 
 Kansas we were all joyful again. We passed through 
 many prairie dog towns and over rattlesnake dens, and 
 lost only one horse from rattlesnake bite. Many kinds of 
 wild animals were to seen along the way, such as antelope, 
 elk and buffalo and we killed one buffalo calf and brought 
 it into camp, though 1 did not like the meat as well as 
 that of our cattle. 
 
 The country was one vast stretch of rich land, no timber 
 except on creeks or rivers and when we came in sight of , 
 timber we knew there would be water. In some instances 
 we had to haul our wood to cook with, but generally we , 
 would have to gather buffalo chips (dry dung) for that 
 purpose. 
 
 In the fall of 1869 I drove a herd of cattle to Shreve- 
 port, Louisiana. We made some money but the buffalo 
 
 flies were so bad we never went any more to Shreveport. 
 Sometimes we would get farms to put the cattle in at mg , 
 and the farms were stocked with cockleburrs and the cattles, 
 tails would get full of burrs and when the buffalo flies 
 
 would get after them they would lose their tails fighting 
 the flies. Their tails would become entangled in small 
 pine trees and there they would stand and pull and bellow 
 until they got loose. You could hear them bawl a mile. 
 Some of the cattle would run off and lay down crazed 
 
 with misery and it was hard to drive them back to die 
 
 herd We sold the cattle in Shreveport and down Red River 
 some fifteen miles distant. This herd was gathered in Gon- 
 zales county near where Waelder is now. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 195 
 
 In the fall of 1870 I gathered another herd near the town 
 of Waelder, Gonzales county, and went to New Orleans. 
 On this trip we had many rivers and bayous to swim. 
 Ferryman wanted five to ten dollars for their service. The 
 largest stream was Burvicks Bay at Brazier City, nine 
 hundred yards wide straight across. Here a man led an ox 
 to the edge of the stream and drove him into swimming 
 water, when two men in canoes, one on each side pointed the 
 herd across. 1 shipped a carload from Brazier City to 
 New Orleans and drove the rest, selling to plantations until 
 I reached the Mississippi River there I sold the balance, 
 getting a much better price than I received for those 1 ship- 
 ped to New Orleans, many of the farmers giving me checks 
 on banks and merchants in New Orleans, very few paying the 
 money down. Another herd of cattle went along at the same 
 time, owned by Col. Fred Malone of Beeville, Texas, and 
 Capt. Gibney of New Orleans and as the latter knew the 
 city well, 1 got him to assist me in locating the banks and 
 merchants. One of the merchants had moved, however, so 
 we went to the city register to find his location. When I 
 reached his place I found it to be a house made of 
 beeswax and tallow, and I began to think that fellow 
 could not pay a check for $500.00, but it was all paid. 
 
 I also drove another herd that same year to Natchez, 
 Mississippi, and sold to two men by the name of John 
 McKen and James Gainer, who lived on Black River, 
 thirty miles from Natchez. We made some money on this 
 herd of cattle. Some of the hands came back with the 
 horses and wagons, myself, Charles Edwards and Henry 
 Crozier taking a steamboat on Black River, thence down to 
 Red River and on down to the Mississippi River to New 
 Orleans. This boat took on board sugar and molasses all 
 along the way. It was a very pleasant trip and somewhat 
 amusing to see the hands load on the barrels of sugar and 
 molasses. They loaded that boat until the deck was right 
 down to the water’s edge. At New Orleans we took a train 
 to Brazier City, there we took a ship to Galveston and 
 from there came by train to our home in Gonzales county. 
 
196 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 In the year of 1871 I saddled up “Old Ball,” my favorite 
 horse, and rode away to Kansas, this time for N. W. Cude, 
 whose herd was gathered in Gonzales, Caldwell and Bastrop 
 counties. When we reached North Texas I found the Old 
 Chisholm Trail had been abandoned and went far to the 
 west to cross Red River. One morning about 11 o’clock 
 I rode on ahead of the herd, to some timber where “Old 
 Ball” stopped very suddenly and then 1 saw an Indian 
 standing near the road. The Indian had a gun, and I suppose 
 he was out on a hunt, but I gave my horse more slack on the 
 bridle and passed on and neither of us spoke. A few days 
 later two Indians came up to the herd and wanted beef, 
 but I told them that I had bought those cattle, and had 
 none to give away. They talked some English and asked to 
 see my gun. I gave it to one of them and they looked 
 it all over and soon rode away as fast as their horses 
 could carry them. The cattle market was very low that 
 year, so I failed to sell out all, wintering the balance in 
 Nebraska but they turned out bad. In crossing the Missouri 
 River, it being frozen over, the cattle milled out on the 
 ice and broke through and we lost sixteen. The expense 
 of wintering was so heavy we came out behind that year. 
 
 The first cattle I ever drove to a market was in 1867, t 
 to Houston, Texas, by a man by the name of Tumelson 
 from Gonzales county, and the last herd was in 1872 by 
 a man by the name of O. J. Baker. R. D. Cude and myself 
 bought the cattle from a Mr. Wimberly in Hays county. 
 We drove to Kansas and stopped our herd about fifteen 
 miles west of Ellsworth near the Kansas Pacific Railroad. ' 
 Everything went well except when we got into Kansas, 
 Bluff Creek being the line, we lay over a day to rest and 
 clean up. Next morning just about sun-up 1 heard a gun 
 shot down the creek and in a few minutes we saw two 
 Indians running two mules as fast as they could go. They 
 had shot a white man with a gun and arrows. He came 
 dragging up to our camp with one arrow still sticking in 
 him, and one of the boys pulled it out and we carried 
 him to a tent not far away. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 197 
 
 The trail drivers had many narrow escapes and were 
 exposed to many storms, cyclones, hail and all kinds of 
 weather, stampedes of cattle, running over ditches and 
 bluffs at night. Some few never came back, but were 
 buried along the lonely trail, among the wild roses, 
 wrapped only in their bed blankets; no human being living 
 near, just the coyote roaming there. 
 
 WHEN LIGHTNING SET THE GRASS ON FIRE. 
 
 By George W. Brock, of Lockhart, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Caldwell county, Texas, three miles west 
 of Lockhart, January 25, i860. Beginning at the age of 
 nine years, I commenced to handle stock, but at that time 
 1 was too small to get on a horse unaided, and my father 
 told me not to get off, but every time I saw a rabbit 
 I would get off and throw rocks at it and then I would 
 have to be helped back on my horse. 
 
 About 1871 or 1872 I started on my first trip on the 
 trail, going with my father. When near Fort Worth father 
 concluded I was too young to go on account of the danger 
 of Indians and he sent me back home. 
 
 I continued to work with cattle until 1876, and at this 
 date I went to work for M. A. Withers herding 300 cows, 
 penning them at night, sleeping at the pens and doing my 
 own cooking. 
 
 In 1878 M. A. Withers took a bunch of boys to Fayette 
 county, Texas, and bought about 800 head of cattle. At 
 the crossing on the Colorado at Judge L. Moore’s Ranch, 
 we had a great experience in two or three ways. We tried 
 first to swim the cattlte across the river, but we only 
 succeeded in getting about ten head across that way, and 
 had to rope and drag them. We then crossed the others 
 on the ferry boat. Here 1 saw my first Jersey. She was 
 a heifer and belonged to Judge Moore and it was a hard 
 matter to keep her out of our herd. Judge Moore thought 
 very much of this heifer and would watch everybody pass- 
 ing there with cattle. When he came out and found the 
 
198 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 thing in our herd he threatened to prosecute us for attempt- 
 ing to steal her. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 In January, 1879, Blanks and Withers began buying 
 cattle and pasturing them, preparing for a drive in the 
 spring. On the first day of April we rounded up the 
 pasture to start the herd north. On the second we left the 
 pasture and went about three or four miles and camped for 
 the night. We had so few men with us that night we lost 
 about 3200 out of 3 500 head. They just simply walked off 
 and every one seemed to take a different direction, and 
 being short of men they went their way, with the result as 
 stated. 
 
 The next morning G. W. Mills (Pap) and myself held 
 the 300 until the others ate breakfast. When we went to 
 camp there were two horses tied up for us. Not one of us 
 knew anything about these horses but the general opinion 
 of the camp was that one of them was bad. The cook 
 said, “Withers left instructions for Brock to ride the 
 one supposed to be bad and for Mills to ride the other 
 one.” So “Pap” had lots of fun while eating breakfast at 
 the thought of seeing Brock thrown and losing his saddle. 
 Breakfast over, Brock saddled the bad horse and mounted 
 him and he walked off perfectly quiet, but it was entirely a 
 different case with “Pap’s” horse. “Pap” was the one that 
 went heavenward and had to call for poultices, which was 
 so often the case on the trail for the fun did not always 
 show up just where you were expecting it. Going back to 
 the herd, we got them all together by the next day, moved 
 back into the pasture and for four or five nights these 
 cattle would walk off, so the first night we held them 
 we put them on the trail proper the next morning and drove 
 them as far as possible. We had no other happenings ex- 
 cept an occasional storm or high water stampede, which 
 belonged to the business. 
 
 In the edge of the state of Kansas the cook accidently 
 set the grass on fire and we had to move into rough 
 country. 
 
 One night Mark Withers cautioned me to tie my horse good 
 so that if anything happened 1 would be ready. About 12 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 199 
 
 o’clock the cattle stampeded and when I got to where my 
 horse had been he was gone. I told Mark my horse was 
 
 gone and he said “Durn it! I told you to tie that horse 
 
 good.” And when he went to where his horse was tied 
 he was gone also, and I said, “Durn it! Why didn’t you tie 
 him good?” We could do nothing but listen to the running 
 of the cattle and every once in a while Mark would ex- 
 claim, “If 1 only had a horse!” 
 
 After I returned from this trip I worked on the ranch 
 
 until 1883 and then went to La Salle county for Blanks 
 and Withers and worked on the ranch for four or five 
 months. In 1884 we left home for the Blanks and Withers 
 ranch in La Salle county. The first herd prepared was 
 
 turned over to G. B. (Gus) Withers, numbering 4000 
 3’s and 4’s. 1 started to help Gus with this herd to Uvalde 
 county but we had a stampede just above Cotulla and 
 lost 400 or 500 head. Willie Hargis and myself were left 
 to gather them up. We got all but about 200 head of 
 
 the cattle and most of the horses. Some of the horses 
 
 went back to the ranch before stopping. In this stampede 
 my horse ran into a ditch that night. The cause of him 
 
 doing this was because I was trying to point the cattle away 
 from the ditch and a negro, Russ Jones, was on the op- 
 posite side of the herd trying to do the same thing, and 
 the result was that instead of pointing them away from 
 the ditch we drove them straight into it. The banks of 
 this ditch were five or six feet high and 1 was fortunate in 
 escaping unhurt. 
 
 This stampede occurred in a very brushy place and the 
 men next morning all looked like they had been to an 
 
 Irish wake, all bloody and bruised. 
 
 In this drive we rounded up one of those notorious 
 outlaw steers which were to be found in the country at 
 that time. Withers said if there were any two or three men 
 in the outfit that had the nerve to rope that steer and 
 lead him to a good place he would kill him for beef. 
 Well, 1 caught him, but if 1 had not have had others 
 close at hand who came to my rescue and also roped 
 him and spread him out so to speak, I might not have 
 
200 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 been writing this story. But between us we killed him and 
 enjoyed his carcass. 
 
 The outlaw steer above referred to was rounded up 
 while we were on the ranch after Hargis and I turned 
 over the cattle we gathered after the stampede. I went 
 back to the ranch and we gathered another herd and 
 shipped them to Wichita Falls, Texas. Drove from there 
 to Julesburg, Colorado. Sam Childress being the boss. 
 We crossed the Red River at Doan’s Store where we laid 
 in supplies to last us until we reached Dodge City, Kansas. 
 They told us at the store that someone was stampeding 
 horses across the river and driving them off. So when 
 we camped at night after crossing the river Childress and 
 myself tied our horses to the wagon and examined our 
 six-shooters to see that they were in working order. After 
 we had gone to sleep the cook jumped up and said, “T he 
 horses are running.” Childress and I jumped on our horses 
 with our pistols in our hands but just then the cook dis- 
 covered that it was only a pot of beans boiling which he 
 had built a big fire around before going to bed. 
 
 After crossing North Red River in the Wichita Mountains, 
 we met a Comanche chief who said he had 300 bucks : 
 besides the women and children. 1 gave him five crippled 
 yearlings to keep his bunch away from our outfit, and he 
 kept his promise. After we got to the top of the ridge 1 
 looked down in the valley of Washita River and the whole 
 face of the country was alive with herds. 1 went back 
 and stopped the herd until 1 could survey the route, and ; 
 found that by going above the trail and crossing about five 
 miles up and swimming the river we could get ahead of 
 everything, so we proceeded to swim the river and get 
 ahead in the lead of all other herds. 
 
 Monroe Hardeman was just behind us with another 
 herd for Blanks and Withers, and he helped us swim our 
 
 herd and we in turn helped him. After we got both herds 
 
 across, I found that the sun had taken all the skin off 
 
 my back. Swimming the river and an occasional stampede 
 
 was about the only excitement until we reached Kansas. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 201 
 
 Childress at one time having been shot all to pieces by 
 a bunch of soldiers who mistook him and others for horse 
 thieves, causing him to have a natural hatred toward all 
 soldiers, and at Bear Creek he spied about 300 negro 
 soldiers coming toward us. He squared himself with gun in 
 hand and was ready to open fire. I tried to stop him but saw 
 there was no use to talk to him so I roped his horse 
 and pulled him around and led him off. I think that was 
 all that saved our whole outfit, as we were so badly out- 
 numbered it would have meant suicide to have started any- 
 thing like that. However, we had just left Longhorn 
 Roundup and Childress had been celebrating considerably 
 and that might have had something to do with his display of 
 nerve that he exhibited there. 
 
 From there to Dodge City everything went well. At 
 Dodge City every man including the boss, except myself, 
 celebrated in great style, while I was left to handle and hold 
 the outfit. 
 
 After disposing of our lame cattle we shaped up and moved 
 on to Ogallala. About four or five days’ drive out of 
 Dodge City, Tobe Swearingen came to our herd to count 
 the cattle, and he and I did the counting. According to my 
 count the cattle were all there, but he made a mistake of 
 too, making us out that number, and it being too late to 
 
 recount I spent an awful restless night. I couldn’t under- 
 stand how we could lose that many cattle in a prairie 
 
 country like that. The next morning we recounted and found 
 that my count was correct. Then my nervousness left me. 
 
 Several days later we had to make a long drive for 
 
 water. We watered at the North Republican. The lead 
 
 cattle struck the Frenchman about sundown, and from then 
 until next morning about 10 o’clock they kept coming in, 
 and every once in a while a man would show up. 
 
 The morning we started this particular drive 1 ate 
 breakfast at daylight and the next meal I ate was at 10 
 o’clock the next day. 
 
 For the next day or two we grazed along the stream, 
 so appropriately named Stinking Water. When crossing the 
 Frenchman the cook broke the wagon tongue, and we fixed 
 
202 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 it by wrapping it with ropes so that it held out for the 
 balance of the trip. 
 
 After leaving Stinking Water for Ogallala everything went 
 nicely. Leaving Ogallala we v/ent up the south side of 
 the Platte River to Julesburg Junction, where we delivered 
 our cattle to Governor Rout and Ex-Governor Brush of 
 Colorado. 
 
 Going up the river our only trouble was to keep our 
 stock off the farmers. They had no fences and it took very 
 careful watching to keep them out of those patches. To 
 let your stuff get on those patches meant the highest price 
 grazing that a Texas horse or steer ever got. One night 
 I woke up and heard the horse bell and I knew it was 
 in the wrong direction, so I got up and found them grazng 
 on one of those high-priced corn patches. I quietly drove 
 them to camp, woke up everybody and moved everything 
 away that night. 1 believe that corn actually did the horses 
 good; at least they seemed that night to travel stronger 
 than usual. 
 
 After reaching Julesburg Junction we crossed the Platte 
 and began delivering. 
 
 I was then sent to meet Gus Withers who had not yet 
 come up with us. 1 had three horses, riding one and leading 
 the others. When crossing the Platte my horses were so 
 weak from the trip from Texas and the quicksand so very 
 bad, they could not carry me, so I led them, wading water 
 up to my chin. After crossing the river and about the middle 
 of the evening, I met with something entirely different 
 from anything 1 had ever before been up against. I had 
 thought up to this time that I knew what a Kansas storm 
 was, but that evening 1 was shown that I had never been in 
 one before. The lightning would strike the ground and 
 set the grass on fire, then the rain would put it out. I got 
 off my horse and tied the three together, took off my 
 spurs, six-shooter and pocket knife, laid them down and 
 moved away. After the storm was over the sun came out 
 and it looked as though nothing had ever happened, so 1 
 moved on. At night, not knowing where I was, I stopped 
 at a good hole of water, but 1 had nothing to eat. After 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 203 
 
 laying down I heard the lowing of cattle, I saddled up, 
 putting my bedding in front of me and started in the direction 
 of the cattle I had heard and to my good luck it was 
 Gus’ herd. The boys were all very glad to see me as I had 
 heard from home and they had not. They had been in the 
 same storm that I had just passed through and the lightning- 
 killed one steer for them. Very shortly after I reached 
 them their herd stampeded but they did not lose anything, 
 and Gus said, “The cattle did that to show they were 
 glad to see Brock.” I then piloted them back to Julesburg 
 the same route I had traveled in going to them. 
 
 After all our cattle had been delivered we naturally felt 
 that we could sleep as long as we cared to. So Childress 
 and myself slept uptil 10 o’clock the next morning. The 
 sun was unusually bright and we both being without 
 whiskers on the top of our heads, the boys said our heads 
 made very good mirrors. 
 
 The dinner that Mark Withers gave us at the station 
 when we were ready to come home paid me fully for all 
 the meals I had lost on the trip. 
 
 The balance of my work with cattle has been on ranches 
 at home. 
 
 Old age and parting of ways in life, 
 
 Will not erase the cowboys’ strife. 
 
 In after years let come what will, 
 
 He proves to be a cowboy still. 
 
 “BIG COWBOY BALL.” 
 
 The cowboys of Springer, New Mexico, gave their fourth 
 annual ball in that city. They sent something like eight 
 hundred invitations at home, and abroad, inscribed with 
 appropriate verse, as follows: 
 
 “Caller let no echo slumber, 
 
 Fiddler sweatin’ like a steer, 
 
 Huffs a poundin’ at the lumber, 
 
 Makin’ music the stars could hear; 
 
 Hug the gals up when we swing ’em, 
 
 Raise them plum off their feet, 
 
204 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Balance all ye saddle warmers, 
 
 Rag a little, shake your feet, 
 
 On to next’un, and repeat it, 
 
 Balance to the next in waitin’, 
 Promenade, and off you go, 
 
 Seat your pards, and let ’em blow.” 
 
 DID YOU EVER DO THE SQUARE? 
 
 Git yo’ little sage hens ready, 
 
 Trot ’em out upon the floor 
 
 Line up there, you cusses! Steady! 
 
 Lively, now. One couple more. 
 
 Shorty, shed thet old sombrero! 
 
 Broncho, douse thet cigarette; 
 
 Stop thet cussin! Casimero, 
 
 ’Fore the ladies! Now, all set! 
 
 S’lute your ladies, all together! 
 
 Ladies opposite the same — 
 
 Hit the lumber with your leathers! 
 Balance all, an’ swing your dame! 
 
 Bunch the heifers in the middle; 
 
 Circle stags, and do-se-do. 
 
 Pay attention to the fiddle! 
 
 Swing her round and off you go! 
 
 First four forward! Back to places! 
 
 Second fellow, shuffle back ! 
 
 Now you’ve got it down to cases — 
 Swing’em till their trotters crack! 
 
 Gents all right a’heel and toeing! 
 
 Swing ’em, kiss ’em if you kin — 
 
 On to next and keep a-goin’. 
 
 Till yer hit yer pards agin ! 
 
 Gents to center, ladies ’round ’em. 
 
 Form a basket, balance all! 
 
 Whirl yer gals to where you found ’em; 
 Promenade around the hall! 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 205 
 
 Balance to yer pards and trot ’em. 
 
 ’Round the circle double quick, 
 
 Grab an’ kiss while you’ve got ’em, 
 
 Hold ’em to it if they kick! 
 
 Ladies, left hand to your sonnies! 
 
 Alaman! Grind right and left! 
 
 Balance, all, an’ swing yer honeys — 
 
 Pick ’em up an’ feel their heft! 
 
 Promenade like skeery cattle — 
 
 Balance all an’ swing yer sweets! 
 
 Shake yer spurs an’ make ’em rattle! 
 
 Keno! Promenade to seats. 
 
 — James Barton Adams. 
 
 EXPERIENCES “TENDERFEET COULD NOT SURVIVE. 
 
 By G. W. Mills, of Lockhart, Texas. 
 
 My father and mother were both born in Somerset, state 
 of Kentucky. I first saw the light of day on June 2, 1857, 
 and in the fall of 1872 my father with his family, in- 
 cluding myself, emigrated to Texas. Our mode of trans- 
 portation was by way of wagons, there being no railroads 
 convenient at that early date. My father came to look after 
 some land somewhere in the broad domain of Texas, he 
 knew not exactly where, that had been left him by an 
 older brother, Henry P. Mills, who died while serving as a 
 soldier in the Texas War for Independence. We settled near 
 Lockhart in 1874, and at the age of about seventeen, 1 
 went to work on the M. A. Withers ranch, one of the 
 biggest ranches of this section at that time, which was due 
 west of Lockhart about four miles, as the crow flies. 
 
 I think it would be of interest to the reader to have 
 some idea of the appearance of that ranch, as it appeared 
 to me then a mere lad; it was located on a little flowing- 
 stream known as Clear Fork and abundantly fed by many 
 springs. This creek was fringed with timber, pecan, walnut, 
 elm, hackberry, and wild plum, on either bank, and dipping 
 
206 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 into its crystal waters were the weeping willows. The creek 
 abounded with an abundance of fish such as bass, channel 
 cat and the silver perch. The old ranch house stood back 
 about three hundred yards east of the creek, on the summit 
 of a gradual sloping hillside which commanded a view of the 
 beautiful stretch of valley country roundabout and where it 
 was swept by the gentle southern breeze. 
 
 About one hundred and fifty yards from the house were 
 the corrals, covering about four acres of ground, and these 
 corrals were divided into various pens, in which we “rounded 
 up” from time to time, the great herds for marking and 
 branding. As a mattter of course these pens were built to 
 endure and were very strong, as cattle in those days were 
 wild and in this exciting work none but well built pens 
 would hold them. The unitiated will probably be interested 
 in knowing just how these corrals, as we termed them, 
 were built, when material was not so plentiful as now. 
 The materal was largely post oak rails which we had 
 cut and hauled by ox teams about five miles from the 
 timbered country of Caldwell county. The posts were of 
 fine cedar timber obtained from old Mountain City in Hays 
 county. These corrals had to be much higher than the 
 ordinary fences as the infuriated longhorns would in their 
 desperation to be free try to go over the top or break them 
 down. Once the material on the ground, we dug deep wide 
 holes, about seven feet apart, and in these we placed two 
 of the cedar posts in such juxtaposition as to hold the long 
 rails which we piled one on top of the other until they 
 reached the top of the high posts. That being done, some 
 of the old timers bound the ends of the posts together with 
 wire, or stout strips of raw hide, but at about the time of which 
 I write we began to bind them with smooth wire. The sub- 
 divisions spoken of above were divided into branding pens and 
 horse corrals. We would not be true to the picture we are 
 now attempting to paint in words if we fail to mention the 
 singularly attractive feature of the setting of these particular 
 corrals. They were shaded by large spreading liveoaks, 
 hoary with age, where we hung up our saddles and leggings 
 and various and sundry camp equipage, under which we 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 207 
 
 slept on our blankets and saddle pillows, and partook ot 
 our frugal fare. Some of these grand old monarchs of the 
 forest still stand — the pride of the Texas cowboy. 
 
 It must be realized that we had no fences arbitrarily de- 
 ciding the bounds of our little empire and our cattle and 
 horses roamed at will over the hills and valleys, covered 
 with the rich, luxuriant curly mesquite grass, upon which 
 they grew sleek and fat. 
 
 After three years work on this busy ranch none but the 
 life of a cowboy appealed to me. Around the old camp fires 
 at night I heard the tales of the older men of their ex- 
 citing life on the trail, and naturally I felt like going the 
 route that those I knew, admired and trusted had gone. 
 Right here 1 want to put in that, fortunately for me, I was 
 associated with a few of the grand old stockmen of early 
 days, to whose fine, though rugged characters, I am in- 
 debted for that training which carried me safely through 
 many trying times. 
 
 In March 1877, as our boss was not to drive that year, 
 I secured employment with Ellison and Dewees who were 
 going to drive about six herds up the trail from this section 
 to Ogallala, Nebraska, on the South Platte River. In the 
 six herds there were about fifteen thousand head of mixed 
 cattle, being about 2500 head to the herd, each herd 
 having its boss and trail outfit, which we will now attempt 
 to briefly describe. The boss is the man in charge of the 
 herd; then there were eight cowboys, one “horse wrangler” 
 and cook who drove the wagon, drawn by two yoke of 
 oxen — the wagon containing our provisions and bedding, 
 the provisions being replenished from time to time from the 
 “out posts,” sometimes hundreds of miles apart. We received 
 our herd in the western part of Gonzales county, the herd 
 being in charge of N. P. Ellison, a cousin of Col. J. F. 
 Ellison, a grand old cow man who owned the cattle. 
 
 On this trip we had with us the following boys, not a 
 one over twenty-three years of age: W. M. Ellison, son 
 of the boss, E. F. Hilliard, W. F. Felder, E. M. Storey, Albert 
 McQueen, Ace Jackson, myself, two negro cow hands and a 
 negro cook. 
 
208 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We left the Lockhart pasture about the first of April, took 
 the Chisholm Trail and “lit out.” My first stampede was on 
 Onion Creek; as usual, this occurred at night, about 12 
 o’clock. The herd was bedded about one hundred yards 
 from the wagon, two men on guard. In their fright the 
 cattle broke for the wagon, and we asleep at the camp, being- 
 aroused by the roar of trampling hoofs scrambled up on 
 the wagon. One of the older men jumped up and shook a 
 blanket before them and turned them off the other way. 
 The first thing I remember was the boss calling out, “Boys, 
 get down and get your horses.” It was then that I discovered 
 that I had quit my pallet and was astride one of the hind 
 wheels. Of course we hurriedly got our horses, went around 
 the cattle, after about a mile’s run, held them, and they 
 quieted down; old hands at the business will know that 
 we slept no more that night. This trip was marked by ex- 
 cessive rainfall, big rains falling at night, and one hail 
 
 storm, adding greatly to the hardship of the cowboy’s 
 
 lot; but we didn’t mind it much, and with songs and jokes 
 kept up our spirits. 
 
 When we arrived at old Red River Station, where the 
 old Chisholm trail crossed, we found the river up, and 
 several herds waiting to cross; we stopped on the east side 
 of Panther Creek and pitched camp. 1 want to say here 
 
 that that stream was rightly named. We killed a fat yearling, 
 I won’t say whose it was, tied a rope to one end of the 
 front bow of the wagon, the other to a small tree; the 
 
 cook hung the beef on the rope; when the boy came in 
 at 12 o’clock to wake up the third guard he discovered 
 a panther, standing on his hind feet eating the meat off of 
 the rope, just on the opposite side of the wagon from where 
 we were sleeping. He opened fire with his forty-five on the 
 panther. We thought “horse rustlers,” now commonly called 
 horse thieves, had attacked the camp; the noise of the firing- 
 stampeded the cattle. As the boys sprang out of their 
 blankets some had their forty-five’s ready and some made 
 for the horses where it took but a moment to saddle and 
 then off for the cattle. In the rush E. M. Storey sang 
 out, “Who is that? If you don’t speak out, I’ll cut loose at 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 209 
 
 you,” and then we recognized the voice of E. F. Hilliard, 
 calling out in the inky darkness from the direction of the 
 firing, in excited tones; “It’s a damned panther; he’s eating 
 our meat off the rope.” This was about twenty feet from 
 where we were sound asleep, sleeping as only Texas cowboys 
 can. By that time the herd had gotten a good distance 
 away. We made a run to overtake the herd; finally 
 rounded up a part of them that night, and the man on 
 guard checked another part further away. The balance we 
 found next morning in the valley of Red River; rounded 
 all up and started back to camp about five miles away. We 
 counted them, always a part of the program, to see if we had 
 lost any. To show that our work was not all “rough work,” 
 and that we had our “book keeping” department, though 
 ever so simple, I shall tell how this counting was done. 
 The herd was allowed to string out; two men went on ahead, 
 some distance in width between them; the others pointed 
 the herd in their direction and so that they would slowly 
 go between them; then they counted, and with a knot on 
 the saddle string, or some other convenient method, tallied 
 them by hundreds, each calling out to see if they had agreed; 
 then knowing the number that we started with, we knew if 
 our round up had been complete. 
 
 We bedded the cattle on the same bed ground that night; 
 
 1 and my pal stood guard from two o’clock in the morning 
 until day. On guard, one rides one way and the other the 
 opposite direction around. As I got on the round on the 
 side next to the creek I heard the most horrifying yell,, or 
 more of a scream that I had ever heard in all my life. This 
 blood-curdling scream came from a bending tree about 
 sixty yards from the herd; my thick hair went straight up 
 and has never thoroughly settled down since that memorable 
 night. The cattle jumped up, and about that time I met my 
 pal coming toward me. Instantly I said, “What’s that?” 
 His reply betrayed his fright also, although he had been 
 up the trail before. In language picturesque and accurate he 
 replied, “The scream of a panther,” with some adjectives 
 before that name which assured me that my hair was not 
 standing on end for nothing. From then on until daylight 
 
2 10 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 we just rode around together. Next morning we told the 
 boss that we had rather swim Red River (then three 
 hundred yards wide in swimming water) than to stand guard 
 assisted by panthers, ready to spring on man or beast. A 
 conference was held among the bosses and it was decided 
 to cross some of the herds that very day. We hit the water 
 about 10 o’clock, and crossed our herd first, four other 
 herds following. Of course the outfits assisted one another in 
 this hard and dangerous work; in this crossing one of the 
 boys had a horse which refused to swim, and the man had to 
 jump off onto a wild steer’s back, but with pluck made a 
 safe landing on the other side. This put us into the Indian 
 Territory and new precautions had to be taken to save us 
 from attack by the Indians, the several herds keeping close 
 together to be of mutual help, in case of a surprise attack. 
 The next river was Washita, and we had to swim that also, 
 narrow but deep and very swift. About a hundred miles 
 further on we came to the North Canadian River, swimming 
 also, narrow, deep and swift. When I swam across and 
 came out on the opposite side on the second bank, I got 
 down to pull off my boots to let the water out, and wrench 
 my socks. A few scattering elm trees were ahead and about 
 the time I got my boots off I looked up toward the trees 
 and saw my first Indian, who looked about six and one- 
 half feet tall to me, standing backed up against one of 
 those elm trees, with the eagle feathers in his head, a long 
 rifle standing up in front of him. He had on buckskin 
 clothes with a dandy fringe on them. My hair rose again 
 very suddenly, so I lit straddle of my horse and ran on out 
 to the front cattle; the other two boys thought I was just 
 seeing things because 1 was badly scared. They did not be- 
 lieve there was an Indian down there, but when they finished 
 crossing the herd, and came on up with the wagon, there 
 were about fifteen Indians showed up with the one I had 
 first seen acting as chief, who claimed that he was the 
 noted chief “Spotted Tail.” He told the boss he wanted 
 “wa-ha, ” meaning beef. Then I had it on the boys and it 
 was their time to get scared. The boss knew it was best to 
 use a little diplomacy and so he told us to cut out four or 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 2 1-1 
 
 five of the “drag' yearlings,” and turn them over to them. 
 The Indians had just as soon have these lame or given-out 
 cattle as any. Of course, Indian-like they wanted more, but 
 we out-talked them, telling them there were more herds be- 
 hind and they would gladly give them some of theirs. Then 
 the chief put up his spiel for “chuck,” meaning flour, bacon, 
 etc. And they talked like they meant to have it. We ex- 
 plained that our supply was short but just to wait on the 
 big supply coming on behind; they left us and went on to 
 meet the other herds, so we moved on out of their zone 
 that evening. We saw no more Indians on that trip, and we 
 did not look for any. On Salt Fork, there came up a 
 rain and lightning storm, and I saw unbelievable doings of 
 the lightning; it beat anything I ever saw, the lightning 
 would hit the side of those hills and gouge out great holes 
 in the earth like a bomb had struck them, and it killed 
 seven or eight head of cattle in the herd back of us and 
 two horses out of the “remutha,” which being interpreted 
 means the saddle horses. Nothing more eventful occurred 
 and in about a week we arrived at the famous and re- 
 nowned, Dodge City, Kansas, a familiar name to all cow 
 men in. that day. Then we provisioned and started on the 
 tail-end of the journey to Ogallala, about three hundred 
 miles. We arrived there about August 1st, our cattle all in 
 good shape, in better condition long ways than when we 
 left; they were there delivered to the various purchasers 
 who removed them to their respective ranches in that great 
 cow country. Our faithful saddle horses, wagons and all were 
 disposed of with the cattle. On the night of August 20, this 
 being 1877, I went to call on Col. J. F. Ellison, he being 
 indisposed and stopping at the Gass House, and also to 
 get my “time,” which really means wages, about $180.00, 
 then a small fortune for a young cow boy. Upon this visit to 
 Colonel Ellison, I was introduced to two guests who had 
 called to pay their respects; they were two brothers, Joel 
 and Joe Collins, handsome young men, products of the 
 West. About a week afterwards in that very neighborhood, 
 the Union Pacific was held up, eighteen miles west of 
 Ogallala, and the robbers rifled the express car, taking 
 
2 12 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 $100,000 in gold but scorning to take a huge amount of 
 silver, which perhaps was too heavy to take with them in 
 their hasty flight. Joel Collins was in this very hold-up 
 being with the notorious Sam Bass gang who successfully 
 did the trick. About a week afterward, Joel and George 
 Hereford were killed by a detachment of United States 
 soldiers and their part of the loot recovered, about three 
 miles south of what was known then as Buffalo Park, on 
 the K. P. Railroad. Upon getting my time, 1 lit out for 
 home over the U. P. Railroad. On the way back 1 fell 
 in with some wild and woolly green cow boys, making their 
 first trip on a train, just like myself. At Grand Island the 
 train stopped for breakfast; we got off and on the way to 
 the eating place, a negro suddenly came around the corner 
 of the house, beating one of those huge gongs making a 
 most terrific din of noise. We were scared senseless, and 
 it was all I could do to keep one of those boys from shoot- 
 ing that darkey. He contended that he would let no d n 
 
 nigger stampede him by beating on a tin can. It is hard 
 for you who have always travelled and become accustomed 
 to the ways of the city to understand just how puzzling 
 civilization is to a boy raised up on the Texas frontier, 
 whose life is very simple, and who knows cow trails far 
 better than he does paved streets and the camp fires the 
 only hotels he ever saw until forced out into the world. 
 
 We arrived at Austin on time and there 1 took one of 
 those old fashioned stages to Lockhart, feeling like 1 had 
 seen the world and with much pride telling the boys all 
 that 1 had seen and been through with. The younger boys 
 looked upon us fellows who had been up the trail as heroes, 
 and of course this very thing incited others to want to go. 
 It was the life ambition of many a one to make such a 
 trip. You were not a graduate in the cowboy’s school until 
 you had been. 
 
 In ’78 I was back on the comfortable old Withers Ranch. 
 In ’79 my old friend and boss, M. A. Withers took through 
 a herd and 1 went with him. We crossed the Colorado at 
 Webberville and arrived at Taylor about the 22nd of April. 
 A rain, a terrible rain, came up about four o’clock in the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 213 
 
 evening, raining all evening and all night. It was very 
 cold and we came very near freezing to death. At that 
 spring time period several horses and cattle died of the 
 cold; every horse that we rode that bitter night was unfit 
 for service the balance of the trip, so dreadful was the 
 exposure. You understand cattle drift before wind-driven 
 rain, and by morning we were at Hutto, eight miles away; 
 we had had no supper and no breakfast, and not until 
 noon did we have anything to eat. When these “drifts” take 
 place every man and the boss is in front of the herd, holding 
 them as much as possible; there are no shifts then, but 
 every man to his post all night long, and the nights are 
 
 long, too. On this memorable night 1 well recall my 
 
 associates: M. A. Withers, in charge; G. B. Withers; G. W. 
 Brock; A. N. Eustace; C. W. Pope; W. M. Ellison; Joe 
 
 Lewis, the scout; Barney Roland, better known as “Pard”; 
 and Edmundo Martinez, the Mexican horse-wrangler. Next 
 day it was still bitterly cold but the rain had let up, leaving 
 that country covered with water. About noon we got back 
 to camp, and our appetites, always good,, were now rav- 
 enous and we looked forward to boiling coffee and hot 
 
 grub of some kind. Instead, imagine our disappointment, at 
 finding the trifling cook housed up in the wagon covered in 
 his blankets, and hadn’t prepared a thing, hadn’t even 
 started a fire. Mr. Withers, always mindful of his men, was 
 outraged and hauled him out of there with a demand to 
 know why he didn’t have the boys something to eat. He 
 evasively replied that he couldn’t build a fire in that water. 
 Mr. Withers gave him his time and told him to “light a 
 shuck.” I can see that cook now making it over those hog- 
 wallows, filled with water, to the nearest town. Under a 
 a camp wagon is usually suspended an old cowhide called 
 the “caboose,” and in that we throw stray pieces of 
 wood, etc., as long as we are in a country where it can be 
 had, just for use in such emergencies. It came in handy that 
 time, sure, and some of the boys got it out, and with a 
 lavish use of the oil can we soon had things going, some 
 of the boys doing the cooking. We were not particular and 
 after a hearty meal our spirits were up again ready for any 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 2 14 
 
 turn of fate in the cowboy’s lot. The next day we picked 
 up a boy from old Gonzales county, filled with the spirit of 
 adventure, by the name of Joe Knowles, and he cooked 
 the balance of the way up. He was a good lad and some 
 of the boys have seen him since, just lately, and he is 
 doing well, we all are glad to know. 
 
 We went the old Chisholm trail and crossed the river 
 at Red River Station. Nothing exciting occurred until we 
 got to Turkey Creek, Indian Territory; there the trail had 
 been changed to turn northwest, and hit the western trail 
 at the Long Horn Round Up on the Cimarron. The new 
 
 trail had been marked out by a buffalo head set up about 
 
 every half of a mile. 
 
 It was a hundred miles from Turkey Creek to Long Horn 
 Round Up. We arrived at Dodge City early in July, sold our 
 steer yearlings there to the well-known cattle firm of Day 
 Brothers, moved on up to the Smoky River, sold the cows 
 
 to J. R. Blocker; then lit out for Ogallala, Nebraska. At 
 
 about thirty miles from the last named place, we pitched 
 camp about a mile from the spring which curiously enough 
 opens up right in the bald prairie and forms the head of 
 the stream known as Stinking Water. Here I had an ex- 
 perience with lightning that I know rivals the experience 
 of any man who ever went up the trail; how we escaped 
 death I have never understood. The storm hit us about 12 
 o’clock at night, there was some rain, and to the north- 
 west 1 noticed just a few little bats of lightning; then it 
 hit us in full fury and we were in the midst of a wonder- 
 ful electrical storm. We had the following varieties of 
 lightning, all playing close at hand, 1 tell you; it first com- 
 menced like flash lightning, then came forked lightning, then 
 chain lightning, followed by the peculiar blue lightning; 
 after that show it rapidly developed into ball lightning which 
 rolled along on the ground; after that spark lightning; then 
 most wonderful of all it settled down on us like a fog; the 
 air smelled of burning sulphur; you could see it on the horns 
 of the cattle, the ears of our horses and the brim of our 
 hats; it grew so warm, we thought we might burn up with it, 
 and M. A. Withers and Joe Lewis, old timers told me after- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 2 15 
 
 wards that they never had seen the like in all of their ex- 
 periences. Needless to say we were all on guard that night; 
 
 the cattle did not give us so much trouble as the constant 
 
 flashes keeping them from moving so much. We delivered 
 at Ogallala and lit out for Texas. 
 
 Under the same leadership we drove two herds in 1880 
 to Fort Griffin, going what was known as the Western trail. 
 We threw them together at Fort Griffin, M. A. Withers 
 taking full charge. There were about 4500 mixed cattle in 
 that herd. It looked like a “round up” when turning them 
 off of the bedding ground. When we arrived at Beaver Creek 
 
 near Pease River, we had a terrible rain, a veritable cloud- 
 
 burst; raining all day, all night and all next day. The ground 
 got so soft, it was belly deep to a horse, and they would 
 give out in a short distance, as tough as they were. For 
 two days and nights we were without any sleep. We were 
 in the saddle all of the time except when we snatched a bite 
 to eat, and to change saddle horses. The prairie was simply 
 covered with prairie dogs, which had been run out of their 
 homes in the ground by the water. 
 
 On this trip when we left Washita, we were expecting 
 to find plenty of water at the South Canadian, and found it 
 dry as a powder house. That was nearly thirty miles through 
 the hot sun dunes to Wolf Creek — sixty-five miles without 
 any water. The cattle milled all night, suffering for water 
 and “lowed” piteously. Next morning we hit the trail early. 
 Late that evening we arrived at the brow of the old slope 
 down to Wolf Creek, with six men ahead to hold the lead 
 cattle back. They made a run for the water, which they 
 had smelled for some distance; ran through an Indian camp, 
 stampeding the Indians and their horses; cattle and men all 
 went off in the river together. 
 
 Here we sold the cows, about five hundred, cutting 
 them out of the great herd. Then we mosied along up to 
 Dodge on the Arkansas, camped just opposite old Fort 
 Dodge, five miles down the river. Held there for ten days. 
 On the Fourth of July, 1880, about two o’clock in the 
 evening, the awfulest hail storm came up a man ever saw. 
 The hail stones nearly beat us to death; it knocked over 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 216 
 
 jack rabbits, like taking them off with a rifle; it even killed 
 a few yearling's and many fleet antelope, but the cow hands 
 had to stick to their posts, although we nearly froze to 
 death — on the Fourth of July. We had knots and scars all 
 over our hands and backs. The ice lay about four inches 
 deep on the ground next morning. Ten miles back at Mul- 
 berry next morning we found ourselves when day broke. It 
 was so dark during that storm, in the day time, that you 
 could not see a man ten feet away. We had no supper, nor 
 breakfast, getting back to camp next morning at ten we 
 found the cook fixing to leave, thinking surely that all the 
 men had been killed. We were a hardy lot or we should have 
 been, no doubt. No wonder “tenderfeet” did not survive 
 those experiences. 
 
 I guess this about concludes my story. 1 met many brave 
 and fearless men during those times. 1 want to say in con- 
 clusion that many of these men were tender hearted and as 
 gentle as a woman; they were rough outside but refined in 
 heart and soul. Of all of them, 1 shall always remember 
 Mark Withers who was always thoughtful of and devoted 
 to his men. 
 
 KILLING OF “BILLY THE KID.” 
 
 By Fred E. Sutton, of Oklahoma City, Okla. 
 
 I received a letter from your president, Mr. George. W. 
 Saunders, asking for a little story of the most exciting in- 
 cident that I can recall, which occurred during our cowboy 
 days. As I was at an excitable age and working out of Dodge 
 City, Kansas, which, to put it mildly, was an exciting town, 
 it is a little hard to decide which particular incident to tell 
 about; but one that was indeed interesting to me I believe 
 will be of some interest to you and your readers. It took 
 place in the fall of ’81, when fifty other punchers and 
 myself were rounding up some thirty thousand head of cattle 
 for Jesse Evans, in New Mexico, during which we had con- 
 siderable trouble with a bunch of outlaws and cattle rustlers 
 headed and controlled by the notorious “Billy the Kid.” 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 217 
 
 For the information of those who are not familiar with 
 his history, I will say that his name was William H. Bonney. 
 He was born in New York City on July 9, 1859, and at the 
 age of twelve years he killed a boy companion with a pocket 
 knife, after which he escaped and went to Kansas, stopping 
 near Atchison (where the writer then lived) where he 
 worked on a farm for a year and a half. Leaving there 
 he went to New Mexico and went to work on a ranch. He 
 stayed until the fall of ’79 when after a fancied slight he 
 fell out with a rancher whom he killed; and from that 
 day on he was an Ishmaelite — his hand against every man 
 and every man’s hand against him. 
 
 After killing the rancher he surrounded himself with a 
 bunch of the toughest characters to be found on the frontier; 
 his stronghold was the Pecos Valley where he drank, gambled, 
 stole cattle and murdered all that he fell out with until, at 
 the age of twenty-two, his victims numbered the same as his 
 years. 
 
 In the latter part of 1880, a then noted frontier officer, 
 by the name of Pat Garrett was detailed to bring “The Kid” 
 in, dead or alive, and as he knew our boys had been bothered 
 a great deal, and had lost several cattle, he came to our 
 camp for help. I was detailed as one of the posse to go with 
 Garrett, and we finally located the outlaw in a ranch house 
 about forty miles from White Oaks. After surrounding them 
 a halt was called for a parley, during which “Billy the Kid” 
 sent out word by a Mexican outlaw, by the name of Jose 
 Martinez, one of his leaders, that if Garrett would send the 
 writer, who was known as “The Crooked S Kid,” and Jimmy 
 Carlyle, a young cowboy, to the house he would try and come 
 to some kind of an agreement. Garrett readily consented to 
 this, as he knew his men and those of “The Kid,” and he 
 knew a battle meant death to many. Leaving our guns be- 
 hind, Jimmy and I went to the house where we found as 
 tough a bunch of out-laws, gun-fighters, and cattle thieves 
 as ever infested a country, or were ever congregated in a 
 space of that size. After an hour spent in propositions, and 
 counter-propositions, we agreed to disagree, and started back 
 to our own crowd with the promise of not being fired on 
 
218 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 until we reached them. But we had only traversed about three- 
 fourths of the distance when there was an avalanche of lead 
 sent in our direction, and poor Jimmy, Sheriff William Brad- 
 ley, and a ranchman by the name of George Hindman, were 
 instantly killed. Our posse then withdrew. 
 
 The killing inflamed the whole Southwest, as all of the 
 dead men were fine men and with the exception of Jimmy, 
 all had families. 
 
 After a few days of rest, Garrett started out with the 
 avowed intention of staying on the trail until he got “The 
 Kid,” either dead or alive, and in the summer of 1882, 
 he located him at Sumner, New Mexico, and killed him first 
 — reading the warrant to him afterwards. 
 
 Pat Garrett was one of the bravest of frontier officers, and 
 one who never took advantage of an enemy no matter what 
 the circumstances or provocation. A short time later he was 
 killed by an outlaw by the name of Wayne Brazel, at Las 
 Cruces, New Mexico, where his grave is now marked by a 
 monument erected by the people of that state, who knew and 
 loved him. 
 
 I do not know of a more exciting time for yours truly 
 than when “Billy the Kid” and his grand aggregation of 
 murderers and cow thieves opened fire on poor Jimmy Car- 
 lyle and me, and do not know why I was not killed, but such 
 is the case, and in a few weeks we were on our way to 
 Dodge City by way of the Chisholm trail with thirty thousand 
 head of cattle rounded up in New Mexico and Texas. 
 
 If this little story comes to the eye of any of the old time 
 boys who were on this drive with me, 1 would certainly be 
 glad to have them drop me a line. 
 
 HIS FATHER MADE FINE BOWIE KNIVES 
 
 By John James Haynes, of 308 Arden Grove, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 1 was born in the Republic of Texas, August 6, 1843, 
 where Gonzales is now located. My father, Charles Haynes, 
 who arrived in Texas some ten years previous, risked his 
 life in helping Texas to gain her independence from Mexi- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 2 19 
 
 co. I was raised in Llano county, then on the frontier. 
 When I was quite small I was taught to ride, shoot, hunt 
 and run wild cattle, and all the other things necessary to 
 withstand the requirements of those strenuous times. At a 
 very early age my father presented each of his three sons 
 with a gun, and as he was a mechanic and smith by trade, 
 he made for each of us a long “Bowie” knife, and gave 
 instructions how to use it. The rule in those days was to 
 use the Bowie knife and save powder and shot. 1 have 
 been in many close quarters when that knife came in mighty 
 handy, for in my time I have killed every kind of wild 
 animal that roamed this wild country. Besides the wild ani- 
 mals we had worse foes to contend with — the savage In- 
 dians, who often made raids upon the white settlements. 
 But as this writing is for our experiences with cattle on and 
 off the trail, I will confine myself to those experiences. 
 
 When 1 was eighteen years old I joined the Confederate 
 Army and was sent out of the State. I served the entire 
 four years of that desperate struggle, and came home with 
 a crippled arm. When we were discharged we were given 
 transportation home, as far as the train went, and it didn’t 
 go far into Texas in those days. We came by water to 
 Galveston, and while our “high up” officers were having a 
 “peace treaty” somewhere in town we “high up privates of 
 the rear ranks” decided we had been away from home long 
 enough, and as we did not see anything of special interest 
 or excitement to us there, we concluded to leave the “peace 
 subject” with the officers, so we captured a waiting train 
 and ordered the engineer to “charge,” which order was 
 promptly obeyed. When any of the boys reached a point 
 anywhere near a bee-line to his home, he would pull the 
 bell-cord and drop off. I fell off at Brenham, which was 
 the end of the road at that time. From Brenham I went 
 by stage to Austin, and from Austin I took the “ankle 
 express” for my home in Llano county, seventy-five miles 
 away. After a tramp, tramp, tramp with the boys in gray 
 for four long years, 1 was alone now, but the thoughts of 
 getting home spurred me on, and 1 did not mind the fatigue 
 as I covered the distance. One night I stopped at what 
 
220 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 was known as “Dead Man’s Water Hole,” so-called from 
 the fact that the body of an unidentified man was once 
 found there. I used a soft log that night for my pillow, 
 and slept to the tunes of the hoot owls and the coyote 
 wolves. When I reached home I found my neighborhood 
 was still being raided by hostile Indians. I was soon rigged 
 out with a new saddle, horse and gun, and ready to defend 
 my home against the red men. But I realized that I must 
 seek a livelihood, so, in company with my younger brother, 
 Charlie Haynes, and Harve Putman, we decided to go out 
 and round up mavericks and drive them up the trail. Each 
 of us having secured two ponies and a pack horse, and other 
 equipment for a long camping trip, we started out, estab- 
 lishing our camp in the forks of the North and South Llano 
 Rivers where Junction City now stands. At that time 
 there were no fences and very few ranches in that region. 
 The cattle from the open country of the north and north- 
 west had drifted into that wild and unsettled wilderness 
 without being sought after and naturally had become very 
 wild. But we came with the intention of securing our 
 herd, despite the wildness of the brutes. At a point near 
 our camp we found a natural trap that was of material as- 
 sistance to us. It consisted of a long strip of land about 
 twenty-five feet wide, with a deep hole of water on one 
 side and a very high bluff on the other. This was the 
 
 watering place for the cattle of that particular range. We 
 built a pen, and fenced in one end of this natural chute, 
 leaving the bther end open so that when a bunch of cattle 
 
 came down for water we crowded in on them and ran 
 
 them into our pen through the trap. We often started after 
 them out on the range, and in order to get away from us 
 they would make for the water hole, and right into our 
 
 trap they would go. We usually kept them in this pen 
 
 without water or grass until they became tame enough to 
 drive to our other pens some distance away, when, of course 
 they were then driven regularly for water and grazing. We 
 kept this up until we had about a thousand head of mave- 
 rick yearlings. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 22 1 
 
 Harve Putman and my brother, Charlie, decided to sell 
 their undivided interest in these yearling, and John Putman 
 and myself bought them for $2.50 per head, on credit, to 
 be paid for on our return from the Kansas market. We 
 drove the herd by way of Fort Worth, and crossed the 
 Texas line at Red River Station. We put a bell on an old 
 cow for a leader, and when a yearling got lost from the 
 herd, and came within hearing of that bell it generally came 
 back to the herd. We reached Abilene, Kansas, with our 
 vearlings in good shape, and we sold them for eight dol- 
 lars per head. We found ourselves in possession of $8,000, 
 and had started out without a dollar. But any old trail 
 driver who found himself rich in Abilene, Kansas, in 1871, 
 knows the rest. 
 
 In 1872 my brother, Charlie, and I took a mixed herd of 
 about a thousand head up the trail. This time we made a 
 general round-up. It was the custom in those days for the 
 party or parties getting up a round-up to take along cattle 
 belonging to people they knew. Owners were glad to have 
 them driven to market and sold. The distance between 
 ranches was so great that a consultation was not possible 
 every time, and it was usually left to the driver’s own judg- 
 ment. Be it said to the credit of those early cowmen, every 
 one was honest with his neighbor and trusted each other ab- 
 solutely. The only requirement of the law was that the 
 cattle be inspected by the county inspector, the marks and 
 brands being recorded, and it was agreed among the stock- 
 men that certain value be placed on certain grades, ages, 
 etc., as assessed by the assessor. After driving the cattle 
 up the trail to market, we then on our return home paid 
 for cattle as the claimants appeared, according to the as- 
 sessment, our profit being the selling price, together with 
 those not claimed or unknown. 
 
 Our second trip was somewhat different from the first 
 one on account of having so many mixed cattle in the herd. 
 They were easily stampeded by the smell of buffalo, and 
 other things encountered on the trail. We had several 
 storms on this trip. The lightning during these storms 
 seemed to be playing all over the heads and horns of the 
 
222 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 cattle, and the loud claps of thunder greatly disturbed them, 
 and often caused a stampede. When cattle stampede they 
 all move in one direction, with the exactness and swift- 
 ness of one body. During a storm we would ride among 
 them doing our best to get them settled, but in the dark- 
 ness of the night, the blinding rain, loud peals of thunder, 
 with vivid flashes of lightning to keep them excited, our 
 efforts were often of no avail. When we saw that they 
 were going, in spite of all we could do, we left two of our 
 Mexican cow ha nds to “tough it out” with them. No mat- 
 ter how many miles away we found the herd the next day 
 the faithful Mexicans were still with it. 
 
 In a mixed herd many calves were born on the trip, and 
 it was the custom to kill them before starting the herd each 
 morning. Some outfits tried taking along a wagon for the 
 purpose of saving the calves, but it did not pay. 
 
 We drove this second herd to Council Grove, Kansas, on 
 the Indian reservation, and as we did not find ready sale, 
 the business men of that place secured permission for us to 
 hold them there until the market opened. While we were 
 in camp here an incident occurred that was a bit interesting 
 to us. We had two Indian blankets which my brother had 
 captured during a fight with Indians in Blanco county, 
 Texas, some years before. In this fight the chief of the 
 tribe had been killed. We used the blankets for saddle 
 blankets, and one day we hung them out to dry, when an 
 Indian on the reservation came along and saw them. He 
 called others, and they had a general pow-wow over them, 
 and the result was that they exchanged us two new gov- 
 ernment blankets for the Indian blankets. That night the 
 Indians all got together and had a big war dance around 
 those blankets. We found out later that the two blankets 
 in question had belonged to their chief. Although we anti- 
 cipated trouble with the redskins on this account, we were 
 not molested, and we remained here for sometime. As the 
 market was crowded we had to take our time and sell as 
 the demand came for our cattle. In one deal we got a 
 new wagon and a span of good mules. These mules were 
 afterwards stolen by Indians from my brother’s home in 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 223 
 
 Blanco county, during' a raid when the Indians killed a man 
 named Hadden. 
 
 I was still in the cattle business in Edwards and Uvalde 
 counties as late as 1893. My brand was JOHN (con- 
 nected), my first name, easily remembered by all who saw 
 one of my cattle in these or adjoining counties. My daugh- 
 ters, Violet and Susie, had their own brands, JOHN (con- 
 nected) and SUE, respectively. 
 
 Long live the Old Trail Drivers and their descendents. 
 
 WILL BUILD A TEN-STORY MARBLE HOTEL 
 IN SAN ANTONIO. 
 
 Sketch of John Young, of Alpine, Texas. 
 
 John Young was born at Lockhart, Texas, February 12, 
 1856, in a log cabin. He was raised in Bee and Refugio 
 counties, and went up the trail five times, with Simpson, 
 Jim Reed, Jim Hall, Goodnight and Claire. He was mar- 
 ried to Miss Lizzie Drake at Tilden, Texas, November 28th, 
 1883, and has seven children living. Mr. Young has had 
 many thrilling experiences on the range and on the trail, 
 about the most exciting of which occurred on the Colorado 
 River. He says: 
 
 “I have swam every river from the Rio Grande to the 
 Platte, and came near losing my life while crossing a herd 
 on the Colorado in 1880. The river was on a rampage 
 and about four hundred yards wide. When in midstream 
 a drifting tree top brushed me off my horse and sent me to 
 the bottom. When I came to the surface my horse had 
 gotten away and there was nothing for me to do but rely 
 on myself, and although I was badly hurt from the con- 
 tact with the limbs of the tree I struck out for the shore. 
 My old friend, Gus Claire of Beeville, had witnessed the 
 accident and started to me on his horse, but 1 had drifted 
 several hundred yards down stream before he reached me. 
 As he passed by 1 caught the horse by the tail, when sud- 
 denly we got into a swift eddy which carried us under a 
 bluff where we could not land, and so we had to drift 
 
224 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 down stream until the eddy changed, and then swim back 
 to the opposite side of the river.” 
 
 Mr.' Young has occupied a prominent place in cattle af- 
 fairs in West Texas for many years. He is still the same 
 old John Young the boys of the trail knew in those bygone 
 days. It is his ambition and life-long dream to at no dis- 
 tant date erect a cattlemen’s hotel in San Antonio, on the 
 site of the old Southern hotel, which for many years was 
 the headquarters for all visiting cowmen. With D. J. Wood- 
 ward and T. A. Coleman, he owns a mountain of the finest 
 marble in the world near Alpine, and these three gentle- 
 men are endeavoring to secure title to the entire Southern 
 Hotel block, where they propose to build a ten-story mar- 
 ble hotel to be used exclusively by cowmen, and where the 
 Old Trail Drivers’ reunions would be held with all the pomp 
 and ceremony of a royal fete. Negotiations are progress- 
 ing and it is safe to predict that this ambition of an old com- 
 rade will soon be realized. 
 
 WHEN AB. BLOCKER CLIMBED A FENCE. 
 
 By G. M. Carson, of Rockspring, Texas. 
 
 I was raised at Blanco City, and at the age of twenty I 
 started out to be a cowboy and go ‘‘up the trail” in company 
 with my brother, R. P. Carson, J. J. Cage and Felix Stubbs. 
 We went to Round Mountain where Johnnie Blocker was 
 receiving cattle, and he employed us at $30.00 per month 
 and agreed to furnish us. He instructed us to meet him at 
 the old Bundick ranch on the Perdinales River the 1 Oth of 
 March, 1878, to begin branding. We were right there on 
 time, and found plenty to do. One day while engaged in 
 branding, a four-year-old cow refused to go into the chute, 
 but made a run for Ab Blocker, who lost no time in climb- 
 ing to the very top of the high fence. She then turned in my 
 direction, and 1 downed her with a stone which 1 threw 
 with all my might. I thought I had killed her, and felt that 
 I would be given a hasty discharge. I looked around to 
 see Johnie Blocker standing near, and he said in a very 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 225 
 
 pleasant way, “Don’t throw rocks at the cattle, boys,” 
 and 1 knew right then that my job was still secure. The cow 
 recovered in a few minutes and when she got to her feet 
 again she made a bee-line for the chute. We put the re- 
 versed seven brand on her and gave her a free pass to 
 Cheyenne. When we had finished branding we drove the 
 cattle across the country between Austin and Lockhart, 
 and met another herd where we cut the cattle and shaped 
 up for the trail about the 1 5th of March. John Golden 
 was boss, and we had about sixteen men in the crew. We 
 pointed the herd, numbering about 3000 head, north, cross- 
 ing the Colorado River below Austin, and hit the long lone- 
 some trail for Cheyenne, Wyoming. 
 
 After being on the trail for some time the horse wrangler 
 quit us, and the boss put me in charge of the horses, 
 which I drove until we reached North Kansas. 
 
 During this drive, somewhere in the Indian Territory, 
 we had a stampede one dark night and Felix Stubbs anJ 
 a negro named Joe Tasby got lost from the herd and did 
 not get back to us until late the next evening. 
 
 This being a good year for driving everything moved 
 along nicely until we reached Northern Kansas, where we 
 waited for another herd, and when it came, we found 
 there was a surplus of hands, so eight of us came back 
 to Texas, reaching Austin about the first of July. After this 
 1 made several short drives, going with one herd from 
 Frio county to Colorado City, Texas. 
 
 1 have been engaged in the mercantile business at Rock- 
 springs for the past fifteen years. 
 
 THREE TIMES UP THE TRAIL. 
 
 By W. E. Laughlin, of Bartlett, Texas. 
 
 1 made my first drive in 1877 with John Ellis from Live 
 Oak county to Fort Worth. 
 
 In 1879 I made a drive with the Durant cattle from 
 Williamson county to Taylor county. 
 
 I made my third drive in 1880 with Soules and Arm- 
 strong from Williamson county to Ogallala, Nebraska. We 
 
226 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 began making up this herd in February, started the drive 
 in April, and reached our destination the following July. 
 The drive was made from Williamson county to Callahan; 
 there the International trail wa.s taken up and we went 
 by way of Fort Griffin, thence west of Fort Sill, across 
 the Indian Territory, going into Kansas just east of Fort 
 Elliot, and across the state by way of Fort Dodge, and 
 on to Ogallala. 
 
 FOUND A LOT OF SNUFF ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By J. A. Blythe, of Del Rio, Texas. 
 
 I went up the trail in 1876, 1877 and 1878. The first 
 two trips were short, one to Fort Worth and one to Fort 
 Dodge, but the last trip was long, starting on the 4th of 
 March and ending on the 4th of July, when we were 
 paid off in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. I traveled along 
 the trail side by side with John R. Blocker, and was just 
 below him when he had four horses killed by lightning in 
 Sydney, Nebraska. 
 
 I remember one incident in particular that happened 
 on this trip. A negro named Thad found a box containing 
 a lot of snuff the other side of Fort Worth. It had probably 
 fallen off a freight wagon. He was afraid to sell it as we 
 passed through the Cross Timbers, although I venture to say 
 that at least nine women out of ten in that region used 
 snuff in those days. But he finally disposed of it at Red River 
 Station. At this point we had a big stampede one night, and 
 a fellow tried to steal our remuda. Nothing further happened 
 until we reached Dodge City, where we crossed the Arkansas 
 River. It was my night off and I went into Dodge with 
 the boss, Sol West, to “whoop ’em up, Liza,” but a big 
 cloud came up after I had paid $1.25 for a hair cut and 
 shave, and I had to go back to the herd and stand guard 
 all night during a severe storm. The next place we passed 
 was Buffalo Station, where we delivered four hundred 
 steers to Sparks and Taylor, then headed north to Ogallala, 
 Nebraska, crossed the South Platte River, followed the 
 Union Pacific Railroad to Big Springs, the point where Joel 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 227 
 
 Collins had robbed the U. P. train and secured $80,000 in 
 S20.00 gold pieces, and was later killed. We left the North 
 Platte River and went up Pole Creek, but nothing of note 
 happened until we reached Sydney, Nebraska, where a big 
 storm came up and lightning killed the four horses for John 
 R. Blocker. No one was hurt except the cook, who was 
 slightly stunned by the shock. We delivered the cattle within 
 twelve miles of Cheyenne, and all of the boys came back to 
 Texas, except myself. 1 decided to remain with the same 
 cattle, and we went to Powder River to locate a ranch but 
 the weather got so cold we located on the North Platte River. 
 I spent the winter there, got homesick and came back to 
 Texas. 
 
 EIGHT TRIPS UP THE TRAIL. 
 
 By A. N. Eustace, of Prairie Lea, Texas. 
 
 I made my first trip up the trail in 1879, starting from 
 Lockhart, Caldwell county, with M. A. Withers. We crossed 
 the Colorado river at Webberville, and at Hutto we en- 
 countered a terrible hailstorm and rain, during which our 
 cattle drifted several miles, many of them getting across 
 a little creek, which soon got on a rampage, after Green 
 Mills, “Pard” Roland and I had crossed and were gathering 
 the scattered herd. Green was riding his well known pony 
 “Grunter.” We were wet, cold, and hungry, but we had to 
 stay with those cattle until the next morning before we 
 could get back to the main herd. This was my first real 
 experience with trail driving, and if I could have gone 
 home right then I would not have been easily persuaded 
 to go on that trip. 
 
 From Hutto we continued our course to Belton and 
 Fort Worth. At this time Fort Worth was the terminus of 
 the Texas & Pacific Railroad. Crossing the Red River at 
 Red River Station we traveled the old Chisholm trail until 
 we crossed the Canadian River. Here we quit the Chisholm 
 trail, going west and intersecting the Western trail at Cimar- 
 ron River and thence to Dodge City, Kansas, where we 
 delivered a part of our herd, taking the remainder to Buffalo, 
 
228 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Kansas, on the K. P. Railroad. From here 1 returned home. 
 
 Our outfit was composed of M. A. Withers, Joe Lewis, 
 Green Mills, Rus Withers, George Brock, Cal Polk, Barney 
 Roland, Walter Ellison and myself. 
 
 In 1880 I made my second trip. This time we went the 
 Western trail, out by old Fort Griffin. We crossed the Red 
 River at Doan’s Store, going from there to Wolf Creek, 
 Indian Territory, where we divided our herd, putting a 
 part of the cattle with a herd belonging to W. T. Jackman. 
 We delivered this herd at Ogallala, Nebraska. 
 
 In 1881 I made my third trip up the trail with J. R. 
 Shanklin, of Prairie Lea. We received a part of our herd at 
 George Hindes’ ranch in Atascosa county, completing it at 
 Ellison’s ranch in Caldwell county. This time we followed 
 the Western trail through to Ogallala, Nebraska. 
 
 In 1882 I was trail-bound again, and made my fourth 
 trip with J. R. Shanklin. We received our herd in Wharton 
 county from Bob Stafford, and came out by Gonzales and 
 Lockhart, from whence we traveled the Western trail to 
 Throckmorton county. Here I was taken with chills and 
 had to return home. 
 
 In 1883 my fifth trip was made with R. W. Robinson, 
 whose herd was received at Pearsall. We went out by 
 Bandera and Kerrville to Runnells county, where we delivered 
 a part of the herd to Doc Grounds who lived about eighteen 
 miles v/est of Abilene, Texas. From here I delivered the 
 balance of the herd to J. R. Blocker in the Indian Territory, 
 and returned to San Antonio with the outfit. 
 
 My next trip was in 1884, when I went with Giles Fenner. 
 This year we shipped our herd from Austin county to 
 Wichita Falls, driving from there to Ogallala, Nebraska. 
 From Ogallala we went to Wyoming and delivered the herd 
 to Dater Brothers on the Cheyenne River. From there I went 
 with Captain Ellison to Running Water, Wyoming, to de- 
 liver another herd to Durgin Brothers and then came home. 
 
 In 1886 I went with Giles Fenner, Joe Blocker, Driscoll 
 and Davis. This herd we received at Texiketa ranch, twenty 
 miles south of Stafford Station. We struck the west prong 
 of the Nueces River at Kickapoo Springs, and continued 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 229 
 
 up the river to its head, passed over the divide to the head 
 of the Llano River, traveled down the Llano about forty 
 miles to Green Lake, and from there went to Fort McKavett, 
 where we crossed the San Saba River. This herd we delivered 
 at Hugo, Colorado. 
 
 My last trip was made in 1887. I went with W. T. Jack- 
 man from Jeff Davis county. We shipped our herd from 
 Toyah to Big Spring, and from there we went the extreme 
 Western trail across the plains to Trails City, Colorado. Our 
 crowd was composed of W. T. Jackman, Mac Randle, John 
 Street, Lum Hunt, Dick Craft, the cook, our Mexican hostler, 
 Chapa, and two negroes, George Crunk and Burrel Moore. 
 
 Of course the life of a trail driver was made up of many 
 hardships, but now as I recall the happy associations with 
 those good old friends I can certainly say that my hardships 
 were far outnumbered by the good old times spent on 
 the trail. 
 
 A LONG TIME BETWEEN DRINKS. 
 
 By Sam Neill, La Pryor, Texas. 
 
 In the spring of 1880, 1 made my first trip up the trail, 
 starting from old Mont Woodward ranch on the Leona 
 River in Frio county. We had 3200 mixed cattle in the 
 herd, which belonged to Captain John Lytle. Billy Henson 
 was our corporal, or boss. We drove through to Ogallala, 
 Nebraska, on the South Platte River, and delivered them 
 to Jim Ellison. It took us five months and ten days to make 
 the trip, and I was the only man that started with the herd 
 and stayed with it until delivery was made. The boss was 
 taken sick and had to quit. Near Dodge City, Kansas, one 
 of our men, Otis Ivey, was killed by lightning, and within 
 a very few days afterward the last of the men who started 
 with the herd left, but 1 continued on the job. 
 
 With the exception of being badly frightened several 
 times we did not have much trouble with the Indians on 
 this trip. I was just a mere boy at the time, but I believe 
 this was the hardest trip I ever made. I missed going on 
 herd only one night during the entire journey. My guard 
 
230 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 was from two o’clock until daylight. From the time we 
 
 started 1 was not inside of a house after we left Frio Town 
 until we reached Ogallala. The last house 1 was in before I 
 left was Tom Bibb’s saloon in Frio Town, and the next was 
 Tuck’s saloon in Ogallala. This was a mighty long time 
 between drinks. 
 
 1 made several trips after this, the longest one being to 
 
 the Cheyenne River, South Dakota. Gus Black was our 
 
 boss on this trip. Gus is still living, rides horseback as well 
 as he ever did, and looks after his cattle as actively as a 
 young man. 
 
 1 am now an old broken-down cow-puncher, and am 
 
 working for Colonel Ike Pryor, one of the finest men in the 
 world, on one of his ranches in Zavalla county. My post- 
 office address is La Pryor. 
 
 SCOUTING AND ROUTING IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS 
 
 By J. M. Custer, Alias Bill Wilson. 
 
 I was born in 1865, and got my first experience on the cow 
 range in 1876. Captain Hall was moving cattle to West 
 Texas from the Colorado River coast country, and as they 
 passed through Live Oak county I joined them and worked 
 with them through the fall of 1876. In 1877 1 went to 
 work for Dillard Fant, and John Dumant was my boss. 
 When Fant sold out to George West I worked in the Mus- 
 tang Camp on Spring Creek catching wild horses and 
 breaking them. In 1879 I went up the trail with horses for 
 Mr. Neall, and we delivered at Dodge City, Kansas. On our 
 way up we had several stampedes, but had no trouble with 
 the Indians. In 1880 I again went up the trail, this time to 
 Ogallala, Nebraska, and we had skirmishes with the red- 
 skins. One night I was on herd north of Doan’s Store on 
 Red River, near the mouth of Cold Water Creek, and had 
 for a night-mare a small Spanish mule. That mule smelled 
 the Indians, his tail went right up against his belly, and it 
 was impossible to hold him. In fact, 1 did not try to hold 
 him, just let him take the lead through the darkness, and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 231 
 
 we traveled all night. Next morning I found myself about 
 twenty miles from camp. When 1 got back to the bunch 
 we were short thirty-three head so we started out to look 
 for the lost horses. The boss sent me up the creek to the 
 divide where there was no timber to hide in in case a fellow 
 should get after a bunch of Indians. After riding about 
 twenty-five miles up the creek, and reaching a point not far 
 from the Indian Territory line, 1 discovered several Indians at 
 a distance of about 200 yards coming toward me, but we did 
 not meet, for their guns looked as long as the Chisholm trail, 
 and 1 did not care for them to get in closer range. At that 
 time I weighed only ninety-five pounds, but I picked up my 
 pony on my spurs and when I let him down I went down his 
 hind leg with my quirt. I pointed him back down the creek, 
 with the yelling red devils in full chase, and I working in 
 the lead. My boss had often told me that in a stampede I 
 should stay in the lead, and 1 was bent on carrying out his 
 instructions. Finally, after I had raced them for several 
 
 miles, I came to a crossing in the creek which was about 
 forty feet wide and in deep sand. Here my horse gave up 
 and refused to go further. I shook him up but he had done 
 his best and that was all he could do. It was then up to me 
 and the Indians to do the rest. So I went into a small ravine, 
 took the cartridges out of my belt and put them in my hat, 
 and waited for a fight, but the red rascals went out of my 
 sight, leaving me as mad as a hornet and wanting to scrap, 
 for I had not had time to fight them during the chase. 
 
 I went back to South Texas in the fall of 1881, and 
 worked on the mustang range again in 1882, when I got into 
 trouble and had to leave that region, and was “on the 
 
 dodge” for twelve years, during which time I “fought” 
 
 cattle for nine years almost night and day. My little case of 
 trouble caused a “moving” disposition to take a hold on 
 me, and for two years it seemed that everywhere I went 
 the officers were after me. During those two years 1 went 
 under my own name, from place to place, and state to 
 state, but they chased me out, so I returned to the plains, 
 changed my name to Bill Wilson, and went up the trail 
 
 several times, until 1892. During one of these drives I was 
 
232 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 in an Indian fight on the Canadian River. We had a stam- 
 pede one night and lost a few head of cattle, and next day 
 1 was sent out to hunt for them. While riding down the 
 river a bunch of Indians jumped me. We had a short race 
 for a thicket of cottonwood trees. As usual I worked in the 
 lead, and when we got to the thicket I went into it like a 
 rabbit. There were seven Indians in the party, and they 
 immediately surrounded the thicket. I had dismounted, and 
 had my Winchester ready, so when I saw one of the red- 
 skins standing up on his horse, I raised old “Betsy” and 
 cracked down, and there was a dead Indian. For about 
 thirty minutes we had a pretty lively time. The battle ended 
 with five dead Indians and one scalp scratch on my head. 
 
 In 1885 I took a herd for Chadman Brothers to Butte, 
 Montana. I delivered the herd, shot up the town, and rode 
 out to camp. The next morning 1 went back and asked the 
 amount of damage I owed for shooting a saloon glass to 
 pieces. The bartender said $\ 500.00. We asked him to take 
 a drink. We took one more, and then took off down the 
 trail. 
 
 The next year, 1886, I had charge of a herd of stock 
 cattle and started from Las Vegas, New Mexico, to Nebraska. 
 On this trip I killed a smart Mexican in a shooting scrape. 
 I went out of there under fire, but I held my ground, as 
 all of the Mexicans in that region were on my drag. But 
 a boy raised on the frontiers of Texas, always had a way 
 to beat that kind of a game. As George Saunders said about 
 Jack West: “If it did not go right, we always had a machine 
 to make it go right.” The kind of a machine the cow-puncher 
 had was sometimes called a “cutter,” and sometimes it was 
 called a “hog-leg,” but it was better known as a six-shooter 
 gun, and we frequently had a use for it, for it was a 
 “friend in need” in those days. The western boys always 
 stood pat — no draw pat or show-down. 
 
 1 ran a maverick brand on the head of Double Mountain 
 Fork, on the OO Range. O. J. Warren was the owner. It 
 got so big I lost my job and had to change my brand. 
 That was my headquarters in winter after 1 got off the 
 trail. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 233 
 
 A great many so-called cowboys nowadays think it is 
 fun to work cattle. It is really play for they have nothing 
 to do. In the early days we had no pens or railroads or 
 wire fences. When we gathered cattle it was to hold them. 
 Sometimes they would run all night. The boss would yell out 
 to us, “Sing to ’em, boys,” and we would sing as only a 
 cowboy can sing, but something would go wrong and they 
 would be off on a rampage once more. The worse the 
 weather the closer we would have to stay, for then was 
 the time they gave the most trouble. Once I was on guard 
 six days and nights without going to bed. 
 
 This was written in September, 1919, just after I had 
 passed through a great Gulf storm, in which we lost every- 
 thing, house washed away, and everything lost.- There are 
 nine in my family, but I did not lose any of them. We 
 were in. the storm for twenty hours and during that fearful 
 period I thought of the old times on the trail, when the 
 rain, hail and thunder storms used to play such havoc with 
 us. Those were strenuous times, and we endured many hard- 
 ships that will never be recorded for the perusal of on- 
 coming generations, but just the same we had our day, 
 and the world is better for it. 
 
 THE OLD TRAIL DRIVER 
 
 May his life’s future pathway with roses be strewn, 
 Whose thorns have all been pruned away; 
 
 May sunshine abide when its shadows have flown — 
 Is the blessing I wish him today. 
 
 — Branch Isabell, Odessa, Texas. 
 
 CATCHING ANTELOPE AND BUFFALO ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By A. Huffmeyer, of San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 My first trip up the trail was in 1876 with a herd of 
 1600 steers belonging to Woodward and Oge of Frio county, 
 the man in charge being Dick Crews. We left the ranch on 
 the Frio River, four miles above Frio Town on the 14th of 
 
234 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 March and delivered the herd at Fort Sill in the Indian Terri- 
 tory to the agent at the fort seven weeks after we left the 
 ranch. We had considerable trouble just after starting until 
 we got out of the brush, after which we got along nicely. 
 The weather was fine, no severe storms or cyclones to con- 
 tend with. These cattle were purchased by the government 
 for the Tonkaway tribe of Indians. After delivering we started 
 back home with our entire outfit, eleven men and the 
 cook. We reached home safely and immediately went to 
 work on the ranch. 
 
 In the spring of 1877 we commenced rounding up another 
 herd, and were ready to make the start by the 1 5th of 
 March. Gus Black, who now lives at Eagle Pass, was in 
 charge of this herd, and we had, as on the previous drive, 
 eleven men in the outfit. We had the same trouble with 
 the cattle as on our first trip, but as soon as we reached 
 the open country they moved along well. This herd was 
 headed for Dodge City, on the Arkansas River, and we 
 reached our destination about the 20th of the following 
 July, with our cattle in better shape than when we started. 
 Mr. Oge, who was in Dodge City awaiting our arrival, came 
 out to meet us and remained with us until we delivered. 
 Dodge City was then a wide-open town. Gambling and 
 fandangoes were in full blast. While we were there two men 
 were killed in a saloon row. 
 
 The cook and horse wrangler started back over the 
 trail with our saddles and outfits with them, and the balance 
 of us returned on the train. 
 
 The next year, 1878, we gathered our herd early and 
 were ready to start by the first of March. This herd was 
 taken through by Virgil Johnson, who died several years 
 ago. We had about two thousand head of mixed cows and 
 steers. It happened to be a wet season and we lost a great 
 deal of sleep from the very start until we reached Red River, 
 on account of the excessive rains. At Red River Station we 
 found about a dozen herds scattered over the country waiting 
 for the rise in Red River to run down so they could cross 
 that stream. While we were here a severe thunder storm 
 came up and rain fell in torrents. While it was in progress 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 235 
 
 
236 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 I could see the lightning playing on the brim of my hat and 
 the tips of my horse’s ears. Suddenly a terrific bolt of 
 lightning struck right in our midst and killed nine of our 
 best cattle. It stunned my horse and he fell to the ground, but 
 was up in an instant and ready to go. The cattle stampeded 
 and scattered and it was all that we could do to keep ahead 
 of them. After running them for a mile or more, every man 
 found that he had a bunch of his own to look after, they 
 were so badly scattered and frightened. 1 managed to hold 
 236 head the balance of the night, and when daylight came 
 we worked the bunches back together and made a count 
 and found that we had lost over three hundred head, which 
 meant some tall rustling for the boys. Before night we had 
 rounded up all of the strays except about forty head which 
 we lost entirely. We waited a couple of days longer for the 
 river to fall, but it seemed to keep rising so Mr. Johnson 
 decided to ferry our chuck wagon over and swim the herd 
 across. When we struck the stream it was bank full, with 
 a sandbar (quicksand) showing in the middle of the river. 
 In order to get the cattle to take the water we brought our 
 work oxen down and started them across. They seemed to 
 know just what was wanted for when they reached the edge 
 of the water they walked right out into the deep current, 
 and began swimming across, the balance of the herd follow- 
 ing. Four of our steers stopped on the bar of quicksand and 
 bogged down and we had to swim out and extricate them 
 after we had all the others on the far side. Every one of 
 them showed fight when we pulled him out of the quicksand, 
 and, took right after us and we had to hustle to keep out of 
 reach. On the other side of the river we found the bottoms 
 full of ripe wild plums and enjoyed quite a treat. 
 
 When we took the trail again we could see the Wichita 
 Mountains in the distance about seventy-five miles away. 
 We knew the trail passed along the foot of those mountains, 
 but on account of water the trail made a big curve to the 
 right which made it a longer drive, so in order to save 
 time Mr. Johnson decided to try to go straight through on a 
 bee-line to the foot on the Wichitas, and thus save several 
 days. It proved to be a bad venture, for we traveled with- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 237 
 
 out water for two days, not a drop for the cattle to drink 
 or with which to quench our thirst. We had to keep travel- 
 ling, and by noon the third day our herd was strung out for 
 fully two miles, with the big steers in the lead going like race 
 horses, and the old dogies bringing up the rear. 1 happened 
 to be on the point and about noon I saw the leaders throw 
 up their heads and start to run. Mr. Johnson said, “They 
 smell water,” and sure enough after crossing a ridge we 
 found a little stream of clear sweet water. We camped right 
 there that day and all of the next to allow our stock to 
 rest. The country was open and was covered with the finest 
 grass I ever saw. We reached the Wichita Mountains and 
 got back on the old trail. While traveling along we permitted 
 our herd to scatter and graze, and as we were proceeding 
 slowly we discovered a brown bunch of something on a 
 ridge about a mile away. It turned out to be a herd of 
 buffalo, which were the first 1 had ever seen. We decided to 
 go forth and kill some of the animals and accordingly several 
 of us mounted fresh horses and put out to go around them 
 and head them toward our herd so the other boys could 
 get a chance to kill some of them. But when within two 
 hundred yards of the buffalo they saw us coming and 
 struck a bee-line for the north pole. We yelled and fired 
 at them without result, they just kept on travelling. I gave 
 out of ammunition and was determined not to go back 
 empty-handed, so 1 took down my lariat and selected a 
 young bull about two years old, and soon had him lassoed, 
 but found out that I was not fooling with a two-year-old 
 cow brute. I think I let that bull run over my rope a dozen 
 times and threw him each time, but he would be up in an 
 instant, and 1 just could not hold him. I called Shelby to 
 my assistance and the two of us finally managed to get 
 him down and cut his throat. Shelby went back to the herd 
 while I remained and skinned the buffalo and had him ready 
 to load into the wagon when it came along. This same 
 young man, Shelby, began bragging about the fine young 
 horse he owned and said he would bet any man $10.00 that 
 he could catch an antelope on him, so one of the boys took 
 the bet, and the next day the race came off. We espied 
 
238 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 a bunch of antelope on a ridge 400 or 500 yards away, and 
 Shelby put out in their direction. As soon as they saw him 
 coming they scampered away due north. The country was 
 almost a level plain but there were a few ridges, and for 
 quite awhile we could see the race but finally Shelby passed 
 out of sight. We kept grazing the herd along all the time 
 watching for Shelby, and after a long time he hove in sight 
 away off to the north and coming in our direction on the 
 right side of the herd with the antelope leading the race 
 by some 300 yards. It is said that antelope as well as other 
 wild animals have a certain range, and it seemed so in this 
 case, for when Shelby struck out after this one it made a 
 big circle and came right back to where we first saw it. We 
 could see that Shelby was losing ground, and the antelope 
 was about all in for its tongue was hanging out of its 
 mouth when it came by us and it was panting furiously. It 
 did not seem to pay any attention to* our herd or the men 
 around it, so Johnson told a Mexican to go out and lasso 
 it. He succeeded in doing so in a very few minutes. Poor 
 old Shelby came back with his horse completely fagged out, 
 and lost the ten dollars. His horse did not fully recover 
 from the chase for over two weeks. 
 
 While we were in the Osage Nation an Indian chief and 
 four bucks came to our camp one day and wanted us to 
 give them a steer or two for allowing us to graze our cattle 
 through their reservation. Mr. Johnson refused to give them 
 any, and the Indians went away in an ugly humor, threaten- 
 ing to come back and stampede our herd that night and 
 get one anyhow. Mr. Johnson told them to just try that 
 trick and pointed to our Winchesters. Of course we expected 
 trouble, but the Indians failed to carry out their threat. 
 
 Everything went along smoothly after that. It rained 
 on us frequently, but only showers. As we were going 
 along through a little creek bottom after a shower one 
 morning we discovered a lot of wild turkeys, and I decided 
 to catch a gobbler, and gave chase after a big fellow. After 
 running him for quite a while I managed to hit him on the 
 head with the butt end of my quirt. That night we had 
 stewed wild turkey on our menu for a change. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 239 
 
 We crossed over the line into Kansas, and now and 
 then we could see a little 14x16 box house where some 
 farmer had located his pre-emption, and near it would be 
 a few acres in a field, but no trees, fences or other im- 
 provements. These squatters were not very friendly toward 
 the Texas cowboys. 
 
 We reached Nebraska in the early part of June, and one 
 morning a regular blizzard came upon us, and for about two 
 hours we had sleet striking us in the face. Our overcoats 
 were rolled up in the wagon, so we just had to grin and 
 bear it. We reached the American River that day and found 
 a few cottonwood trees but the limbs we gathered with which 
 to make a fire and warm our chilled bodies would not 
 burn, and we had to “tough it out.” When we reached the 
 Platte River we found protection for our herd in the 
 draws or ravines there. We delivered the herd at Ogallala 
 and my uncle, Mr. Oge, sold all of the cow ponies and out- 
 fit and all hands took the train for home. 
 
 This was my last experience on the trail. After reaching 
 San Antonio I went to Bandera and joined my brother in 
 the mercantile business in 1878. 
 
 DROVE A HERD TO MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA. 
 
 By W. D. H. Saunders, 721 Rigsby Avenue, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 
 
 I was born in Yellow Brushy county, Mississippi, March 1, 
 1845, and came to Texas with my parent': in 1850, locating 
 in Gonzales county. Although quite small at that time I 
 remember when crossing the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, 
 a fire started on the boat and there was great excitement 
 on board. The passengers and crew succeeded in extinguishing 
 the fire before it gained much headway. We moved to 
 Goliad county in 1859. 
 
 I was married June 27, 1866, to Miss Annie New in 
 Bee county, Texas. To us were born twelve children, eleven 
 of whom are yet living. I was engaged in the mercantile 
 business in Bee county several years, later moving to Sayers, 
 
240 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Bexar county, in 1884, where I was postmaster and merchant 
 for twenty years. I moved to San Antonio in 1919. T. B. 
 Saunders, a prominent business man of Fort Worth is my 
 son. 
 
 In October, 1862, I left Goliad with Jim Borroum and 
 Monroe Choate with eight hundred beeves for Mississippi. 
 
 We crossed the Guadalupe River at Clinton, and went to 
 Sweet Home in Lavaca county, where we rented a field in 
 which to pen our cattle. In this field was a large haystack. 
 The cattle became frightened at this haystack and stampeded. 
 Next morning we were eight miles from camp and lost three 
 hundred of the beeves. We remained there several days to 
 round up our cattle, and then started on our trip, crossing the 
 Colorado at Columbus, the Brazos at Richmond, the Trinity 
 at Liberty, the Natchez at Beaumont, the Sabine near Orange, 
 and then passed into Louisiana, after which we crossed the 
 Culeshoe River and passed through Operluches, where we 
 met Crump and Fleming who bought half interest in our 
 herd, and put in three hundred more, making eleven hundred 
 in all. 
 
 When we were near the Mississippi River the Confederate 
 soldiers arrested all of our crowd, thinking we were trying 
 to get the beeves to the Yankees. They took the owners of 
 the herd to Alexandria and held the rest of us four or five 
 days, but as they could not prove anything we were all re- 
 leased and permitted to pursue our journey. When we reached 
 the Mississippi a thousand of the beeves took the water and 
 easily swam across, but we had to sell one hundred on this 
 side of the river as we could not get them across. We had 
 an old negro with us who was very excitable, and was always 
 uneasy for fear the Yankees would get him, and we had a 
 great deal of difficulty in keeping him with us. 
 
 We found sugar mills at all of the large plantations and 
 whenever we stopped at a mill our boys were told to “help 
 themselves,” which they usually did with the result that 
 they often ate too much and were sick from the effects of it. 
 
 After we crossed the Mississippi the Confederate soldiers 
 arrested us again, and took our men to Fort Hudson, where 
 they kept them several days, but as in the former case, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 241 
 
 they found nothing against us and turned us loose. At Wood- 
 ville, Mississippi, the cattle were divided, and Borroum and 
 Choate sold theirs to parties there. Crum and Fleming went 
 on to Mobile, Alabama, where they sold their cattle. 
 
 At Woodville we stayed at a plantation owned by Dr. 
 Simms. The fence around this plantation was made of 
 hedges. One night Dr. Simms persuaded Upshur Brookin 
 and myself to go bird hunting. We had to carry a light and 
 kill the birds with a stick. We succeeded in killing but one 
 bird, and the next morning at breakfast Upshur found that 
 bird on his plate. Dr. Simms had a large cane brake on his 
 farm where he kept his mules and horses. The doctor had 
 never seen a hair rope, so while we were there he drove 
 up all of his horses and had us trim their manes and tails to 
 get hair and make a rope for him. 
 
 Upshur Brookin, J. B. New and myself came home to- 
 gether. We crossed the Mississippi with our horses on a 
 ferry-boat. The water came within two inches of the top of 
 the boat and I almost knew we would sink before we 
 got across. I reached home in January and enlisted in the 
 army at Corpus Christi, February 23, 1863, when I was 
 just seventeen years old. 
 
 “TRAIL LIFE.” 
 
 Below is a short sketch of some of the incidents of trail 
 life as related and experienced by Mr. James Gibson of 
 Alice, Texas. 
 
 James Gibson, born in Maryland and reared in Virginia, 
 came to Texas as a young boy in the early seventies. 
 
 It was solely for the love of adventure that he came, 
 seeking what the new country might have in store for him. 
 And although his father was adverse to having him come to 
 a strange new country, he gave him means for the trip and 
 a letter of introduction to Major Hutchison of San Marcos, 
 who had been a law student under an uncle in Charleston, 
 Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Gibson and a distant relative by name of Oscar Flagg 
 made the trip together. They landed at Galveston, Texas, 
 
242 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 and from there made their way to San Marcos, but wanting 
 to be without restriction the letter to Major Hutchison was 
 never presented; and as the means for the trip had become 
 exhausted these boys went about seeking whatever employ- 
 ment they might find. Their first work was with Mr. H. 
 C. Story of San Marcos, now a prominent stockman. 
 
 The first position with “a trip up the trail” was made 
 with Coon Dunman of Refugio, Mr. Gibson driving the 
 remuda. This position he liked as he was relieved of night 
 herding, except in nights of storm when all hands were 
 called upon to hold the cattle. This herd was driven to 
 Coleman City, and delivered to an English syndicate, after 
 which he returned to Sweet Home, Lavaca county, and 
 worked on the Willis McCutcheon Ranch. 
 
 Later, while working as ranch foreman for D. R. Fant 
 on his Live Oak ranch Mr. Gibson was one evening “held 
 up” by two bandits upon returning home from doctoring 
 horses in a lower pasture. The outlaws demanded his gun 
 and when told that he had none, then demanded his new 
 saddle but after they had been made to see that they already 
 had possessed themselves of all else he had except that, 
 they decided to let him keep it, and started on their way. 
 
 Upon entering the ranch it was found to have been strip- 
 ped of all its choicest possessions. Mr. Gibson then set out 
 for the nearest camp to find help but being unable to get 
 any, borrowed from Geo. S. Fokes his gun and fourteen 
 cartridges (all he had) and returned to the ranch. Imagine 
 his surprise upon entering the home pasture to find camp- 
 ing beside the gate the same men who had caused him so 
 much trouble the day before. They again demanded the 
 saddle, evidently censuring themselves for their generosity 
 of the day before, but being now in possession of a gun he 
 refused, which as the usual thing brought the guns of both 
 sides into play. Mr. Gibson seeing a big tree nearby gained 
 that and shooting from behind its protecting trunk, finally 
 succeeded in putting them to rout. As soon as possible he 
 set out for the nearest ranch owned by John Edwards and 
 there found that Dave Walton, at that time sheriff of Bee 
 county, had the day before tried to arrest the same parties 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 243 
 
 for like depredations. Edwards joined him and later a posse 
 composed of Ed and Tom Lasater, the Coker boys and a 
 number of others surrounded the house of the bandits, but 
 found that they had moved on. This raid and its subse- 
 quent excitement led to the acquaintance of Doss and Gar- 
 rett Van Meter and their widowed mother, Mrs. E. V. Van 
 Meter, of that place. 
 
 It was in the later years to their home and its associa- 
 tions that Mr. Gibson looks back, as being one of the very 
 brightest spots in the memory of his young manhood. 
 
 The following spring, however, being unable to resist the 
 tinkle of the old bell-mare, Mr. Gibson made the second 
 trip up the trail, this time with Nance and Mitchell driving 
 cattle. He pointed herd all the way, with a boy by the 
 name of John Williams, guarding the opposite point. They 
 had a great deal of rain and hail during this trip and one 
 day as they were passing through the Indian country near 
 the Wichita Mountains, a funny incident took place. 
 
 A bunch of Indians rode up behind Mr. Gibson and 
 grunted in their Indian fashion, “How John?” and after 
 lingering a while asked such questions as, “No cara swap 
 horses?” “Dimme Cartuches” and “Unde Campo?” went 
 over to Williams and hailed him by “How John!” As 
 soon as they rode away Williams came over and said “Jim 
 those d — ned Indians know me,” and when Mr. Gibson ex- 
 pressed surprise and asked where he had met them, said 
 “I never seen the d — d fools before but they called me 
 John.” Later this circumstance was related in camp to 
 the old trail hands, who whooped and yelled and seemed 
 to consider it a good joke and when they had quieted 
 enough so as to be understood, told them that Indians sa- 
 luted all white men by, “How John!” 
 
 The next year Mr. Gibson’s work was with the Boyce 
 Bros., and as soon as the grass was green they proceeded 
 to Cuero, there to procure the outfit for the trail. This con- 
 sisted of wagons, harness, saddles, etc., and were bought 
 from John Stratton, who at that time had the largest out- 
 fitting store in this part of the country. 
 
244 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 The trip was with horses, some five hundred head of which 
 had been bought from Ed Corkill of Conception. These 
 horses were delivered at Dodge City, Kansas, going by way 
 of San Antonio, Kerrville, Coleman City, Vernon and Doan’s 
 Store, an Indian trading store on Red River. There the 
 trails forked, one going by Mobeetie and the other by the 
 Wichita Mountains. The delivery of horses took three 
 months, while that of cattle took four. 
 
 It was on this trip one night that a severe thunder storm 
 came up. The horses had been turned loose on the table- 
 land when just before the storm started a deer jumped up 
 in front of the herd and caused them to stampede. They 
 ran directly by camp causing the remuda to join them and, 
 as they had not been hobbled for the night, came near 
 leaving the cowboys all afoot, the remuda man’s horse be- 
 ing the only one staked. And as one of the boys ran to 
 mount him, he catching the contagion of fright pulled up 
 his stake and went rushing by camp. The negro cook, tak- 
 ing in the seriousness of the situation, grabbed the rope and 
 went bumping along for about a hundred yards before he 
 could stop him. He then mounted and assisted in trying to 
 stop the herd that had by this time crossed the creek. The 
 storm, however, growing in intensity compelled an early 
 return to camp, with only a few saddle horses. 
 
 Every one spent a very restless night confronted with the 
 thought that these few horses constituted their all and that 
 it was two hundred miles to the nearest pasture fence south, 
 and all stampeded horses on the trail go back south to- 
 wards Texas. 
 
 Daylight found them in their saddles eagerly searching 
 for tracks and after two days’ hunting found all but three 
 head. The following spring, however, Jim Mussett, a friend 
 found the three missing horses in the general round up 
 with the Indians and after selling them sent the money to 
 the owners. This was considered a very lucky stampede. 
 
 Mr. Gibson made eight trips with horses. Horses in those 
 days were driven by the thousands and sold to early settlers 
 in job lots in Western Kansas and Nebraska. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 245 
 
 Jim Dobie, Frank Byler and Boyce Bros, were among 
 some of the most important horse trail drivers. When ap- 
 plying to any of the above mentioned men for a trail job, 
 it was useless to ask what horse one might ride, for the 
 reply would invariably be “Throw your rope and whatever 
 it falls on, fork him.” On one of these trips a laughable 
 thing took place. The cook had quit for the good reason 
 that his pay had stopped and that necessitated the finding 
 of another. A young man just arrived from the east was 
 chosen for this position. After he had convinced the boys 
 that although he was' no expert cook, he could boil water 
 without burning it, the boss told him to cook for din- 
 ner, red beans, bacon, coffee and dried apples. The cook 
 not knowing the habit of apples, filled the pot full and 
 covered them with water. When they began to swell, the 
 pot began to overflow and it was a funny sight witnessed 
 by one of the boys in passing to see the tenderfoot fran- 
 tically digging a hole in the sand and burying the surplus 
 supply. At first the coffee was all grounds, the bread like 
 leather and the beans rattled down one’s throat, but be- 
 ing a persevering kind of a fellow by the next round up 
 he had become a really good cook. 
 
 One year the outfit had a mascot in the form of a little 
 rooster that had been presented by Ben Jones of Oakville, 
 now deceased, to Mr. Gibson. It was a source of pleasure 
 and amusement to the whole camp, and the Indians en route 
 were astonished to see a chicken with a cow outfit, so far 
 from civilization. His early morning crowing brought no re- 
 sponse, as the nearest ranch was over two hundred miles 
 away. He had the misfortune once to hang by one foot all 
 night from the hound of the wagon, his roost. A storm 
 coming up during the night had blown him off and when 
 morning came he looked as if he had been to an Irish wake. 
 He was tenderly cared for by the boys and the cook and 
 before long was his normal bright self again, making the 
 trip to Dodge City and back to Cuero with the cook. 
 
 Mr. Gibson’s last trip was with horses in 1888, and he 
 found it very difficult to get through as the man with the 
 hoe had taken the country, and the old trail had all been 
 
246 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 fenced up, so the drive overland from Texas to Kansas was 
 over and the cattle then as now must be routed by way 
 of the iron horse. 
 
 It has been in this manner for the past twelve years, hav- 
 ing holdings in two ranches, that Mr. Gibson, in partnership 
 with Richard King, Jr., grandson of Mrs. H. M. King of 
 Santa Gertrudes Ranch, has conducted his cattle business 
 and still classes himself as “one of the cowboys.” 
 
 AN INDIAN BATTLE NEAR THE LEONA RIVER. 
 
 By L. A. Franks, of Pleasanton, Texas. 
 
 In 1865 occurred one of those sad frontier tragedies, 
 where the settlers were unable to sustain themselves in an 
 Indian battle, and wives and mothers were made to mourn 
 for loved ones who never returned except as mangled or 
 inanimate bodies. This noted fight occurred on the 4th 
 day of July in the above named year near the mouth of 
 the Leona River in Frio county. The settlers in the vi- 
 cinity at that time were the Martins, Odens, Franks, Ben- 
 netts, Hays, Parks, Levi English and Ed Burleson. These 
 were all in what was known as the Martin settlement. 
 
 On the morning in question Ed Burleson went out a 
 short idstance from his ranch to drive up some horses. 
 He was unarmed and riding a slow horse. Suddenly and 
 unexpectedly to him he was attacked by two Indians who 
 ran him very close, one on foot and the other mounted. 
 The one on foot outran the horseman and came near catch- 
 ing Burleson but he ran through a thicket and coming out 
 on the side next his ranch arrived there safely. Quite a lot 
 of people had collected at his house, men, women and chil- 
 dren, to celebrate the Fourth and wind up with a dance. Ere 
 the sun went down on that day, however, the festivities 
 were changed into mourning. Instead of the gay tramp and 
 joyous laughter of the dancers, wailing and the slow tread 
 of a funeral procession was heard. Excitement ran high 
 when Burleson dashed in and gave the alarm. Most of the 
 men mounted in haste to go in pursuit and others were noti- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 247 
 
 DILLARD R. FANT 
 
248 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 fied. When all the men had congregated who could be 
 gotten together on short notice, they numbered eleven and 
 were as follows: Levi English, L. A. Franks, G. W. Daugh- 
 erty, Ed Burleson, W. C. Bell, Frank Williams, Dean Oden, 
 Bud English, Dan Williams, John Berry and Mr. Aikens. Levi 
 English being the oldest man in the party and experienced 
 to some extent in fighting Indians, was chosen captain. When 
 the main trail was struck, the Indians were found to be in 
 large force, and going down the Leona river. They crossed 
 this stream near Bennett’s ranch four miles from Burleson’s. 
 They then went out into the open prairie in front of Mar- 
 tin’s ranch ten miles further on. The settlers first came in 
 sight of them two miles off, but they went down into a 
 valley and were lost to sight for some time. Suddenly, how- 
 ever, they came in view again not more than two hundred 
 yards away. There were thirty-six Indians mounted two and 
 two on a horse. The Indians now discovered the white 
 men for the first time and at once commenced a retreat. 
 The white men were all brave frontiersmen and made a 
 reckless and impetuous charge and began firing too soon. 
 The Indians ran nearly a mile and thinking likely they had 
 well nigh drawn the fire of the settlers, checked their flight 
 at a lone tree, at a signal from their chief, and each Indian 
 who was mounted behind another jumped to the ground 
 and came back at a charge, and for the first time com- 
 menced shooting. The mounted ones circled to right and 
 left and sent a shower of arrows and bullets. Some of the 
 Indians went entirely around the white men and a desperate 
 battle at close quarters ensued. The red men had the ad- 
 vantage of the whites in point of numbers and shots. The 
 latter having nearly exhausted their shots at long range, 
 had no time to reload a cap and ball pistol or gun in such 
 a fight as was now being inaugurated. Captain English in 
 vain gave orders during the mad charge, trying to hold the 
 boys back and keep them out of the deadly circle in which 
 they finally went. Dan Williams was the first man killed, 
 and when he fell from his horse was at once surrounded by 
 the Indians. English now rallied the men together and 
 charged to the body of Williams, and after a hot fight drove 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 249 
 
 them back, but in so doing fired their last loads. The In- 
 dians were quick to see this, and came back at them again, 
 and a retreat was ordered. Frank Williams, brother to Dan, 
 now dismounted by the side of his dying brother and asked 
 if there was anything he could do for him, and expressed a 
 willingness to stay with him. “No,” said the stricken man, 
 handing Frank his pistol, “take this and do the best you 
 can — I am killed — cannot live ten minutes. Save yourself.” 
 The men were even now wheeling their horses and leaving 
 the ground, and Frank only mounted and left when the 
 Indians were close upon him. The Comanches came after 
 them yelling furiously, and a panic ensued. 
 
 Dean Oden was the next man to fall a victim. His horse 
 was wounded and began to pitch and the Indians were soon 
 upon him. He dismounted and was wounded in the leg, 
 and attempted to remount again, but was wounded six 
 times more in the breast and back, as the Indians were on 
 all sides of him. Aus Franks was near him trying to force 
 his way out, and the last he saw of Oden he was down on 
 to his knees and his horse gone. The next and last man 
 killed was Bud English, son of the late captain. His father 
 stayed by his body until all hope was gone and all the men 
 scattering away. The Indians pursued with a fierce ven- 
 
 geance, mixing in with the whites and many personal com- 
 bats took place, the settlers striking at the Indians with 
 their unloaded guns and pistols. In this fight all the bal- 
 ance of the men were wounded except Franks, Berry and 
 Frank Williams. Captain English was badly wounded in 
 
 the side with an errow; G. W. Daugherty was hit in the 
 
 leg with an arrow; Ed Burleson also in the leg; Aikens in 
 
 the breast; and W. C. Bell in the side. In this wounded and 
 scattered condition the men went back to the ranch and 
 
 told the news of their sad defeat. Other men were col- 
 
 lected and returned to the battleground to bring away the 
 dead, led by those who participated but escaped unhurt. The 
 three bodies lay within a hundred yards of each other and 
 were badly mutilated. The Indians carried away their dead, 
 how many was not known, but supposed to be but few, on 
 account of the reckless firing of the men at the beginning of 
 
250 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the fight. Bud English was killed by a bullet in the breast, 
 and there was also one arrow or lance wound in the breast. 
 The head of Dan Williams was nearly severed from the 
 body, necessitating a close wrapping in a blanket to keep 
 the members together while being carried back. Oden and 
 Williams were brothers-in-law, and were both buried in 
 the same box. Eight out of eleven were killed or wounded. 
 
 This is a very good description of the early day life in 
 Texas. 
 
 JACK POTTER, THE “FIGHTING PARSON.” 
 
 Written by John Warren Hunter. 
 
 No name was more familiarly known thirty-five years ago 
 in West Texas than that of Andrew Jackson Potter, the 
 “Fighting Parson.” His name was a household word from 
 the Panhandle to the Gulf; from the Colorado to the Rio 
 Grande and the stories of his wit, prowess and adventures 
 were sent abroad in the nation by press and pulpit. While 
 the question of frontier protection was being considered in 
 the United States Congress in 1872, a Texas member said in 
 his speech: “Remove your regulars from the garrison on 
 
 the Texas border; commission Jack Potter, a reclaimed des- 
 perado and now a Methodist preacher and Indian fighter, 
 instruct him to choose and organize one hundred men and 
 Indian depredations along the Texas border will cease.” 
 
 A. J. Potter was born in Charlton county, Missouri, April 
 3, 1830, and was one of seven children — four boys and three 
 girls — Andrew being the third son. His father, Joshua Pot- 
 ter, was one of those rugged Kentucky marksmen who stood 
 behind the breastworks at New Orleans, January 8, 1815, and 
 helped defeat the flower of the British army under Pack- 
 enham. It was on account of his love and veneration for 
 “Old Hickory” that he named his son Andrew Jackson. While 
 quite young, the boy’s father moved to Grand River near 
 Clinton where the lad spent his boyhood. Clinton was at that 
 time a border county and educational facilities were very lim- 
 ited. Three months in school covered the entire period of 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 251 
 
 Andy’s scholastic experience and during this time he learned 
 to read after a fashion but did not acquire the art of writing. 
 
 At the age of ten, Andrew was an orphan, without home, 
 friends or heritage and became a race rider, and his skill, 
 courage and daring soon won the high regard of his em- 
 ployer to the extent that he taught him to write, play cards 
 and shoot straight; three of the most imporant branches of 
 a frontierman’s education during those early days. For six 
 years Andrew followed the occupation of race rider, his daily 
 associates being jockeys, gamblers, drunkards and blasphe- 
 mers — six years of perilous paths that led over hills, moun- 
 tains and deserts from St. Louis to Santa Fe. In 1846 when 
 hostilities broke out between the United States and Mexico, 
 Mr. Potter then being 16 years of age, enlisted in Capt. 
 Slack’s company of volunteers and under command of Gen- 
 eral Sterling Price took up the line of march for Santa Fe, 
 New Mexico. A few days march demonstrated the fact that An- 
 drew was too small to carry a haversack and musket and en- 
 dure the fatigue of a soldier; he was detailed as teamster 
 where he learned his first lesson in driving oxen. 
 
 The expedition left Leavenworth, Kansas, in September, 
 1846, and the route led up the Arkansas. Before reaching 
 Bent’s Fort the entire train of 40 wagons was captured by 
 the Cheyenne Indians. Not apprehending danger, it seems 
 the main body of troops had passed on far in advance, leav- 
 ing the train without an escort. Under the cloak of friend- 
 ship, two Indians came into the camp early in the morning 
 and were given food and remained. When the train moved 
 out, two others came up; other squads joined them and then 
 still larger bands, then three hundred savages rushed upon 
 the teamsters. No attempt at violence was made by the In- 
 dians. The chief gave the wagon master to understand that 
 he only wanted provisions, not scalps, and if he had to fight 
 to obtain the provisions he’d take scalps also. The wagon 
 master agreed to give him a certain amount of provisions and 
 while this was being given out a cloud of dust was seen ris- 
 ing far in the rear and the teamsters shouted, “Soldiers! the 
 soldiers are coming!” Seizing their plunder, the Indians 
 
252 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 mounted and fled. The cloud of dust was caused by an ap- 
 proaching wagon train. 
 
 At Bent’s Fort, young Potter was seized with an attack of 
 “camp fever” and it was thought necessary to leave him at 
 that post but his wagon master who had become greatly at- 
 tached to the lad made arrangements to take him along. It 
 was yet three hundred miles to Santa Fe, winter was at hand 
 and the Raton mountains were before them. After enduring- 
 untold hardships, they reached Santa Fe in January, 
 1847. For five years young Potter remained with the army 
 in that region, operating in New Mexico and Arizona, fight- 
 ing, trailing and routing the vengeful Apaches and other dan- 
 gerous tribes. It was during this period that he became an 
 adept in all the arts of Indian warfare. He was an apt stu- 
 dent in their school of cunning and strategy. Mr. Potter 
 leaves on record his impressions made by the sufferings of 
 Price’s men in the hospital at Santa Fe. He says: 
 
 “In the latter part of 1847, I was employed as a nurse 
 in the hospital at Santa Fe. On entering that place 1 saw an 
 affecting scene; a large number of men sick of scurvy, 
 meales and pneumonia, were lying on narrow bunks so closely 
 crowded together that there was just room to pass between 
 them. My time of nursing came on in the first part of the 
 night and it was an awful half night to me. Many of the 
 sufferers in their fevered delirium, would rise up and gather 
 their blankets, saying they were going home. By the time I 
 would get them quieted, others would be crying out: “Good- 
 bye! I am going home!” at the same time making efforts 
 to get up. Never shall I forget those dreary half nights I 
 spent there with the dead and dying. O, the sweet thoughts 
 of home, sweet home! They came as a dream charm over 
 the fevered brain when visions of wife, babes and loved ones 
 at home entered the mind. 
 
 “At length a train set out for Fort Leavenworth, to carry 
 home all the sick who were able to stand the trip across 
 the plains. I was one of the attendants. As our ox teams 
 slowly moved up the hill, I took my last lingering look at the 
 old adobe town of Santa Fe, with eyes dimmed by unshed 
 tears, as I gazed for the last time on the graves of so many 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 253 
 
 brave soldiers who lay side by side on the tomb covered hill 
 beyond, not to arise until Death’s long reign is passed. Many 
 of our sick died in the great wilderness and we rolled them 
 up in their blankets and hid them in earth’s cold clay at in- 
 tervals in our long journey from Santa Fe to Fort Leaven- 
 worth. Their unmarked graves are in the unsettled wilds 
 of Nature’s solitude. Friends and dear ones at home know 
 not the place of their rest. When we wrapped their cold 
 bodies in their soldier shrouds and shaped the grave mound 
 over them, the hardy soldier would perchance moisten the 
 earthen monument with a pitying tear. To me it was a ter- 
 ribly gloomy thought to leave them alone in savage lands, to 
 be trodden under foot by the wild, roving bands of Nature’s 
 untamed children in their merry dances over the dust of their 
 vanquished foes.” 
 
 After six years service as a soldier, Mr. Potter came to 
 Texas, reaching San Antonio in 1852 and from there he 
 went to visit a brother then living on York’s creek in Hays 
 county. Shortly after his arrival at his brother’s he was 
 stricken with typhoid fever and came near dying. When he 
 recovered he found himself penniless and a big doctor’s bill 
 to pay. His first employment was driving an ox team at $15 
 a month, hauling lumber from Bastrop county to San Mar- 
 cos and by saving up his wages he was soon able to pay off 
 all indebtedness. About this time Rev. I. G. John, a Metho- 
 dist preacher came along and filled an appointment on York’s 
 creek. Potter went out to hear him more for the novelty of 
 the meeting and a spirit of curiosity. The text, “Who is the 
 wise man ? ” pierced his soul, and from that day he became a 
 regular attendant at preaching, even denying himself the 
 pleasures of a Sunday race in order to hear Rev. John preach. 
 
 John preached at a great religious revival held at Croft’s 
 Prairie, in 1856. Mr. Potter was converted, joined the 
 church and the horse-racer, gambler and saloon keeper tough 
 was completely transformed and became one of the most 
 useful men West Texas ever knew. 
 
 The new life inspired Mr. Potter with a desire to learn and 
 he became a devoted bible reader. He learned to write, and 
 soon began to preach. In 1859, he sold out in Bastrop coun- 
 
254 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ty, and located on a place nine miles east of Lockhart, where 
 he was licensed to preach and from there began his won- 
 derful career as an itinerant preacher. 
 
 In 1861 he was seized with a desire to visit the old home 
 in Missouri but had no molney to defray the expenses of the 
 journey. Mr. Miller, of Lockhart, was getting ready to start 
 a herd of cattle to Kansas. Mr. Potter hired to him as a 
 herder and after 47 days’ travel, reached a point 100 miles 
 from the home of his boyhood, which he traversed in a few 
 days. His sister only remained to greet him and those who 
 had known him as the reckless race-rider and gambler were 
 astounded to learn that Andy Potter had come to life and was 
 a preacher! He preached to a great concourse the Sunday 
 following his arrival, and this was the beginning of a great 
 revival that continued three months. 
 
 In February, 1862 , Mr. Potter enlisted as a private in Capt. 
 Stoke Home’s Company at Prairie Lee. This company was 
 assigned to Wood’s regiment, Thirty-Second Texas cavalry. 
 The command was first stationed at Val Verde, Kerr coun- 
 ty, and later near San Antonio, where Rev. Potter was ap- 
 pointed chaplain of DeBray’s regiment. From San Antonio 
 the command went to Brownsville, where the fighting parson 
 whipped the editor of the local paper for having published 
 what Potter conceived to be a libel on his regiment, and 
 was on the eve of throwing the printing plant into the river, 
 but was prevented by General Bee. 
 
 Mr. Potter was in all of the battles of the Red River cam- 
 paign in 1864, one of unspeakable hardships to the soldiers 
 of the Confederacy — hunger, sickness, toils, battle-strife, 
 death. Bread, sugar and berries were the chief articles of 
 food. The good chaplain shared all these hardships with the 
 common soldiers, passing through all the daily drills and 
 marches, preaching, praying and exhorting the men. 
 
 When in battle array and ready for the order to advance, 
 Chaplain Potter could be seen with hat in one hand and bible 
 in the other, walking back and forth in front of his regiment 
 exhorting the men to repentance. “Boys some of you may 
 fall in this battle,” he would say: “in a few minutes you may 
 be called to meet your maker. Repent now and give your 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 255 
 
 heart to Christ. He is waiting to receive you. O, men it’s a 
 solemn moment! You are facing death and eternity!” And 
 when the order “forward” was given, Mr. Potter seized a 
 musket, fell in rank and fought side by side with his men. 
 At the close of battle Potter seemed endowed with the power 
 of ubiquity. Everywhere, praying with the dying, adminis- 
 tering to the wounded, writing last messages to friends at 
 home, day and night, scarcely pausing to take food or rest. 
 This is the testimony of his comrades, many of whom are yet 
 living who will confirm the statement. 
 
 In the fall of 1865, Mr. Potter was appointed as a supply 
 to the Prairie Lee circuit and at the annual conference held 
 at Seguin in the fall of 1867, he was sent to the mountain 
 frontier and took station at Kerrville. This threw him in 
 the region where, on each light moon the Indian left his 
 trail of blood along some mountain side or valley. But the 
 Comanche yell had no terrors for Potter; he had heard it be- 
 fore and had been schooled in all their wiles and methods. 
 In 1868, Mr. Potter bought a place near Boerne and moved 
 his family to it. In 1871, he was sent to the Uvalde circuit, 
 which bordered on the Rio Grande, where Indians could cross 
 any day, and their depredations, killing and stealing, were 
 almost of daily occurrence. Uvalde, at that time was known 
 as one of the wickedest places on the border and had never 
 before had preaching. In addition to his ministerial work, 
 Mr. Potter had been appointed colporteur and over this vast 
 territory he distributed among rich and poor alike a great 
 number of bibles. 
 
 During the first year of his work in the mountain region, 
 the Indians made a raid on Curry’s creek. Dr. Nowlin an 
 old frontiersman knew the Indians were in the country and 
 stationed two men in his corn crib to guard his horses which 
 were loose in the lot. The moon was at its full and 
 along about midnight two Indians were seen to stealthily ap- 
 proach, and as they began to let down the lot fence, one of 
 the men in the crib took good aim and fired, killing the In- 
 dian in his tracks; the other man was so scared he could not 
 shoot and the other Indian got away. 
 
256 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 While on his rounds in the Uvalde work, on the road 
 between the Frio and Sabinal Canyon, Mr. Potter met a 
 squad of four Indians. He was traveling in an ambulance 
 drawn by two small Spanish mules and while passing through 
 a lonely defile in the mountains he came up almost face 
 to face with these four redskins. He saw there was going to 
 be a fight and seizing his winchester, he leaped out of his 
 ambulance and securely tied his mules to a sappling and 
 then under cover of a thicket he reached a slight elevation, 
 where he could better command a full view of the enemy. 
 Getting in a good position, the parson took good aim and 
 pulled the trigger, but the gun failed to fire and the “click” 
 of the hammer revealed his whereabouts. Two Indians had 
 citizen rifles and blazed away at him, but without effect. The 
 parson fired at the same instant wounding one of the Indians 
 and knocking the gun out of his hands. The wounded Indian 
 was taken up by his comrades and carried off. 
 
 Potter might have killed all four before they got out of 
 reach but he was afraid to risk his cartridges, as they had been 
 on hand some time. Returning to his ambulance, he drove 
 off some distance from the road and came to the foot of a 
 mountain and drove into a dense thicket. He knew there 
 were more than four Indians around, and that they were like- 
 ly to lay in ambush somewhere ahead. When he had secured 
 his team in the thicket he carefully cleaned his gun, selected 
 the best cartridges, got his pistol in fighting trim, and began 
 to look around. He discovered two Indians watching for him 
 from the summit of the hill above him and when they saw 
 that he had seen them, they blazed away but missed their 
 mark. Mr. Potter pumped several shots at them as they 
 scampered over the hill out of sight. He then re-entered his 
 vehicle and drove away without seeing that bunch of red- 
 skins again. 
 
 One instance out of many, will give the reader an idea of 
 the person, the men and the times of which we write. While 
 on this frontier work, late one evening he reached a military 
 outpost. It might have been Fort Clark. The soldiers had 
 just been paid off and the little village near the post was 
 crowded with gamblers, sharpers, crooks and other disreput- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 257 
 
 able characters. Many of these knew Mr. Potter and when 
 he rode up, they set up a shout; “Here comes the fighting 
 parson!” “Hold up there old pardner!” “can’t ye give us a 
 gospel song an’ dance tonight? ” When told he would preach 
 to them if they would provide a place, one sang out; “Sure, 
 Parson, we’ll make way for ye, if we have to rent the sa- 
 loon!” A saloon gallery was provided with rude seats, kegs, 
 barrels and a few chairs from dwellings nearby, and as the 
 word had gone abroad that a strange preacher was in town, 
 people began to assemble early. One man who was the 
 worse for drink, insisted on acting the part of usher and town 
 cryer. He mounted a barrel and for some time kept up the 
 cry, “O yes. O yes, O yes! There is going to be some hell- 
 fired racket here, right here on this gallery, by fightin’ Parson 
 Potter, a reformed gambler, but now a regular gospel shark. 
 The jig will begin now in fifteen minutes, and you old whis- 
 key soaks and card sharpers, come over and learn how to 
 mend your ways, or the devil will get you quicker’n hell can 
 scorch a feather.” 
 
 A great crowd assembled — one of the hardest looking sets 
 of human beings Potter had ever preached to but they kept 
 good order and when service concluded they wanted to “set 
 ’em up” to the parson, but when he declined that mark of 
 their respect they passed an empty cigar box and all “chipped 
 in.” He preached the next day and was pressed by those rude 
 western men to come again and come often. 
 
 In 1878 or ’79 Mr. Potter began his labors at Fort Concho. 
 San Angelo was a small frontier village and like all post 
 towns along the border had a record not the best along the 
 lines of morality. The saloons and gambling halls were pop- 
 ular resorts. They were open day and night, and every man 
 went heavily armed. Mr. Potter visited the families, preached 
 to the gamblers, soldiers and plainsmen. 
 
 In 1883 Mr. Potter moved his family to San Angelo, but 
 continued his ministerial work wherever assigned. 
 
 in 1894 he was sent to the Lockhart circuit. Here it was 
 on this same circuit that he began his ministry. On Oc- 
 tober 21, 1895, he preached his last sermon prior to going 
 to conference. It was the close of his year’s work, and 
 
258 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 proved to be the closing scene of his life work. This was 
 at Tilden, and while delivering his peroration with uplifted 
 hands with the words, “I believe,” he fell in the pulpit and 
 when tender hands lifted the limp form the great soul had 
 gone home to the Father who gave it. To the writer who 
 knew him and loved him as a brother for many years he had 
 expressed a wish to die in harness, in the pulpit. 
 
 As has been stated, no man who ever lived in Southwest 
 Texas was more widely known than A. J. Potter. That he 
 acquired the title of the “fighting parson” was in no wise 
 derogatory to his character as a man, a Christian gentle- 
 man or a preacher. He was a man absolutely without fear. 
 He was never the aggressor and when a difficulty was forced 
 upon him he always acted on the defensive and vanquished 
 his assailant. His personal combats with Indians and des- 
 peradoes would fill a volume. It is a notable fact that when 
 he had overcame an assailant in a fist fight or otherwise, 
 if he chanced to be a white man, he always gave him fath- 
 erly counsel and offered him his hand. 
 
 It was said of him that he knew every road, trail and 
 landscape throughout all West Texas. He had visited nearly 
 every home in all this vast region, administered to the sick, 
 officiated at weddings and funerals, and received a frontier 
 welcome everywhere. 
 
 SKETCH OF JOHN S. CHISUM. 
 
 By James M. Waide, Slidell, Texas. 
 
 Denton county had the honor of having as one of her 
 citizens a man who, with perhaps one exception, owned 
 more cattle than any other man in the world. His name 
 was John S. Chisum, and he came to Denton county from 
 Lamar county in the year 1854, and located on Clear 
 Creek, three miles above the town of Bolivar, at the place 
 now known as the Waide place. Before he came to Den- 
 ton county he was county clerk of Lamar county. Steve 
 Fowler, a wealthy man of New Orleans bought three thou- 
 sand cows and employed Chisum to bring them to Denton 
 county and put them on the range. He was to give Chisum 
 
SWIMMING THE NORTH PLATTE RIVER From a Painting by Warren Hunter 
 
260 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 one-half of the increase to look after them and allowed him 
 to mark and brand his half in his own mark and brand, the 
 other half of the increase were to be each year marked and 
 branded in the partnership mark and brand. This kind of 
 a proposition was greater than being county clerk of La- 
 mar county, and he thus became a stock-raiser in Denton 
 county. Many old time citizens yet living knew him per- 
 sonally, and many people who never knew him heard of 
 the Lincoln County War in New Mexico in which John S. 
 Chisum took a prominent part. The war in New Mexico 
 was started by one of his cow hands known as “Billie the 
 
 Kid,” who afterward became a noted outlaw in New Mexi- 
 
 co and was finally killed by United States Marshall Pat 
 Garrett. 
 
 John Chisum raised stock in this county for a number of 
 years, and moved his cattle to the Concho River in 1864 
 
 and 1865, moving out of this county over 100,000 head 
 
 and leaving a remnant of at least 30,000 in Denton and ad- 
 joining counties. Later he went to New Mexico and con- 
 tinued in the cattle business until his death, after which his 
 estate went to his two brothers, Pitser and James Chisum. 
 
 THE CHISHOLM TRAIL 
 
 By Fred Sutton, of Oklahoma City, Okla. 
 
 The meeting of “The Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association,” 
 of which the writer is a charter member, held at Houston, 
 Texas, calls to mind many interesting bits of history of the 
 early day cow business and of the drives made over the 
 romantic and historic Chisholm trail. And I wonder what 
 has become of all of those good boys who blazed the way 
 from San Antonio to where it crossed the Red River near 
 Gainesville, thence through what is now Love, Carter, Gar- 
 vin, Grady, Canadian, Kingfisher, Garfield and Grant coun- 
 ties in Oklahoma. 
 
 This trail was started in 1868 by John Chisholm, who 
 drove the first bunch of cows from San Antonio to Abilene, 
 Kan., and for whom the trail was named. One of the prin- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 261 
 
 cipal watering- places was at what was called the govern- 
 ment spring, and which is now a beautiful park in the city 
 of Enid. I 11 ’72 the terminus was shifted to Ellsworth, Kan- 
 sas, and in that year the Santa Fe built into the Great Bend 
 country and Dodge City was laid out as a townsite, and in 
 ’74 the head of the drive was located at that point. From 
 ’74 to ’84 Dodge City was headquarters for all cow men 
 from Oklahoma and Texas. During that ten years it was 
 the toughest spot on the American continent and much his- 
 tory has been written of it and of the men who tamed the 
 population and who turned the wide open town with its In- 
 dian fighters, buffalo hunters, cowboys, dance halls, honky- 
 tonks and gambling houses, into the modern city of today, 
 where a beautiful high school building ornaments the sum- 
 mit of the notorious Boot Hill, where many a mother’s boy 
 who left the East so suddenly that he forgot to take his name 
 with him was laid away by the followers of the Chisholm 
 trail. 
 
 It was in the year 1881 that the writer made his first 
 drive over the trail for Jesse Evans, one of the cattle- kings 
 of that day. He was accompanied by some twenty good 
 hearted, dare-devil, fear-nothing riders, and he would love 
 to know where the remnant of that little band of good boys 
 is and that those who have passed on were given credit for 
 the good deeds performed in this life and the broad mantle 
 of charity spread over the faults that we all have, and of 
 which (it seems to me) the writer has more than any. On 
 this drive some of our boys quit and men were picked up to 
 take their places and in this way we were joined by Bill Dris- 
 coll, who had been riding the Bar L ranch for Colonel Brooks. 
 He was a morose, sullen man who never spoke of his past 
 and as he was always practicing shooting and telling of his 
 prowess with a “45,” no one made inquiry regarding it and 
 in a short time all quit trying to be pleasant or sociable with 
 him and he was left almost entirely to himself. 
 
 Another recruit was Burt Phelps, who came from no one 
 knows where, but he joined the drive at “Old Boot ranch.” 
 He was a mild-mannered, blue-eyed boy of 22 years, highly 
 educated and very refined and seemingly entirely out of place 
 
262 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 on the trail, a fact of which all were sure when he was seen 
 one day to be earnestly reading a little pocket edition of the 
 Bible, which he hurriedly put away and blushed like a school 
 girl when he saw us looking at him. Though quite modest 
 and retiring in disposition, he was soon a rank favorite with 
 all except Driscoll, who never missed a chance to make 
 light of “mamma’s boy,” as he called him. Burt was warned 
 several times to look out for Driscoll as he was a bad and 
 ugly tempered man and would probably try to draw him into 
 a fight, and as he already had several notches on his gun a 
 fight with him was to be earnestly avoided. To this Burt 
 replied that he did not fear him and despite the notches he 
 was not afraid and that if occasion required he could shoot 
 him twice while he was pulling his gun, a statement which 
 was soon to be borne out. 
 
 That evening in camp a fire had been built of some dry 
 wood gathered along Red River, and Driscoll was standing 
 rather close to it when Burt threw a handful of wood on it, 
 causing a small coal to fly up and strike him in the face. 
 He at once flew into a rage and grasped his six-shooter, but 
 before he could get it from the holster Burt had his gun 
 in his face and smilingly took the gun with its notches from 
 Driscoll and taking the shells from it handed it back and 
 said: “Mr. Driscoll, you act like you were drawing a siege 
 
 gun into action and ought to practice up some that you may 
 defend yourself in time of trouble. You had better go now 
 and rest up for a hard day’s ride tomorrow.” He moved 
 sullenly away and again Burt was warned to be careful, 
 which only brought a smile to his boyish face. 
 
 For some days all went smoothly, until we bedded one 
 night near the D H K Ranch, and were asked to attend a 
 dance at that place, and as opportunities of that kind were 
 few and far between, all gladly accepted, and, leaving a few 
 boys to watch the herd, the rest went to the dance, where all 
 had a fine time. At about midnight a driver by the name of 
 Ed Bannister, who was from Atchison, Kansas, called to Burt 
 through a window of the ranch house to loan him his gun, as 
 a man out there wanted to kill a wolf that was scaring the 
 horses. Knowing Bannister to be his triend, nothing was 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 263 
 
 thought of the request and the gun was handed out and soon 
 returned with the word that the wolf had gotten away. Short- 
 ly after all went back to camp and to sleep. 
 
 The following day Driscoll and Burt met at a water hole 
 and Driscoll renewed the quarrel of a few days past, and 
 drew his gun, but before he could fire Burt had snapped his 
 gun twice from the hip. Driscoll fired and poor Burt fell 
 dead. The man who asked Bannister to borrow the gun had 
 removed the loads. It was Bill Driscoll. Some say Driscoll 
 escaped and was later in the sheep business in New Mexico. 
 Others say that at the foot of a dead tree on the bank of 
 Red River could be found a few bones and a black-barreled 
 .45 with several notches on the handle and four loaded 
 shells. Who knows? The writer does know that on a 
 gently sloping hill overlooking the valley of the Red River is 
 an almost forgotton grave that contains all that is left of the 
 mortal remains of poor Burt Phelps, and in the inside pocket 
 of his coat is a little Bible, on the fly-leaf of which was 
 written, “From mother to her boy.” Where he came from 
 no one knew, but his companions on the drive believed him 
 to be the son of a rich eastern father with whom he had 
 fallen out, resulting in his leaving home to cast his lot with 
 the rough element to be found on the range. 
 
 The writer could go to this forgotten grave where poor 
 Burt’s remains are resting and where he was laid by a bunch 
 of cowboys who, with hats in hand, tried to say a prayer 
 and, failing, their eyes dimmed with tears, one member on 
 his knees, with eyes raised to heaven, said, “Oh, God, look 
 down on this Thy child.” 
 
 The writer lives now at Oklahoma City, not far from the 
 old trail that could tell so many stories of human interest if 
 it could but speak. Other men who live here and who rode 
 the trail from ’74 to ’84 are Frank M. Gault. He was sent 
 in 1880, by W. H. Davis, to Laredo, Texas, to bring 5,000 
 longhorns over the trail to Dodge City, and on this drive he 
 had as his assistant foreman Wills McCoy, now of San An- 
 tonio; James D. Cox, who drove through in ’74, and who, 
 now at the age of 82, would rather have a good cow horse 
 and saddle than the finest auto, has a fine ranch in Ari- 
 
264 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 zona and often spends his summers there; Charley Colcord, 
 who is now a millionaire oil man and whom the writer re- 
 cently met at a reception attired in a full dress suit, which 
 brought to mind the fact that it was he who brought the 
 first tooth brush to Medicine Lodge, Kan., and how the 
 punchers all wanted to borrow it till pay day, and after that 
 day came, for a short time, each rider had a white-handled 
 brush sticking out of his top vest or shirt pocket, and thus 
 style was introduced on the Kansas plains by Charley Col- 
 cord, the cowboy. 
 
 I could go on writing of others, such as George B. Stone, 
 Oscar Halsell, Bill Tilghman, B. S. McGuire, F. E. Herring of 
 Elk City, and others who were good cowboys, and are good 
 men, who while on the range could take their own part un- 
 der any and all circumstances, feared nothing, and who are 
 now the God-fearing and peace-loving business men who 
 have builded a modern city of 100,000 people in twenty-seven 
 years on the site of the Chisholm trail. 
 
 PREFERRED TO TAKE OLDER CATTLE UP THE TRAIL 
 
 By Thomas Welder, Beeville, Texas. 
 
 In the early seventies we owned quite a large horse stock, 
 and there being no market for them in this country I de- 
 cided to drive a bunch east in hopes of finding sale for them. 
 In 1873 I gathered one hundred mules and some good horses 
 and started with them. I first went to Wharton, on the Colo- 
 rado, but not finding a market there, I went on to Rich- 
 mond, on the Brazos, then to Lake Charles, La., continuing 
 my journey until I wound up at the mouth of Red River in 
 Louisiana. There I remained five months, finally disposing 
 of all the mules and horses. I continued to make drives to 
 that region every year until 1878, when I concluded to try 
 driving cattle up the trail to Kansas. That spring Dug 
 Williams and 1 drove a herd for J. J. Welder. We gath- 
 ered in February, and after branding the cattle on his San 
 Patricio county ranch we went to his ranch in Refugio coun- 
 ty to finish up. We divided the cattle into two herds, having 
 from a one-year-old up to a grown steer. I was given choice 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 265 
 
 of the herds, and took the young cattle, 2000 ones and 500 
 twos. I soon discovered my mistake, for the young cat- 
 tle, not being able to stand the hardships of the trail, soon 
 began to give out and I found myself with a lot of drags as 
 we called them. We were caught in a severe freeze on 
 Gonzales Prairie, which made matters worse. However, I 
 continued on my journey and reached Fort Worth where 
 we crossed the river there and went out to Blue Mound to 
 spend a few days resting up. With the assistance of Jim 
 Reed and Tom Ward, formerly citizens of South Texas but 
 then living at Fort Worth, I disposed of the drags, about six- 
 ty head, at six dollars per head, then resumed our journey 
 and crossed Red River at Red River Station on the eastern 
 trail into the Indian Territory. At the entrance of every 
 reservation I found a sign posted up, “One Wohaw,” which 
 meant that the Indians wanted one steer to pay for grazing 
 privileges. I always complied with the request and had no 
 trouble, but others who failed to do so had their cattle stam- 
 peded at night and probably lost more in the end than 1 
 did. We encountered several severe hailstorms on our way, 
 but finally reached Dodge City, where we sold part of our 
 cattle to be delivered at Ogallala, Nebraska. The remaining 
 ones we closed out at Dodge City. We returned home by 
 way of Kansas City, Galveston, Indianola and Victoria. 
 
 In 1882 I put 400 head of my cattle into a herd with 
 J. J. Welder and Wash Moss and 1 drove for him that year. 
 The herd consisted of 5000 head, which we gathered and 
 branded at his ranch on the San Antonio River. We divided 
 the cattle into two herds of 2500 each, and having gained 
 some valuable experience the year before 1 chose the herd 
 of older cattle, and started on the trail with them. They 
 stampeded every night for ten or twelve nights, and I began 
 to think I had again made a mistake, but they soon got 
 used to the trail and quit giving trouble. I delivered the last 
 of these cattle about twenty miles from Denver, Colorado. 
 We reached Dodge City sometime in June, where John sold 
 the grown steers to Major Maberry, who had a contract with 
 the government to furnish the Indians with beef. We de- 
 livered 500 to him I think, the remaining 2000 of my herd 
 
26 6 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 were sold to a banker, Fine Eames, of Denver, to be deliv- 
 ered there. We started the herd from Dodge City, going up 
 the Arkansas River some 200 or 300 miles in order to have 
 plenty of water for the cattle. We also followed a small 
 stream called Sandy River for some distance. We had to 
 drive our cattle up and down this river for two or three hours 
 at a time, then take them out to give the water time to rise, 
 and let them go to the water in small bunches in order for 
 the herd to get sufficient water. We reached the Kit Car- 
 son ranch on the Union Pacific or the Kansas Pacific about 
 twenty miles from Denver, where we delivered the herd and 
 the outfit returned home. 
 
 Before closing I want to relate one little incident of ex- 
 citement that happened to me in 1878. While on the trail, 
 after crossing the North Canadian River, I was traveling ahead 
 of the herd to find a stopping place for the night and after 
 finding a good place started back to the herd, when I was 
 overtaken by seven Indians. They wanted to swap horses 
 with me, but I would not swap, then one wanted some 
 cartridges for his gun. I had a belt full, but I pulled out 
 my pistol, held it in my hand and kept right on traveling. 
 One of the Indians grabbed for my hat, but I dodged and 
 kept him from getting it. Finally I saw our lead cattle 
 coming over the hill and pointed to them. The Indians 
 saw the herd and at once quit me, and I felt considerably 
 relieved. 
 
 CORNBREAD AND CLABBER MADE A GOOD MEAL 
 
 By Joseph Cotulla, of Cotulla, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Grosslelitch, Germany, then Poland, March 
 19, 1844, and came to America with my mother and grand- 
 mother in 1856. We landed at Galveston in December 
 of that year, from whence we journeyed to Indianola, and 
 then to San Antonio in an ox wagon, arriving in San An- 
 tonio in 1857. From San Antonio we went to Gallinas, 
 
 Atascosa county, where my aunt and sisters lived. They 
 came to America only the year before we came. 1 secured 
 work with a Frenchman at four dollars per month, re- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 267 
 
 maining with him a year and a half, saved my wages and 
 bought a horse for forty dollars. I rode that horse just 
 half a day and he died. Thus I had gained my first real 
 experience. I was next employed by Joe Walker, the first 
 county clerk of Atascosa county, for six dollars per month. 
 
 I remained with him until 1862, when I went to work for 
 Ben Slaughter, who lived at La Parita, and he paid me 
 seven dollars per month Confederate money. Later Ben 
 and John Slaughter, Lee Harris, the two Forrest boys and 
 an Englishman named Moody, and myself started to Mex- 
 ico, and while on the way we stopped one day and took 
 dinner with John Burleson. The dinner was fine, the 
 menu consisting of cornbread and clabber, and we en- 
 joyed it immensely, for we were all very hungry and could 
 have eaten the skillet the bread was cooked in. 
 
 After bidding John goodbye we resumed our journey 
 down the river, crossing the Presidio to our destination. 
 After a short stay in Matamoras, John and Ben Slaughter 
 returned to Texas, Moody went to England, and 1 went 
 to New Orleans, where I enlisted in the Federal Army in 
 1863, remaining with the troops nearly two years. After 
 receiving my discharge in San Antonio I went back to 
 Gallinas and began to work for myself, branding mave- 
 ricks. In March, 1868, I went to Nueces and drove a 
 herd from the Altito to Abilene, Kansas, for L. B. Harris. 
 We crossed these cattle below San Juan Mission, going by 
 way of Austin, Waco and Dallas, crossing the Red River 
 about eight miles above Fort Arkansas, passing through the 
 Indian Territory and crossing Little Arkansas River, then 
 on to Abilene. When we reached Abilene we found only 
 a log cabin and three houses on Smoky River. We re- 
 mained there until fall, then returned with our horses and 
 wagon. 
 
 In November, 1868, Dick Hildebrandt, Ed Lyons, Gil- 
 bert Turner, L. P. Williams and myself came out to Nueces 
 and located. We gathered fed beeves that year, and sold 
 them to Fred Malone, Joe Collins, Thomas, and Shanghai 
 Pierce (the man who introduced the walking stick in Kan- 
 sas.) In the spring of 1869, I went back to Atascosa 
 
268 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 county where 1 remained until fall, then came back and 
 we started a ranch, all working together until 1873, when 
 we started up the trail with two herds of cattle. I drove 
 the first herd to my place in Atascosa county, from where 
 I put them on the trail, going by way of San Juan Mis- 
 sion and Austin. We never saw a house until we crossed 
 the trail where the town of Sherman is now located. On 
 this trip we saw a number of Indians but they did not mo- 
 lest us. When we reached Wichita, Kansas, I sold my 
 cattle to a man named Polk, who beat me out of five thou- 
 sand dollars. I lost seven thousand dollars on that trip. 
 When I came back in the fall I bought Dick Hildebrandt’s 
 interest in cattle and in 1874 drove a herd by myself which 
 I sold for enough to make up the money 1 had lost, and I 
 never went up the trail any more. 
 
 Now at the age of seventy-six I am still in the cattle 
 business and living in the same place I located in 1868. 
 
 A WOMAN TRAIL DRIVER 
 
 By Mrs. A. Burks, Cotulla, Texas. 
 
 My husband, Mr. W. F. Burks, and I lived on a ranch at 
 Banquete, Nueces county, during the days that Texas cattle 
 could be marketed only by driving them over the old Kan- 
 sas Trail. 
 
 At this time in this section of the country, good steers 
 could be bought for fifteen dollars, and were often killed 
 for the hides and tallow. The meat was fed to the hogs. 
 
 In the early spring of 1871 Mr. Burks rounded up his < 
 cattle and topped out a thousand head of the best to take to ' 
 market. Jasper Clark (better known as “Jap”) was get- ; 
 ting ready to take the Clark herd also, so they planned to 
 keep the two herds not far apart. 
 
 They started in April with about ten cowboys each, most- 
 ly Mexicans, and the cooks. The cattle were road-branded 
 at Pinitas and started on the familiar trail. They were only 
 a day out when Marcus Burks, my brother-in-law, came back 
 with a note to me from Mr. Burks asking me to get ready 
 
I / 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 269 
 
 ■ 
 
 as soon as possible and catch up with the bunch. He 
 also said to bring' either Eliza or Nick (black girl and boy 
 who worked for us) to look out for my comfort, and sug- 
 gested that Nick would be of more help than the girl. 
 
 So Nick and I started in my little buggy drawn by two 
 good brown ponies and overtook the herd in a day’s time. 
 Nick, being more skilled than the camp cook, prepared my 
 meals. He also put up my tent evenings and took it down 
 when we broke up camp. It was intended that he should 
 drive my horses when I was tired, but that was not neces- 
 sary for the horses often had no need of anyone driving 
 them. They would follow the slow-moving herd unguided, 
 and I would find a comfortable position, fasten the lines, and 
 take a little nap. 
 
 
 
 The cattle were driven only about ten miles a day, or 
 less, so that they would have plenty of time to graze and 
 fatten along the way. They were in good condition when 
 they reached Kansas. 
 
 Except when 1 was lost, I left the bunch only once after 
 starting. On this occasion I went to Concrete, where my sis- 
 ter lived, to have a tent made for the trip. 
 
 The night before our herd reached Beeville the Clark herd 
 stampeded and never caught sight of us until we were ’way 
 up-state. 
 
 All went pretty well with us till we neared Lockhart, and 
 here we lost thirty cows in the timber. They were never 
 recovered. 
 
 Whenever we came to timber we had to rush the cattle 
 through, sometimes driving all day without stopping, for if 
 they were scattered it was almost impossible to gather them 
 again in the thick undergrowth. 
 
 Being spring-time, the weather was delightful until we 
 reached Central Tetcas. Some of the worst electrical and 
 hail storms I have ever witnessed were in this part and also 
 in North Texas. The lightning seemed to settle on the ground 
 and creep along like something alive. 
 
 Over in Bosque county late one evening a storm overtook 
 us, and Mr. Burks drove me off into a more sheltered part 
 of the timber. He unfastened the traces from the buggy 
 
2 70 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 and gave me the lines, but told me if the horses tried to 
 run to let them go. Hail had begun to fall by this time and 
 he had to hurry back to help the men hold the frightened 
 cattle. Harder and heavier fell the hail, and rain was pour- 
 ing down in torrents. The horses worked their way around 
 to one side of the buggy, seeking protection, and it seemed 
 that it would be only a few seconds until they pulled away 
 from me entirely. Determined not to let the horses go, I 
 left the shelter of my buggy-top and tied the horses with 
 a rope I always carried with me. I got back in the buggy 
 and sat there cold and wet and hungry and all alone in the 
 dark. Homesick! This is the only time of all the months of 
 my trip that I wished I was back on the old ranch at Ban- 
 quete. 
 
 After what seemed ages to me I could hear the rumble of 
 wagon wheels on the trail, and later still, the sound of the 
 beat of a horse’s hoofs going the same way; but no one 
 seemed to pay me any mind. 
 
 Later 1 learned that U was the cook driving the wagon, 
 not knowing which way to go after being lost in the dark 
 woods; and' that Mr. Burks icde after him to bring him back 
 to cook supper for the hungry men who had had nothing to 
 eat since morning. 
 
 After I heard the return of the wagon the woods rang 
 with the sound of Mr. Burk’s voice calling me and 1 lost no 
 time in answering. It was one o’clock in the morning when 
 I reached camp. 
 
 Mr. Burks and several of the others had big blood blisters 
 on their hands caused by the hail. One of the boys said, 
 “The beat of the hail on my head made me crazy. I would 
 have run but didn’t know which way to go.” 
 
 There were few people living along the trail, but when 
 going through Ellis County we saw an old woman sitting in 
 the doorway of a small house, stringing beans. We re- 
 marked to her that we saw very few women in that part of 
 the country. She answered, “Yes, sir, I’m the first woman 
 that made a track in Dallas county, and I would be back 
 in Tennessee now, only I would have to go through Arkansas 
 to get there. I guess I’ll stay right here.” 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 271 
 
 MRS. A. BURKS 
 
272 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Once when we were camping in Johnson county I heard 
 the bark of dogs followed by several rapid pistol shots. I 
 ran to my tent to see what the trouble was. The Mexi- 
 can who had charge of the cattle on this relay said that two 
 dogs ran right in among the grazing herd and were about to 
 stampede them when he shot them. 
 
 The owner of the dogs appeared soon after the shooting 
 and seemed very downcast over his loss. He said he had 
 “sure been having hard luck.” He had first lost his two 
 sons in the Civil War and had now lost his two dogs which 
 he had trained to keep cattle out of his tiny near-by field. 
 We were sorry for the poor old man, but knew the Mexican 
 did the right thing in preventing a stampede. 
 
 We camped a long time at Fort Worth, waiting for the 
 Trinity River to fall low enough to cross our cattle. 1 count- 
 ed fifteen herds here waiting to cross. 
 
 After we had crossed the Red River we seemed to have 
 left all civilization behind. There were no more fresh fields, 
 green meadows, and timber lands. The sun was so blistering 
 that we hung a cloth inside the top of my buggy to break 
 the heat that came through. Evenings and mornings were 
 so cool that we were uncomfortable. 
 
 We had heard of the treacherous Indians and cattle rustlers 
 of the Territory and were always on the lookout for them. 
 The cattle and horses were kept well guarded. One day one 
 of the Mexican cowboys who was on guard duty fell asleep. 
 Mr. Burks could not permit such negligence and told the man 
 that he had to go. All the Mexicans notified Mr. Burks that 
 if this man was “fired” that all would go with him. Of 
 course there was no one else to be employed in this unin- 
 habited territory so we kept the man who had to have his 
 afternoon nap. 
 
 We had no unpleasant experiences with the Indians, al- 
 though they came to camp and tried to trade with the men. 
 We narrowly escaped having trouble with a couple of, what 
 we supposed to be, rustlers. While alone in camp one af- 
 ternoon two men came up and were throwing rocks in among 
 the grazing cattle. I called to them to stop and said, “Don’t 
 you know you’ll stampede those cattle?” and they answered, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 273 
 
 “That’s what we’re trying to do.” Just then some of the men 
 rode up and the rustlers left hurriedly. 
 
 Mr. Burks always kept his horse saddled at night so that 
 he would be ready to go at a word from the boys. As he 
 often helped the men watch the cattle when they were rest- 
 less, I was sometimes alone in my tent till late at night. On 
 these occasions 1 sat up fully dressed for any emergency. 
 
 On one of these nights it was thought that Indians were 
 near, so a guard was left at my tent, but he was soon called 
 to help with the cattle. A man from the other camp begged 
 me to go over to his camp and stay until the trouble was 
 over but I told him I preferred my own tent. The men 
 thought me very brave to stay alone at such a time. 
 
 Both the Clark and our herds were stampeded one day, 
 supposedly by Indians. It was a horrible yet fascinating sight. 
 Frantic cowboys did all in their power to stop the wild flight, 
 but nothing but exhaustion could check it. By working al- 
 most constantly the men gathered the cattle in about a 
 week’s time. They were all thrown into one big herd, and 
 the roar of hoof-beats of two thousand milling cattle was 
 almost deafening. The herd was divided into two, then 
 worked back and forth until every cow was in her rightful 
 bunch. 
 
 After an experience of this kind the men would be almost 
 exhausted. I felt so sorry for one of them, Branch Isbell, a 
 young tenderfoot, that I persuaded Mr. Burks to let him 
 rest. The boy lay down and was soon sleeping so soundly 
 that he did not hear us breaking camp, and we forgot him 
 when we left. I wanted someone to go back and wake him, 
 but Mr. Burks said that it would be only a little while till he 
 appeared again. The boy overtook us late in the evening, 
 and said that he would not have awakened then if an ap- 
 proaching herd had not almost ran over him. 
 
 We seemed to be pursued by fire during our entire trip. 
 The first night we were in the Territory Mr. Burks and I 
 went to sleep leaving a candle burning, and before we were 
 awakened a box full of trinkets and small articles, including 
 my comb, were in a blaze. 
 
274 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 On one occasion a prairie fire ran us out of camp before 
 breakfast. We escaped by fleeing to a part of the plain 
 which had been burned before, called “a burn” by people of 
 that section. 
 
 Two days later my ignorance was the cause of an immense 
 prairie fire. I thought I would build a fire in a gulley while 
 the cook had gone for water. Not later than I had struck 
 the match than the grass all around was in a blaze which 
 spread so quickly that the men could not stop it. They suc- 
 ceeded in beating out the flanks of the fire so that it did not 
 spread out at the sides at the beginning. The fire blazed 
 higher than a house and went straight ahead for fifty miles or 
 more. Investigators came next day to find out who the 
 culprit was, and when they learned that it was a woman, 
 nothing was said, except for a remark one of the men made 
 that he was glad that he didn’t strike that match. 
 
 Once, when we were camped on Emmet Creek a fire crept 
 upon us so quickly that the men barely had time to break up 
 camp and get the cattle to safety. There was not time enough 
 to harness the horses to my buggy, so the men tied ropes to 
 it, told me to jump in, and we again fled to a burn. Birds 
 and animals fled with us before the flames. 
 
 Many of the prairie fires were started by squatters on land 
 who wanted to keep strangers away. They would plough a 
 safety boundary around their stake and then set fire to the 
 grass outside. 
 
 Fuel was very scarce because of these fires and the cook 
 often had to go miles to get enough to cook a meal. 
 
 We crossed many nice cool streams whose banks were cov- 
 ered with wild plums. I noticed the ripe ones first when 
 crossing the Washita, and wanted to stop to gather some. 
 Mr. Burks wasn’t ready to stop, so told me that the Indians 
 were very troublesome at this place, and I needed no coax- 
 ing to start the horses on. 
 
 Later, when we came to the Canadian River, the red, blue, 
 and yellow plums were so tempting 1 had one of the Mexi- 
 cans stop with me to gather some. We wandered farther 
 away from the buggy than I realized, and when we had gone 
 back a short way I thought the horses had run away and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 275 
 
 left us. I was panic stricken but the Mexican insisted that 
 we go farther upstream, and we soon found the horses, 
 standing just as they were left. 1 forgot my scare when the 
 cook served me with delicious plum pie made from the fruit 
 I had gathered. 
 
 Being the only woman in camp the men rivaled each 
 other in attentiveness to me. They were always on the 
 lookout for something to please me, a surprise of some deli- 
 cacy of the wild fruit, or prairie chicken, or antelope tongue. 
 
 In the northern part of the Territory we left the trail 
 
 awhile to graze the cattle, and I drove on ahead of the 
 
 bunch to a stream. “Jap” Clark motioned to me to stop, 
 but 1 misunderstood him and thought he meant “go on,” 
 and plunged my horses in the swollen creek. One of the 
 horses stumbled and fell, but was on his feet in a moment, 
 and somehow I was jolted across to the other side. I was 
 the subject of much chaffing because of this alleged at- 
 tempt to break my neck. The crossing was so bad that 
 
 the banks had to be chopped down to make it safe for cross- 
 
 ing the cattle. 
 
 On the banks of the Arkansas River we saw two Yan- 
 kees who called themselves farmers. When we asked to 
 see their farms they showed us two plots about the size of 
 a small home garden. They said they had never farmed 
 before and we easily believed them. Vegetables were a 
 great treat to us so we bought some from the “farmers” 
 and enjoyed them immensely. 
 
 The camp cook on this trip was a very surly negro. He 
 was a constant source of trouble, and everybody was glad 
 when he was “fired” and a white man took his place. 1 
 heard a commotion in the camp kitchen one day and when 
 1 looked out of the tent door and saw the cook with a 
 raised ax and a Mexican facing him with a cocked pistol. 
 Mr. Burks rode up in time to prevent a killing. 
 
 We were three months on the trail when we arrived at 
 Emmet Creek, twenty-two miles from Newton, Kansas. 
 
 We summered here, as did several other Texas ranch- 
 men. Market had broken, and everybody that could do so 
 held his cattle hoping for a rise. 
 
27 6 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 While going to town we would often stop at the differ- 
 ent camps for a few minutes’ chat. 
 
 On stormy and rainy nights a candle always burned in my 
 tent to guide the men. One very stormy night Mr. Burks 
 had to help the men hold the cattle, and he saw the light 
 in the tent flare, then all was black. He rushed through the 
 rain to the place where the tent was, and found it flat on 
 the ground, me buried under it, unhurt. The rain had soft- 
 ened the ground and the wind easily blew the tent down. 
 That night all the matches got wet and it was late next 
 morning before we got others with which to start a fire. 
 
 When cold weather came the market was still low and 
 Mr. Burks decided to winter his cattle, with others he had 
 bought, on Smoky River. 
 
 Mr. Burks wanted me to stay in town at Ellsmore, but 
 after being there a few days, and witnessing another fire in 
 which a hotel and several residences were burned, I pre- 
 ferred camp. 
 
 A man who lived some distance from camp was paid to 
 feed the horses through the winter, but soon after we heard 
 that he was starving them. A boy was sent to get them, 
 and as he was returning, the first severe snowstorm of the 
 season overtook him at nightfall, and he had to take refuge 
 for himself and horses in a wayside stable. Next morning 
 he was awakened by a commotion among the horses, and 
 found the owner of the stable trying to punch out the horses’ 
 eyes with a pitch-fork. Such was the hatred felt for strang- 
 ers in this region. 
 
 Nine horses were lost in this snowstorm. Many of the 
 young cattle lost their horns from the cold. Blocks of ice 
 had to be chopped out of the streams in order that the cat- 
 tle could drink. 
 
 The first taste of early winter in Kansas decided Mr. 
 Burks to sell his cattle and leave for Sunny Texas as soon 
 as possible, and he met with no discouragement of his plans 
 from me, for never had 1 endured such cold. 
 
 So in December we left Kansas, dressed as if we were 
 Esquimaux, and carrying a bucket of frozen buffalo tongues, 
 as a souvenir for my friends in Texas. Our homeward jour- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 277 
 
 ney was made by rail to New Orleans, via St. Louis, and by 
 water from New Orleans to Corpus Christi, via Galveston and 
 Indianola. 
 
 1 arrived home in much better health than when I left it 
 nine months before. 
 
 Please don’t think, now that I’ve finished telling the few 
 stories of my trip over the Old Kansas Trail, that the jour- 
 ney was one of trials and hardships. These incidents served 
 to break the monotony of sameness of such a trip. 
 
 One day Mr Von said as we were resting along the way, 
 “In the heat of the day when 1 am riding behind my cattle 
 I think of you and am sorry for you” and added, as 1 hope 
 you will, “but when 1 see your smile of happiness and con- 
 tentment I know all my sympathy is wasted.” 
 
 What Mr. Von said is true. For what woman, youthful 
 and full of spirit and the love of living, needs sympathy be- 
 cause of availing herself of the opportunity of being with 
 her husband while at his chosen work in the great out-of- 
 door world? 
 
 THE EXPERIENCE OF AN OLD TRAIL DRIVER. 
 
 By Richard (Dick) Withers, of Boyes, Montana. 
 
 1 was raised on my father’s ranch eight miles north of 
 Lockhart, Caldwell county, Texas, and made my first trip 
 up the trail in 1869. Colonel J. J. Myers, who had a ranch 
 near my father’s, had a large stock of cattle, and after the 
 war he commenced to drive them north, and that year 1 
 gathered a hundred and ten steers and put them in one of 
 the herds, Billie Campbell being boss. I traded a beef steer 
 for a pair of goatskin leggings, bought a slicker and a pair of 
 blankets and started up the trail. 1 was then eighteen years 
 old. We crossed the Colorado River below Austin, went by 
 Georgetown, Belton and Waco, where we had to swim the 
 Brazos, crossed Red River and struck the Chisholm trail. 
 Right there is where 1 ran my first antelope, and thought it 
 was crippled. I was riding a bay horse I called “Buck,” so 
 I took down my rope, and Buck and I lit out after the ante- 
 
278 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 lope, but we did not go far until we quit the chase and went 
 back to the herd. 
 
 We had a stampede in the Territory while Noah Ellis and 
 myself were on herd together. In the run that followed my 
 horse fell with me, and 1 thought the steers would run over 
 me. But I soon learned that steers will not run over a man 
 when he is down under foot. They will run all around a fel- 
 low, but I have yet to hear of a man being run over by 
 them. Ellis and I held those cattle all night. After we got 
 rounded up the next day we moved on to the Arkansas 
 River, where we found three herds belonging to Billie Camp- 
 bell, Dan Phillips and John Bunton, who were traveling to- 
 gether. The river was up and no ferry to help us across, 
 so we had to swim the stream. We made a raft to carry 
 our wagons and supplies over, which took some time. This 
 was at a point fifty or a hundred miles below Wichita, then 
 consisting of a supply store, postoffice, and saloon, all in 
 dug-outs. 
 
 We went from there to Abilene, Kansas, our destination, 
 where we sold our cattle and started for home. 
 
 M. A. Withers and J. W. Montgomery had a large number 
 of cattle at home and I had a good bunch, so in 1870 we 
 gathered a herd together. George Hill was also with us, and 
 Bill Montgomery, George Hill and myself started with them 
 to Abilene, Kansas. In those days 1000 head was considered 
 a large herd, but we had 3500 head in that herd, and it was 
 called “the big herd” all the way. We crossed the Colo- 
 rado below Austin, went by Georgetown and Belton and 
 crossed Red River below Red River Station. The river was 
 up and we had to swim it. A few days after we crossed this 
 stream we had a big stampede, in which we lost some cattle 
 and had to lay over a day while George Hill and myself went 
 to look for the missing cattle. Returning to camp that night 
 my horse gave out and 1 was compelled to roost in a thicket 
 the remainder of the night while George went on to camp, 
 a distance of about five miles. 
 
 We had two wagons and two cooks with us, Uncle Gov. 
 Montgomery and Jerry Head. A few days after the stam- 
 pede mentioned above, the wagons went ahead of the herds 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 279 
 
 to get dinner, and when they made camp a bunch of Indians 
 came up, and when I arrived at Camp I found Uncle Gov. 
 and Jerry was about to give them all the tobacco and cof- 
 fee we had. I gave them only a portion of our coffee and 
 tobacco and they left. All went well until we got to the 
 North Canadian, which was also on a rise and we had to 
 swim our cattle across. There being three herds of us to- 
 gether, we all made a raft to carry our wagons over. Our 
 herd was in the lead and when the cattle reached the oppo- 
 site bank and started out the embankment gave way and 116 
 head of the cattle were drowned before we could turn them 
 back. We found another going out place and all three herds 
 made it across all right. When we commenced the getting 
 wagons over with the three outfits there was a general mix- 
 up. Somebody in the other outfit had a big lot of Con- 
 federate money, and Doom, a silly negro that was with us, 
 found this money, $10,000 in large bills, and he hid it, and 
 if we had not been on the north side of the river he would 
 have left us and tried to make away with it. He showed the 
 money to me and 1 told him it was worthless. I do not 
 know what he did with it, but we would have lost Doom if 
 the river had not been up. 
 
 We moved on and crossed the Arkansas River at Wichita, 
 then on to Abilene our destination. There Montgomery sold 
 his cattle, to be delivered in Idaho, beyond the Snake River. 
 George Hill, W. F. Montgomery, Bill Henderson and George 
 Mohle left for Texas, while Bill Montgomery and myself start- 
 ed with the herd to Idaho. We went from Abilene to the 
 Big Blue River, from there to the South Platte, below South 
 Platte City, going up that stream to Julesburg and crossed the 
 river, from whence we went to Cheyenne. As we were work- 
 ing oxen we had to have them shod at Cheyenne, as the 
 gravel had worn their hoofs off to the quick. After leaving 
 Cheyenne we struck the North Platte River below Fort Fet- 
 terman. A few days before we got to Fetterman we made 
 a long drive to water, and when we reached the water, there 
 being no other herds there we turned our herd loose that 
 night. During the night a herd of five hundred big fat 
 steers came in, which were being driven to Fetterman, and 
 
280 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the drivers, not knowing we were there, turned their herd 
 loose also and mixed with our herd. The next morning we 
 told them that as we were going to Fetterman they could cut 
 them out when we reached that place. When we arrived at 
 Fetterman we rounded up our herd for them and they went 
 to cutting out, but as they were tenderfeet, they did not 
 succeed very well and now and then one would come back 
 on them. You old Texas cowboys know what it means for 
 a wild Texas steer to come back on you. When they 
 were through cutting there were sixteen of those big fat 
 steers in our herd which they could not cut out, and we told 
 them our horses were “all in,” and we could not cut them, 
 so I made a trade with them, giving sixteen head of lean 
 cattle for their fat ones, and they sure came in mighty 
 handy, as will be shown later on. 
 
 We went up the North Platte and struck across to Sweet- 
 water, following the old California immigrant trail, going by 
 the Enchanted Rock and Devil’s Gate. There the cook broke 
 one of the ox yokes and we could not get one, so we had 
 to camp and cut down a small cottonwood tree to make a 
 yoke with a dull axe and the king bolt of the wagon to burn 
 the holes with. Bill assigned that job to me. It took me all 
 evening and all night to burn the six holes in the yoke. We 
 pulled out the next day, and all went well until we reached 
 the Rocky Mountains. It was forty miles across these moun- 
 tains and two hundred miles around, so we decided to go 
 across them. This was in October and the weather had been 
 good, but we were getting short of grub. The first night 
 in the mountains it came a snow storm and twenty-five of our 
 horses died and our cattle scattered considerably. All we 
 could do was to push them in the old trail from each side 
 and let them drift along. At this time our sixteen fat steers 
 came in mighty handy, for when our supply of provisions 
 gave out we began killing them. The meat would freeze in 
 just a little while, so we lived on nothing but beef for over a 
 month. We had no flour, salt or coffee ,and nowhere to 
 purchase these things. Only a few trappers and miners were 
 in the country and they did not have enough to supply us. 
 Our horses all gave out and we had to walk and drive onr 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 281 
 
 diminishing' herd. We had plenty of money, but could not 
 buy any horses because there were none to buy, however, 
 one day a miner came along with eight big U. S. mules, and 
 Bill purchased them. We thought those big mules would 
 relieve our troubles, but when I saddled one of them and 
 went after the cattle he did not last an hour, for he could 
 not climb the mountains. We managed to secure a few 
 more horses from miners, and after pushing on for another 
 ten days we reached Salt Valley, where we layed over for 
 several days while three of the men went back into the 
 mountains to gather up the cattle we had left, numbering 
 about three hundred head. Bill Montgomery pulled on with 
 the herd, and I took a man and a pack mule and also went 
 back into the mountains to try to gather more of the miss- 
 ing cattle. I found about fifty head of them and hired a trap- 
 per to take them to Ogden, while I and my man returned to 
 overtake the main herd which was about ten days ahead of 
 us. We camped one night near a big lake on the trail, and 
 next morning we found the tracks of a big grizzly bear in 
 the snow within ten yards of where we slept. We had our 
 heads covered up and I suppose he could not smell us as he 
 passed our camp. 
 
 We did not overtake the herd until they reached Snake 
 River. There Noah Ellis, who had taken one herd on to the 
 man we had sold to, returned to us. From there on we had 
 no trouble, but soon reached our destination, and delivered 
 the cattle to Mr. Shelly. Bill Montgomery then bought one 
 hundred and fifty mules from Shelly, paying $ 7 5 to $100 
 each for them and started them to Branyon to ship them to 
 Missouri where he expected to sell them for good prices. I 
 took stage for Ogden to get the cattle I had sent there by 
 the trapper, and when I arrived there I sold the cattle and 
 went on to Branyon to meet Bill. I had to wait several days 
 for him to arrive, and when he got there, Noah Ellis and I 
 pulled out for Texas, arriving at Lockhart on Christmas Eve. 
 
 In the spring of 1871 my brother, M. A. Withers, and 1 
 gathered a herd and started it to Kansas, but when we 
 reached Belton we sold the herd and I returned home. 
 
282 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 In 1873 M. A. Withers, Bill Montgomery and myself 
 drove two herds to market. I was boss of one herd, and a 
 man named Page bossed the other. That was the wettest 
 year I ever saw on the trail. It rained all the time, 
 and we had to swim every stream from Red River on, 
 At Fort Worth the cook broke a wagon wheel and after we 
 got it fixed and went on some distance further he broke an- 
 other wheel. Red River was on a big rise, and the stream 
 was lined with herds, for no herd had been able to cross for 
 a week or more. I asked some of the bosses of the herds 
 there if they were going to tackle the river, and they said 
 they were not, so I told them to give me room and I would 
 tackle it, for I would rather undertake the crossing than to 
 take chances on a mix-up of the herds. They all gave room 
 and helped me to start my cattle into the water. 1 strung 
 my herd out, had them take the water several hundred yards 
 above where I wanted them to come out. I never saw cattle 
 swim nicer than those steers; they kept their heads and tails 
 out of the water. I ferried my horses across. We proceeded 
 on our way and when we reached the Washita and Canadian 
 Rivers they were high also but as they were small streams 
 we had no difficulty in crossing them. Before we reached 
 the Arkansas River, I killed a buffalo cow and roped her 
 calf. Intending to take the calf with me, I necked it to a 
 yearling, but it was so wild and stubborn it fought until it 
 died. 
 
 After crossing the Arkansas at Great Bend 1 pulled on to 
 Ellsworth, where I found brother Mark with the tront herd, 
 and we delivered our cattle, sent our horses back to Texas 
 and returned home by rail. 
 
 In 1874 I sold all of my cattle to Driscoll & Day of Aus- 
 tin, Texas. 
 
 My next drive was in 1879, when 1 bossed a herd for 
 Jim Ellison, which was delivered to Millett Brothers at their 
 ranch on the Brazos River, north of Fort Griffin. The herd 
 was the first to cross the Colorado at Webbersville. For 
 about ten miles after crossing the river the country was 
 brushy, but other herds followed us and soon made a good 
 trail through there. We went by way of Georgetown, up 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 283 
 
 THOMAS M. HODGES 
 
 CAPT. RICHARD KING 
 
 MOSE W. HAYS 
 
 R. F. JENNINGS 
 
284 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the Gabriel, and on toward Brownwood. Near Brownwood 
 we turned north, struck the western trail near Albany, and 
 on to Fort Griffin to the Millett ranch and delivered the herd. 
 When we started back with the horses I received a tele- 
 gram from Mr. Ellison instructing me to take stage for 
 Fort Worth and hasten home as he had another herd for 
 me to take to Ogallala, Nebraska. When I arrived at the 
 ranch Mr. Ellison had two herds which he had purchased 
 from Bob Stafford at Columbus. Bill Jackman was to take 
 one of those herds to the Millett ranch on the Brazos, so 
 we traveled together, and when we reached Millett’s ranch 
 he would not take the cattle, so we threw the two herds 
 together and drove them to Ogallala. We had 5500 head 
 in this herd, and it was the largest herd ever seen on the 
 trail. It was getting late in the season and water was 
 scarce. We had nine men, besides myself, the cook and 
 the horse rustler. All went well until we reached Red 
 River ai Doan’s Store. There one of my men was taken sick, 
 and two of the hands quit, leaving me with only six men 
 to handle the herd. But we made it all right -until we 
 reached the Washita River, which was the last water until 
 we got to the Canadian River, a distance of about thirty 
 miles. I made a long drive after leaving the Washita, 
 made a dry camp, expecting to reach the Canadian the next 
 day. But we made slow progress as the weather was hot 
 and we were short three men. About three o’clock the next 
 day after leaving the Washita we were within five miles 
 of the Canadian and the big herd was strung out about 
 four miles. They were as dry as fishes. You old timers 
 
 know what that means. We were going up a long divide, 
 
 the wind was from the west, and about a half mile west us 
 were some alkali springs. The herd smelled the water from 
 these springs, and back about the middle of the herd they 
 began to break away and go for that water. Right then 
 I thought Mr. Ellison’s open Y’s would be scattered clear 
 to the Red River. The old timers know that you had just 
 
 as well try to handle a bunch of mixed turkeys as to try 
 
 to keep a thirsty herd away from water. We found good 
 grass at these springs and stopped there for the night and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 285 
 
 the Indians ran off thirty head of them for us. Next morn- 
 ing' I took the trail and went back about five miles to look 
 for the cattle, and when I came up with them I found that the 
 red rascals had killed one old stag. I took the others back 
 to the herd. We reached the Canadian about noon. When 
 1 arrived at Dodge City, Kansas, I hired three men to help 
 us take the herd on to Ogallala, about eighteen days’ drive. 
 Mr. Ellison met me at Ogallala and sold the cattle, to be 
 delivered at Sidney Bridge on the North Platte. 
 
 After replenishing our grub supply, we pulled on and 
 struck the North Platte which we followed up to the Nar- 
 rows. The “Narrows” is a name given to a ledge of hills 
 which run from the divide to the North Platte River. A 
 herd cannot be driven over these hills, but is forced to 
 travel up the bed of the river for about a mile. The North 
 Platte is a treacherous stream, and full of quicksand. We 
 had to send our chuck wagon around over the hills, and it 
 required all day for the wagon to make the trip. Just 
 above the Narrows in the valley we found about one hun- 
 dred graves, which I was told mark the resting place of 
 men killed in a fight with Indians. From here we traveled 
 up a beautiful valley all the way to Sidney Bridge, where 
 we delivered the cattle, returned to Ogallala, paid off the 
 men, and all hit the train for Texas. 
 
 During the fall and winter of 1880 I bought cattle in 
 Bastrop ar.d Lee counties for Mr. Ellison. In the spring of 
 that year I drove another herd of the Y cattle for him, 
 making the start in April. This was a very dry year on 
 the trail. While crossing the Washita we broke a wagon 
 wheel, and had to use a pole drag for one hundred and fifty 
 miles to Wolf Creek. As there was no grass in Kansas and 
 it began raining 1 layed over on Wolf Creek and sent the 
 wheel fifty miles down the creek to have it fixed. We rest- 
 ed here two weeks. After leaving the Canadian, I went 
 ahead of the herd about five miles looking for grass and 
 water, and was overtaken by about five hundred Indians. 
 I felt a bit scared as they came up, but they wanted tobacco 
 and I willingly gave them all I had and moved back to my 
 herd. As we proceeded on our journey Mr. Ellison came to 
 
286 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 meet us in a buggy. He remained all night with us, and we 
 slept on a pallet together. Mr. Ellison undressed, but I did 
 not, as I always slept with my entire outfit on, pants, boots 
 and spurs, so as to be prepared for any emergency. During 
 the night the cattle made a run, and when I started to get 
 up one of my spurs caught in Mr. Ellison’s drawers and he 
 was rather painfully spurred. The next morning we cut 
 out the weakest cattle in our herd and Mr. Ellison sent them 
 back to his Panhandle ranch. 
 
 I have been around cattle during many bad nights, but the 
 night Otis Ivey was killed by lightning was the worst one 1 
 ever experienced. Ivey and his horse and about twenty head 
 of cattle were killed during the storm. Mr. Lytle sent out 
 from Dodge after his body and had it sent to his mother 
 in West Fork, Caldwell county, Texas. We often used lan- 
 terns around the herds at night, but on that night a lantern 
 was not needed for the lightning flashed so continuously and 
 so bright we could see everything plainly and smell burning 
 brimstone all the time. When we reached Dodge we had 
 our last grass, for there was not enough on the range to feed 
 a goose. From Fort Dodge to Stinking Water was usually fif- 
 teen days’ drive, but I made it that year in twelve days. I 
 would leave the bed ground in the morning, drive until 
 noon, round up in the trail for two or three hours, drive on 
 until night and round up again. For twelve days the cattle 
 had no grazing, but had plenty of water. Cattle if given 
 plenty of water can go a long while with but little to eat. 
 But unless you give them water at least every twenty-four 
 hours you will have trouble. After reaching Stinking Water 
 we had plenty of grass and water and we grazed them on 
 to Ogallala. 
 
 I had to wait at Ogallala for Sam Moore, for Mr. Ellison 
 had told us to take some steers to a man near the Red 
 Cloud Agency. Bill Jackman came up and Mr. Ellison told 
 us the contract called for 1000 cows, 1000 yearling steers 
 and not less than 700 two-year-old steers. He found us cut- 
 ting some long yearlings for twos, and said, “Dick, a Texan 
 is going to receive those cattle and he knows ones from 
 twos.” Any way we cut and got our supply, then pulled out 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 287 
 
 over to the North Platte, up to Sidney Bridge, then followed 
 the Deadwood road. When near the Red Cloud Agency I 
 saw my first Indian buried on a scaffold. I was ahead of the 
 herd at the time, and saw something I took for a well, and 
 being pretty dry I decided to go to it and get a drink. But 
 instead of being a well it was a dead Indian on a scaffold. 
 It was the custom of the Indians to bury in that fashion, and 
 everything the dead Indian had owned in life was left there. 
 After that we saw a great many Indian graves like that. 
 
 Reaching the ranch where we were to deliver these cattle 
 I found the Texan that Mr. Ellison said knew one-year-old 
 steers from twos, and we went to work classing the cattle. 
 We never disagreed on a single steer, and when we were 
 through I found that out of 1000 yearlings and 700 twos, I 
 had delivered 800 ones and 900 twos. When we got back 
 to Ogallala I gave Mr. Ellison the receipt and after looking at 
 it he said, “Dick, bring all the boys to the hotel for dinner,” 
 and he paid my fare home. 
 
 Early in January, 1 8 8 1 , I commenced buying cattle for Mr. 
 Ellison. That year when starting up the trail I went through 
 the mountains by way of Llano and Brady City. I had 
 bought 5 00 head on the Colorado near Buffalo Gap and 
 had to take that route to receive them. They had been gath- 
 ered when I reached there, so I road branded them and pulled 
 out for Fort Griffin, Doan’s Store on Red River, Dodge 
 City, and Ogallala. When we reached Ogallala Mr. Ellison 
 told me he had 6500 cattle he wanted me to take to Belle 
 Fourche, Wyoming, deliver them and bring the horses back 
 to Ogallala, sell them, pay the men off, and return home. So 
 ! got my supplies, pointed the herd over to the North Platte, 
 followed that stream up to Sidney Bridge, where we took 
 the Deadwood road to Running Water, then turned west to 
 Crazy Woman, thence to the Cheyenne, up that river to 
 Lodge Pole, leaving the Black Hills and Devil’s Tower to 
 our right. Then there was nothing there but a ranch, but 
 now there is a railroad and the town of North Craft. 
 
 I am living at Boyes, Montana, now about one hundred 
 miles from where I delivered those cattle on the Belle Fourche 
 River below the old ranch. I went from Lodge Pole down 
 
288 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the canyon to the Belle Fourche River, and within a week 
 had the cattle branded and delivered. That was in Sep- 
 tember, and as some of the boys wanted to wash up before 
 starting' back to Ogallala, several of our outfit went buffalo 
 hunting and we killed all the buffalo we wanted. Those were 
 the last buffalo I have seen. 
 
 In 1882 Mr. Ellison sent me to East Texas and Louisiana, 
 to buy cattle as they were getting scarce in our country. I 
 bought two trainloads and shipped them from Longview, 
 Texas, to Kyle. In March we began rounding up for the 
 spring drive. Mr. Ellison said he wanted me to drive a herd 
 of beef cattle, and told me to pick out my remuda. Out of 
 five hundred horses I selected ninety head of the best that 
 ever wore the Y brand. I started on this trip with 3520 
 fours and over, and delivered 35o5. Mr. Ellison asked me 
 just before we started, when I would get to Dodge City. I 
 figured awhile, and then told him June 10th. He said he 
 didn’t think I could make it by that date, “But,” he added, “if 
 you do, you can make it to Deadwood, South Dakota.” He 
 informed me that it was an Indian contract and had to be 
 made on time. “You make it on time, and I will pay your 
 way home, and give you a good suit of clothes,” said Mr. 
 Ellison. I got my clothes and my fare was paid back home. 
 
 That was the most enjoyable trip 1 ever made. I could 
 drive as far in a day as I wanted to. Those steers walked 
 like horses, and we made good time all the way. Mr. Elli- 
 son went broke that year. 
 
 TWICE ACROSS THE PLAINS IN FOURTEEN MONTHS 
 
 By Joe S. Clark, Orange Grove, Texas. 
 
 Early in the spring of 1870 thirteen of the noblest men 
 that ever crossed the plains rounded up fifteen hundred cat- 
 tle at Flag Springs, near where the present town of Taylor 
 is located, and headed them for California. Everything 
 went along well until we reached Mustang Pens near the 
 head of the Concho River, where two of our boys had a 
 shooting scrape, and Ewing was killed. We continued our 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 289 
 
 journey and when near Grand Falls on the Pecos River the 
 Indians furnished us some excitement. They tried to stam- 
 pede our horses every few nights, but we had a strong guard 
 and they failed to get our stock. We passed on up into 
 New Mexico, going by way of Las Cruces, and went into 
 
 camp for the winter on the Mimbres River. While we were 
 
 there we had a good time and lots of sport going to the 
 fandangoes and bull fights and matching pony races. 
 
 In the spring of 1871 five of us, with our Spanish mules 
 hitched to a covered wagon and two men on horseback 
 started on the back trail for home. On our trip we saw 
 many bands of Indians and every day we could see their 
 
 signal smokes and their signal fires at night. They did not 
 
 attempt to attack us in the daytime, so we would camp 
 early in the evening and allow the mules to rest, then as 
 soon as darkness enveloped us we would hitch up and 
 drive ten or fifteen miles and camp without making a 
 fire. 
 
 One morning we drove up within five hundred yards of 
 a big band of Indians. We got our guns and made 
 ready for a fight; seeing which the savages went away 
 leaving us unmolested. When we reached the Concho and 
 Colorado Rivers I saw my first buffalo. There seemed to 
 thousands of these animals in that region at that season. 
 
 We reached Austin when the first railroad was being built 
 to that point, and I went to working on the railroad. After 
 a few years of that kind of work I turned my attention to 
 farming and ranching, and thus found more good sleep and 
 more to eat, so I stuck to the farm. I have four boys who 
 went with the Stars and Stripes across the sea, and were 
 in some of the hottest engagements of the 36th and 90th 
 Divisions, but they all got back home O. K. 
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN T. LYTLE. 
 
 Captain John T. Lytle was born at McSherry’s Town, 
 Pennsylvania, October 8, 1844, and came to Texas with his 
 father’s family in i860. The family located in San Anto- 
 nio, and the subject of this sketch, then only sixteen years 
 
290 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 old, went to work on the ranch of his uncle, William Lytle, 
 fifteen miles southwest of San Antonio. In 1863 he en- 
 listed in Company H, 32nd Texas Cavalry, Wood’s Regi- 
 ment, and served in DeBray’s Brigade in the Trans-Missis- 
 sippi Department until the close of the war. After the sur- 
 render Captain Lytle returned home and spent two years on 
 his uncle’s ranch, at the end of which time he decided to 
 go into business on his own account, engaging in the ranch 
 business in Frio county, until 1873. For more than fifteen 
 years he directed the movement of thousands of head of 
 cattle on the trail, handling more than 450,000 longhorns 
 and delivering them in Kansas, Colorado, Montana and 
 other states and territories. During this time he directed in- 
 vestments in livestock aggregating $9,000,000, a record 
 never before equalled. In 1875 he disposed of his ranch 
 holdings in Frio county, and leased pastures in Frio and 
 Maverick counties, where he raised stock for market despite 
 the fact that most of his time was taken up with his im- 
 mense trail operations. In this business Captain Lytle had 
 three partners, John W. Light, T. M. McDaniel and Cap- 
 tain Charles Schreiner. The S — L and L — M brands used 
 by these firms were known throughout the southwest. 
 
 In 1879 Captain Lytle moved to a ranch in Medina coun- 
 ty, twenty-five miles south of San Antonio, where he re- 
 sided until 1904, when he moved to Fort Worth, and there 
 resided until his death which occurred in 1907. 
 
 The thriving town of Lytle, in Atascosa county, was 
 named in honor of this remarkable character, who was uni- 
 versally loved and admired by his co-workers in the live- 
 stock industry and by all who knew him. 
 
 ONE OF THE BEST KNOWN TRAIL DRIVERS 
 
 Sketch of John R. Blocker, of Big Wells, Texas. 
 
 The history of the old time trail drivers would not be 
 complete without a sketch of the above named gentleman, 
 who is too modest to write of his experiences on the trail, 
 and it therefore falls to the lot of the editor to perform 
 this task. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 291 
 
 CAPT. JOHN T. LYTLE 
 
292 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 John R. Blocker was born in South Carolina, in the 
 Edgefield district of the Palmetto State, about sixty-seven 
 years ago, and came to Texas with his parents in 1852, lo- 
 cating at Austin, when that city was just a “wide place in 
 the road.” He grew to manhood there, being educated in 
 the schools of that place, and in 1871 he engaged in the 
 cattle business in Blanco county with his brother, W. R. 
 Blocker. At that early date Blanco county was but sparsely 
 settled, the ranches being many miles apart, for it was truly 
 on the frontier and a wild, uncivilized country. 
 
 When trail driving started with the opening of the North- 
 ern markets after the Civil War, the Blocker brothers were 
 among those to realize the opportunity afforded the cattle- 
 men, and, starting with 500 head of stock, they soon be- 
 came extensively engaged in the cattle industry. John R. 
 Blocker, being a hardy, self-reliant young man, and a good 
 horseman, was especially fitted for trail life. He was a 
 good judge of livestock, and realized the possibilities that 
 awaited the man who started out with a determination to 
 succeed in the stock business. His first drive up the trail 
 was to Ellsworth, Kansas, in 1873, and he sold his herd at 
 such a good figure that he sent herds every year from that 
 time on until the trail closed, driving herds to Kansas, Colo- 
 rado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana. One 
 year, 1886, he was interested in 82,000 head of cattle on 
 the trail at one time, and on his last drive in 1893 he 
 delivered 9,000 head of steers to a buyer at Deadwood, South 
 Dakota. 
 
 On one of his trips, 1885, when he had 25,000 steers 
 on the drive, he was held up at Fort Camp Supply by Cher- 
 okee and Kansas ranchmen, who refused to allow him to 
 proceed to his destination. After repeated appeals to the 
 War Department, he succeeded in getting a troop of cavalry 
 sent to pilot him through to the place where he was to 
 deliver the cattle. George West, another prominent cat- 
 tleman of Southwest Texas, was with Mr. Blocker in this 
 fight and won out with him in reaching the market. That 
 year the trail through Kansas was closed, and stockmen 
 were forced to go further west through Colorado to get to 
 
I HE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 293 
 
 JOHN R. BLOCKER 
 
294 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the Northern markets and ranges. Mr. Blocker was among 
 the last to quit the trail. 
 
 In 1881 Mr. Blocker was married to Miss Annie Lane, the 
 daughter of Dr. and Mrs. R. N. Lane, of Austin, Texas. To 
 them were born four children, William Bartlett Blocker, 
 Laura Blocker, Susie Blocker and R. Lane Blocker. 
 
 Shortly after the organization of the Texas Cattle Rais- 
 ers’ Association, Mr. Blocker became a member of that or- 
 ganization, and has given his assistance in every way pos- 
 sible to the improvement of the cattle industry in this state. 
 
 When George W. Saunders began to agitate the question 
 of organizing of the old time trail drivers into an associa- 
 tion, Mr. Blocker was among the first to lend encouragement 
 to the plan, and when organization of the Old Time Trail 
 Drivers was finally perfected he was unanimously chosen as 
 its first president. 
 
 T. A. COLEMAN 
 
 Thomas Atlee Coleman was born in Goliad county, Texas, 
 in 1861 . He spent his young manhood in trailing catttle 
 to Montana and the Northwestern ranges. Owing to quar- 
 antine restrictions preventing the driving of cattle from 
 South Texas to those ranges, Mr. Coleman secured ranch 
 holdings on the line near the present location of Childress, 
 where he wintered his cattle and then moved them north 
 the following year. It is estimated that fully ten thousand 
 cattle were trailed north annually on these drives. 
 
 At the present time Mr. Coleman is one of the most 
 prominent stockmen in the state, controlling ranches in 
 Dimmit and LaSalle counties, and other parts of the coun- 
 try. Some years ago he purchased the famous Milmo Ranch 
 in the Republic of Mexico, containing more than a million 
 acres, for which he paid $3,500,000. He is also prominent 
 in the business and commercial circles of San Antonio, be- 
 ing identified with a number of enterprises in this city. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 295 
 
 GEORGE W. EVANS 
 
 George Wesley Evans, now a prominent ranchman of Jeff 
 Davis county, was horn at LaGrange, Texas, October 12, 
 1849, and has spent his life on the frontier of this state. He 
 resided in Fayette county until the early eighties, and when 
 that section began to settle up he moved to the Davis Moun- 
 tains in Western Texas, where he has resided ever since, 
 following the stock business successfully, and becoming one 
 of the prominent cattlemen of that region. As long as the 
 range was open he raised the old Texas long horns for 
 market, but with the coming of wire fences he began to 
 import Durham and Hereford bulls, and his herds of white- 
 faces are now among the best in the Southwest. 
 
 In 1878, Mr. Evans was married to Miss Kate Isabel 
 Means, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Means of Lampasas 
 county. Their children are William F., Joe M., Lee S., G. 
 W. Jr., Rube M., Ell B., Paul M., Katie Grace, and Amos 
 Graves Means. 
 
 Mr. Evans resides at Valentine, Texas. 
 
 J. D. JACKSON 
 
 Joseph Daniel Jackson is another member of the Old 
 Trail Drivers’ Association who has become prominent in the 
 cattle industry of the state, making his start during the old 
 trail days. He was born in Bell county, Texas, in 1861. He 
 has been identified with some of the big projects of the state 
 and is usually found working for any movement that is for 
 the betterment of the cattle industry. 
 
 Mr. Jackson’s home is at Alpine, where he has extensive 
 ranch holdings. He formerly ranched in Tom Green and 
 Taylor counties. At one time he owned the Monahan ranch 
 of 60,000 acres in West Texas, but later disposed of it to 
 Albert Sidney Webb. A few years ago he controlled three 
 hundred sections of land in Brewster county and his cowboys 
 could graze his cattle a straight thirty-five miles without en- 
 croaching on the land of a neighbor. 
 
 In December, 1889, Mr. Jackson was married to Miss 
 Dorcas Ford, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Ford of Hoi- 
 
296 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 land, Bell county, Texas. They have two children, Miss Una 
 Jackson and Ford Jackson. 
 
 JOHN Z. MEANS. 
 
 Away out in Jeff Davis county, Texas, there resides an old 
 trail driver and cowman, who has achieved success in his 
 chosen field of operations. That man is John Z. Means, 
 known all over West Texas, as “the mildest mannered gen- 
 tleman that ever drove a cow.” 
 
 John Means was born at old Fort McKavett, in Menard 
 county, Texas, in 1854, when that town was occupied by 
 soldiers to check the raids of Indians. He grew to manhood 
 in that part of the state, and did his full share in the work 
 or ridding the West of the outlaw and the cattle rustler. 
 For many years he lived in Lampasas county, but with the 
 encroachment of the fence builder and the farmer he moved 
 further west, where he acquired extensive holdings in Jeff 
 Davis and other counties, and today is rated as one of the 
 wealthy men of that section. 
 
 In November, 1877, he was married to Miss Exie Gay 
 of San Saba, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Sam A. Gay, 
 and to them were born seven children, who have taken 
 prominent places in the social and business life of the state. 
 
 COWBOY LIFE IN WEST TEXAS 
 
 A few years ago John J. Lomax, the author of several 
 books bearing on the life of the cowboys and cattlemen of 
 Texas, made an address before a fokelore society meeting 
 at San Marcos. 
 
 While it is true that there are many changes in the cattle 
 country — as witness the introduction and general use of the 
 automobile where a few years ago the big camp meetings or 
 neighborhood gatherings saw the “ambulances” or “buggies” 
 or “buckboards” — sufficient of the picturesque old’ life re- 
 mains in Southwest and West Texas to give a vivid idea of 
 how it was in the days of the trail. He drew this picture of 
 the Texas cowboy, his speech and mode of living: 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 297 
 
 Prior to taking a herd of cattle up the trail from Texas 
 to Montana or the Dakotas, occurred the spring roundup, 
 which might include a range of country 100 miles in diame- 
 ter. Of course, in such a stretch of land there would be a 
 number of cattle owners. These would all join forces, and 
 after days of hard riding would bring together in a single herd 
 all the cattle running on this range. On this roundup ground 
 the cattle are “worked;” that is, the calves following their 
 mothers are branded and marked with the decorations em- 
 ployed by their owners, or they are cut into groups either 
 for purposes of sale or for further identification. Those cut 
 out are called the “cut;” the specially trained horses used 
 for this work, so intelligent that you can remove the bridle 
 after the animal to be cut out is indicated, and the horse will 
 separate the cow from the bunch with unerring instinct, are 
 called “cutting horses,” “carving horses” or “chopping- 
 horses.” When fences became more common the calves were 
 cut out through a cutting chute or “dodged out” so they 
 could be counted. Some cattlemen now employ a branding- 
 chute where an arrangement for holding the cattle while 
 they are being branded is called a “squeezer” or “snappin’ 
 turtle.” In branding cattle, a cowboy, after the rope has 
 dragged the animal near the fire, throws him by “tailing” or 
 “flanking.” “Flanking” consists in seizing the animal by the 
 skin of the flank opposite to the cowboy, with his arm thrown 
 over the animal’s back; when the animal jumps with all four 
 feet off the ground, the cowboy by a jerk throws it on its 
 side; or he “bulldogs” them by twisting the neck, or “tails” 
 him by giving a sudden jerk on the tail when some of the 
 animal’s feet are off the ground. I once saw a cowboy 
 “flank” a calf in such a fashion that he threw him completely 
 on his back with all four feet in the air. “See him sun his 
 moccasins,” said another cowboy who stood near. When 
 the flanker and assistants have the animals stretched on the 
 ground, they call out “hot iron” or “sharp knife,” the brander 
 responding, “Right here with the goods.” Ordinarily the 
 brand is put on by stamping with an iron stamp carrying one, 
 two or three letters, and the different brands and marks em- 
 ployed, like “Flying U” and the “Lazy S,” are so various 
 
298 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 as to require a separate paper to give them adequate descrip- 
 tion. A “running iron” is a branding iron made of a straight 
 piece of iron with a curve at one end. This end is heated red 
 hot and the branding artist is thus enabled to “run” any let- 
 ter he wishes to put on the side of the animal. Some of the 
 terms used in marking are “crop,” “under bit,” “over bit,” 
 “half crop,” “split,” “over slope,” “underslope,” etc. A 
 “jingle bob” is to split the ear to the head and let the pieces 
 flap. A jud handled “dewlap” is a cut in the fleshy part of 
 the throat, also used sometimes as a mark of distinction. 
 Roping a cow is sometimes referred to as “putting your string 
 on her.” If a cowboy ropes a cow without hitching the rope 
 to the saddle, “ he takes a dolly welter,” evidently a corrup- 
 tion of the Spanish. To “fair ground” is to rope an animal 
 by the head, throw the rope over the back while still run- 
 ning and then throw the animal violently to the ground, 
 where it will usually lay until “hog tied;” tying three feet to- 
 gether, “side lined,” tying two feet together on the same 
 side, or “hoppled,” both hind legs tied together. To tell the 
 age of an animal, the cowboy “tooths” him, meaning to 
 make an examination of the teeth, as is commonly done in 
 the case of horses, which gives fairly accurate indication of 
 their ages. 
 
 In a cattle outfit the owner is called the “big boss,” the 
 leader of any particular bunch of men is called the “boss,” 
 his first lieutenant is called the “straw boss” or right-hand 
 man, sometimes called the “top screw” or “top waddy.” The 
 chief of any group of line riders is a “line boss,” while the 
 boss of a herd on the trail is the “trail boss.” Ordinarily, 
 a cowboy is a “waddy” or “screw” or “buckaroo.” A green 
 cow hand is called a “lent,” and his greenness is expressed 
 by the word “lenty.” He is also sometimes called “Ar- 
 buckle,” on the assumption that the boss sent off Arbuckle 
 premium stamps to pay for the extraordinary services of the 
 greenhorn. The “stray man” is the cowboy’s name for one 
 who goes to the neighboring ranches after stray cattle. 
 The “fence rider,’” also called the “line rider,” is employed 
 to ride fences and repair them. Before the days of fences, 
 line riding was following an imaginary line between two 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 299 
 
 ranches and turning' the cattle back. The “line rider” has 
 charge of a “line camp.” In addition to the “chuck wagon,” 
 a second wagon for carrying the extra beds and bringing 
 wood and water into camps sometimes goes along. This 
 equipage is called the hoodlum wagon and the man who 
 drives it is “the hood.” The cabin where the bachelor cow- 
 boys sometimes sleep in very bad weather is called a 
 “hooden.” A “bog rider” is the cowboy who “tails” up the 
 poor cows which get stuck in the mud. The “chuck wa- 
 gon” is the cowboy’s home; the chuck box is his store; 
 the chuck box lid his table. After a meal, if a luck- 
 less cowboy happens to put his tin plate and cup on the 
 chuck box lid instead of the “round pan” (a tin tub 
 for dishes), this constitutes a “leggins case;” that is, he is 
 laid over a barrel and treated to a dose of leggins in the 
 hands of the most athletic cowboy. The chief man about 
 the camp is the cook, his pay usually equaling that of any 
 of the men, and his expertness in preparing food remark- 
 able when one considers his cook-stove, a hole in the ground, 
 and his cooking utensils skillets and pots. Naturally, the 
 cook has many names applied to him. He is called a 
 “sheffi,” “dough roller,” “dinero,” “coocy” and “biscuit 
 shooter.” His invariable cry when calling the men to a 
 meal is, “Come and git it!” 
 
 I think I may claim that these few samples of cowboy 
 lingo are characterized by simplicity, strength and directness, 
 and, it may be added, accuracy. I knew a saloon once in the 
 West known as “The Wolf;” another that was aptly named 
 with a big flaring sign on the outside, “The Road to Ruin.” 
 Out in Arizona there is a town called Tombstone, and the 
 leading paper of that town has named itself the Tombstone 
 Epitaph. Let me add a few of his miscellaneous expressions. 
 Of a tall man he does not like, the cowboy says “He’s just 
 as long as a snake and he drags the ground when he walks.” 
 Of a fool he says, “He has no more sense than a little nigger 
 with a big navel,” or “He don’t know dung from wild honey.” 
 Although a cow is one of the most stupid of animals, when 
 a cowboy says that a man has good “cow sense” he means 
 to pay him a high compliment. When he means a thing is 
 
300 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 easy, he says “It’s just as easy as gutting a slut;” of wash- 
 ing his face, “bathing out your countenance” or “washing the 
 profile;” of bathing, “washing out your canyon;” of vomiting, 
 “airing the paunch”; an “eye-baller” is a person who pokes 
 himself into other people’s business; going courting is “goin’ 
 gallin’,” “sitting the bag,” “sittin’ her”; “cutting a rusty” 
 means doing your best; moving fast is “faggin’, “leffin’ here” 
 or “sailing away,” “dragging his navel in the sand”; “goin’ 
 like the heel flies are after him.” A very small town is a 
 wide place in the road. A “two gun man” is a man who 
 uses a gun in each hand, often at the same time. A man 
 quick to retort is said to have a “good come back.” “Telling 
 a windy” means telling a boastful story; a “goosy” man is 
 a man physically nervous. When a man plays the deuce 
 spot in a card game, he is said to be “laying down his char- 
 acter.” To “fork a horse” is to ride him; when a man is 
 without information on a subject, he tells you: “I ain’t got 
 any medicine”; “anti-godlin” means going diagonally or in a 
 roundabout way. The “roustabout” is a man of all work 
 about a camp. “Sweating a game” means doing nothing 
 but sitting around looking at a card game. “Tie your hats 
 to the saddle and let’s ride” means go on a long hurry-up 
 roundup. The boss’ house is referred to as the “White 
 House.” When a fellow makes a night of it, he is said to 
 have “stayed out with the dry cattle.” When a delicate sit- 
 uation arises there is said to be “hair in the butter.” The 
 water on the plains is sometimes so muddy that the cowboy 
 says “he has to chew it before he can swallow it.” When 
 he has gained a little more experience on a proposition, he 
 says he “has taken a little more hair off the dog.” When 
 there is room for doubt about his knowledge he is said to 
 know as much about it as “a hog does about a side saddle.” 
 A man who is good at roping is said to “sling the catgut 
 well.” Damp, freezing weather is characterized as cold as 
 “a well digger in Montana.” Riding on a freight train in 
 place of paying regular fare on a passenger train is said to 
 be “saving money for the bartender.” Ordinary stealing is 
 “yamping.” “Plumb locoed” is quite crazy. A very black 
 negro is characterized as a “headlight to a snowstorm.” 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 301 
 
 Living in isolated groups, visiting but little except among 
 these groups, rarely going to town, shy and timid as a result 
 of long days of solitude the cowboy develops his own form 
 of speech. Cowboy words, phrases and customs therefore 
 easily become community property — his language a dialect 
 of his own. In closing this paper I can not refrain from giv- 
 ing you one or two cowboy graces repeated indiscriminately 
 either before or during a meal, and I shall end finally with 
 some of his most characteristic dance calls. On some fu- 
 ture occasion, if 1 am invited, and if 1 am provided with 
 just the right kind of an audience, I engage myself to read a 
 paper on cowboy profanity. There is a certain wholesome 
 strength, cleanliness and variety in his profanity, and even 
 his vulgarity, that 1 do not believe is equalled by any other 
 race of men. The rhyme dance calls are supplementary to 
 his spoken directions to the dancers, and add almost as 
 much interest and loveliness of the dance as does the music. 
 Here are two cowboy graces: 
 
 “Eat the meat and leave the skin; 
 
 Turn up your plate and let’s begin.” 
 
 Yes, we’ll come to the table 
 As long as we’re able, 
 
 And eat every damn thing 
 That looks sorter stable. 
 
 The rhymed dance calls are chanted between the shorter 
 calls and are supplementary to them: 
 
 Swing your partners round and round; 
 
 Pocket full of rocks to hold me down; 
 
 Ducks in the river going to ford 
 Coffee in a little rag; sugar in the gourd. 
 
 Swing ’em early, swing ’em late; 
 
 Swing ’em round Mr. Meadow’s gate. i 
 
 'I 
 
 Ladies to the center, how do you do; 
 
 Right hands cross, and how are you! 
 
302 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Two little ladies, do si do, 
 
 Two little gents you orter know. 
 
 Swing six when you all get fixed, 
 
 Do si, ladies like picking up sticks. 
 
 Chicken in the bread tray kicking up dough; 
 “Granny, will your dog bite?” “No, by Joe.” 
 
 Swing corners all, 
 
 Now your pardner and promenade the hall. 
 
 You swing me, and I’ll swing you; 
 
 All go to heaven in the same old shoe. 
 
 Same old road, same old boy, 
 
 Dance six weeks in Arkansaw. 
 
 Walk the huckleberry shuffle and Chinese cling. 
 Elbow twist and double L swing, 
 
 DAYS GONE BY. 
 
 By Hiram G. Craig, of Brenham. 
 
 It was in the year of 1 8 5 0 that my father and mother, 
 John and Caroline Craig, decided to make their home in 
 that great state of the future — Texas. Suiting the words 
 
 with action they hitched up their two bay, bald-faced mares 
 to the wagon taking such belongings as were absolutely nec- 
 essary and started on the long and perilous journey from 
 Tennessee to Texas. Their destination was Washington 
 county, and they landed in the western part, in a neighbor- 
 hood called Sandtown — so named by my uncle. 
 
 My parents must have suffered many hardships in those 
 days of privations, raising as they did, a large family of seven 
 boys and two girls. My father was a teamster. He hauled 
 freight with an ox-team from Houston to Austin, hauled cot- 
 ton from Washington county to Brownsville, on the Rio 
 Grande, and hauled salt, loose in the wagon-bed on his way 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 303 
 
 back from the King' ranch, home. He made several trips 
 to Brownsville; also, one to Eagle Pass, Texas. 
 
 I remember one trip I made with him from our home to 
 Allerton, Colorado county. This was our nearest railroad 
 station, and at that time the terminus of the Southern Pa- 
 fic railway. We were hauling cotton. In those days wagons 
 had wooden axles with an iron skean, and lynch-pins to 
 hold the wheels on the axle. 
 
 On these trips father would take one horse along to round* 
 up the oxen. At night, or when camping he would have a 
 bell for each yoke of oxen, would neck them and put a hob- 
 ble on one of the oxen of each yoke. I made a number of 
 short trips with my father as I could be of some help in 
 rounding up the oxen and hold them while he put the yoke 
 on them. Often he would also be breaking in a yoke or two 
 of wild oxen. On this particular trip when we got as far 
 as Frelsburg where we broke an axle, and as there were 
 few people living in the country at that time we were in a 
 bad way. No houses, no tools to work with, not a black- 
 smith within twenty miles. Here my father accomplished 
 something, that nine men out of ten of these days and times 
 would fail in. The only tool at hand was an axe. With this 
 axe father cut down a hickory tree, cut it the proper length, 
 and with the axe hewed out an axle. He got on his horse 
 and rode to the next neighbor where he got an auger. At 
 that time such a thing as a “brace and bit” were unheard of. 
 With the auger he bored the holes for the hound and skean, 
 and put the wagon together. He unloaded and loaded the 
 cotton by himself, as I was too small to do any lifting. We 
 wound up our trip by delivering the cotton to the railway 
 company and returned home to Washington county. 
 
 1 used to plow many, many a day with a single ox and a 
 plow, made entirely of wood; with exception of the point, 
 which was of iron. Even, the mole-board (the part that 
 turns the dirt) was of timber. Father would cut a short 
 piece of some twisted oak tree, split it open — which would 
 almost have the shape, then hew it down to fit the point 
 of iron, and attach the handles with wooden pins — and the 
 plow would work fine. 
 
304 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 A word about my dear mother: During the Civil War 
 
 such things as clothing, shoes, flour, salt, sugar and coffee 
 were scarce and high — very often not to be had at any price. 
 Flour was selling at twenty dollars per barrel. Mother, my 
 oldest sister and my second oldest brother, carded the roll, 
 and mother spun the thread that made our clothes, during the 
 war. The work allotted to me was to hand the threads 
 through the sleigh — at which I became quite an expert. If 
 these threads, in any way, became crossed they would not 
 weave. Often mother would send me to the neighbor ladies 
 to help them with this line of work. I also peeled the black- 
 jack bark and gathered the wild indigo to dye the cloth, that 
 made our clothes. My second oldest brother was a cripple 
 and could not work in the field, so mother kept him in to 
 help her with the weaving. In my mind I can still see my 
 mother at the old spinning wheel. 
 
 The young people of today do not realize what “hard 
 times” are. Imagine, that most of the flour you were to 
 see would be a feast of biscuits on a Sunday morning for 
 breakfast, and, then some more the next Sunday morning. 
 Imagine, for your coffee a substitute of corn, roasted potato 
 peeling and corn-meal bran. These were some of our lux- 
 uries. Of meats we were more bountifully blessed. Cattle 
 were more plentiful and cheap; pork was more abundant. 
 Hogs were running loose in the woods, and the mast was so 
 good that hogs were generally fat in winter. 
 
 Father died at Bellville, Texas, at the age of fifty-four; and 
 mother died in Washington county, at the age of forty-four, 
 This left the family in the hands of my oldest brother, who 
 faithfully and conscientiously administered to our wants un- 
 til we were able to take care of ourselves. 
 
 1 was born at Sandtown in 1855, and lived here with my 
 parents to the end of the Civil War, when we moved to 
 Bellville, Austin County, Texas. Father was the proud pos- 
 sessor of a small bunch of cattle, and created a desire in me 
 to be a cowboy — to have a good horse, saddle, leggings, 
 spurs and to handle cattle. At fourteen years of age I ran 
 away from home, and went to work for Foster Dyer of 
 Richmond, known as one of the biggest ranch owners of that 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 305 
 
 S. B. BRITE 
 
 JOHN LITTLE 
 
 COLEY LYONS 
 
 JIM WILSON 
 
306 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 time. I was proud of my job which, nowever, wts of short 
 duration. My brother learned of my whereabouts and came 
 and took me home. I remained at home with my parents 
 for three years, when the call to the “wild” again over- 
 came me. 
 
 This time it was T. J. Carter, who was studying to be a 
 doctor, and I, that went on a wild goose chase in 1872. We 
 landed at Sweet Home and hired out to George West, to help 
 gather a herd of steers for the trail for Kansas. We gath- 
 ered between 1500 to 2000 head of steers. There were no 
 pens, or corrals, to hold such a large herd. We held and 
 herded these steers on the prairie by day and by night. The 
 boys would herd them in shifts, or reliefs; one shift of men 
 would herd them from four to six hours (according to the 
 number of shifts), when the next shift would relieve them, 
 so that the cattle would be continually guarded. This work 
 is hard and trying, and at our age seemed severe; however, 
 we stayed with the herd until they were actually started on 
 the trail, and then went home to Washington county. Carter 
 went back to his profession, and is today a practicing physi- 
 cian in Fayette county, having made good. 
 
 In the fall of 1873, J. D. McClellan and I went to Oak- 
 ville, Live Oak county, and worked for Andrew Nations and 
 his son, Bob Nations, helping them gather 1500 stocker cat- 
 tle, to be moved to the Wichitas. Our headquarters were at 
 Sulphur Creek, about ten miles north of Oakville. We gath- 
 ered up and down the Nueces River, as far down as Lagarto. 
 We were short of cow-hands — who were hard to get. Bob 
 Nations decided to make a trip to San Antonio and get the 
 necessary supplement of men. The best he could do was to 
 get a bunch of “brakemen,” as he called them. These men 
 were no good at riding or at handling cattle, being unac- 
 customed to the work. We were holding the herd on a prai- 
 rie near the Nueces River bottom. The cattle were wild and 
 some of them would make a break every now and then, and, 
 as sure as an animal would make a run the trained cowpony, 
 with his “brakeman,” would take after it — and we would 
 be minus a “brakeman.” 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 307 
 
 Tom Johnson was our trail boss; he was one of the best 
 men I ev.r knew, when it came to handling stock cattle on 
 the trail. He taught me every detail in “grazing” a herd. 
 Johnson was very fractious and hard to get along with, and 
 Bob Nations said he doubted very much in our going through 
 on the trip with Johnson. 
 
 The herd was started early in the spring with Johnson as 
 foreman, everything progressing nicely. We were obliged 
 to swim all the rivers on account of heavy spring rains, but 
 suffered no loss of cattle. We reached Lockhart, and then 
 Onion Creek, near Austin. Here at Onion Creek we had a 
 little stampede, for which I was blamed. It brought on words 
 between the foreman and I. Naturally, I was discharged and 
 McClellan quit. 
 
 Bob took McClellan and me on to Austin, and asked us to 
 accompany him and his family west, and assured us work as 
 long as we cared to stay. As he started out of Austin, we 
 told him we would overtake him on the way later. But, 
 alas! there was a drawing card back home, in Washington 
 county, that was stronger than even a promise. McClellan 
 had a girl there, and so did I, so we went home. 
 
 That summer J. W. Nunn bought out a meat market in 
 Brenham and McClellan went to work for him, while I did 
 the buying and supplying of live stock for the market. Mc- 
 Clellan lived only three months after that, leaving me with- 
 out a pal. I continued working for Nunn. 
 
 In June, 1876, we gathered about 1400 head of Nunn’s 
 cattle, and started for the Plains. We left Dime Box, Lee 
 county, June 10, 1876. We herded the cattle on the first 
 night at Lexington, Lee county, in a wide lane. The second 
 night we camped near Beaukis in the woods. There were 
 two of the Nunn boys, both much older than 1, but neither 
 they, or any of the other hands, had ever “bedded” a herd. 
 It was up to me to take charge of my first large herd. We 
 rounded the cattle into a circle in the woods, dragging logs 
 around the bed grounds and built fires. There were clouds 
 rising and about 1 1 o’clock that night it began thundering, 
 lightning and raining. The cattle got restless and stampeded, 
 running all night. The third day we crossed the Brushy 
 
308 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Creek, camping near the Olive pens on the Taylor prairie. 
 From here on we had plenty of open country and could 
 handle the herd more easily. We had many ups and downs, 
 being short of horses. Our horses got very poor and were 
 worn out from overwork; also the cattle got thin in flesh by 
 the time we got to Buffalo Gap in July and we were also out 
 of provisions, no beef, no coffee, no money. Nunn borrowed 
 a small sum from one Ben Anderson, one of our hands, and 
 started me off with one yoke of oxen for Coleman City, sixty 
 miles distant, to lay in a supply of “grub.” 
 
 I bought mostly breadstuff and coffee, returning to camp a 
 week later. This left us still shy of meat, our cattle being too 
 poor for slaughter. We were told that fifty or sixty miles west 
 there were lots of buffalo, so Nunn got us to rig up a wagon 
 and to go on to the Sweetwater Creek to kill some fat buf- 
 falo. We engaged a man by the name of Jim Green at Buf- 
 falo Gap, who was a buffalo hunter and he was to pilot us to 
 the Sweetwater country, and incidentally give us a few 
 pointers on buffalo hunting. Dr. John Obar, J. T. McClel- 
 lan (a brother of my former pal), Jim Green and 1 formed 
 the outfit. We went to Sweetwater, camping near Dan 
 Trent’s ranch, and hunted here for two days and only saw 
 two buffalo bulls in this time. The first bull 1 chased until 
 my horse gave out, shot away all my ammunition, and only 
 drew a little blood. 
 
 It will not be amiss to state what our artillery consisted of 
 at that time. We used the long and trusty cap and ball 
 rifle, familiarly known as “Long Tom.” Then the old cap 
 and ball sixshooter, sometimes called “outlaws.” At times 
 they would behave and fire one shot, and again they would 
 fire two, three, or possibly all six chambers at one time. But 
 to revert to our buffalo hunt: 
 
 On the second day we found another old, poor buffalo bull. 
 I handed my long rifle to one of the boys, and took his 
 sixshooter, and told them 1 was going to get meat, in which 
 I eventually succeeded. I was riding my own horse, one 
 that I had bought from one of my German friends in Wash- 
 ington county. I had named him “Dutch,” had taken good 
 care of this horse, using him only for night herding on the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 309 
 
 trail, and so he was in good trim. He was a keen runner. 
 I took after the buffalo bull, ran him about three miles, 
 emptying' my pistol as 1 chased him. He was a monster and 
 looked like an elephant to me. Some of the buffalo hunters 
 claimed that our “outlaw” pistols would not kill a big buf- 
 falo bull, but I demonstrated that they were wrong for I 
 put one ball in the right place, and stopped the bull. After 
 a bit the boys came up and finished the animal with their 
 “Long Tom” rifle. It took two horses by the horn of the 
 saddle to turn the carcass of the bull on his back so we 
 could skin him. This will give you an idea that he was 
 some bull. We built a fire and kiln-dried the meat. It was 
 not fat, nor what we wanted. 
 
 We broke camp and drifted ten miles further north, where 
 we came on to a herd, which we estimated at about 1000 
 head. This herd of buffalo was on the move, and going 
 pretty rapidly. When I first got sight of them they were 
 traveling west; they would go down hill on the run, while 
 up the incline of the next hill they would be grazing. 1 rode 
 around the foot of the hill to head them off and when I 
 reached the ridge of the hill they were coming towards me, 
 and about the same time I heard some shooting, which later 
 proved to be our pilot, Jim Green, who had already got into 
 the herd and put them on a full run. I had some trouble 
 holding down old “Dutch” my horse, when the herd of buf- 
 falo came towards us on the run. There was one big red 
 one, leading the herd. 1 killed him first. He proved to be 
 a big red steer, instead of a buffalo, and belonged to John 
 Chissum. I then killed one fat buffalo. As 1 came over the 
 hill I came on to our pilot, who had shot down five, of which 
 one got up on his feet and was making for Jim Green who, 
 by the way, was afoot. I tried to get Green to get on the 
 horse behind me. He declined, saying he “would get him 
 in the sticking place directly,” deliberately shooting at the 
 buffalo as he came on. He was holding his sixshooter with 
 both hands to steady his aim and downed him. This gave 
 us six buffalo and one fat steer, with which we struck out 
 for Buffalo Gap. 
 
310 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Another little stunt with a buffalo we pulled off while at 
 Buffalo Gap. Don Drewry and 1 were riding out among the 
 cattle, where we came on to a two-year-old buffalo bull. 
 Don boasted that he could, and would rope him. 1 pleaded 
 with him not to risk such a thing but he declared “old 
 Browny,” his horse could handle him, and had the loop on him 
 in no time. He threw the bull several times, but finally wore 
 out his horse and called to me to shoot the bull. I did so to 
 save his horse. Don admitted that he had taken in “too 
 much territory” that time, and said he would never rope 
 another buffalo larger than a calf. 
 
 Old man Drewry, Don’s father, and his son-in-law, Tobe 
 Odem, had come to Buffalo Gap from Oakville with cattle 
 and horses. Don was then quite a boy, about 17 or 18 
 years of age. 
 
 Along in September we gathered up the cattle and moved 
 on out to Sandrock Springs, where Nunn located his ranch 
 on Rough Creek, and is now living and accumulating cat- 
 tle. That winter I went back home and engaged in buying 
 and selling cattle, at which trade I worked for several years, 
 buying quite a lot of work steers to be shipped to Ha- 
 vana, Cuba. 
 
 On December 1 5, 1881, I was married to Johanna Await, 
 at Burton, Texas, and lived there about one year. I went 
 west again, locating at Snyder, Scurry county. My brother, 
 J. M. Craig, and 1 carried a nice bunch of about 300 head of 
 stock cattle with us but one hard winter put us out of the 
 cattle business and took us back to Washington county, where 
 I now reside. While working our cattle at Snyder, I took a 
 trip west to the head of the Colorado River and here wit- 
 nessed the largest “round up” that 1 ever saw or heard 
 speak of. It was the C. C. Slaughter “round up,” was es- 
 timated at fOCVOO© head of cattle in one herd, covering a 
 prairie one-half mile each way. 
 
 For the benefit of those readers who have never seen a 
 large “round up,” like those on the plains in the early days, 
 I shall endeavor to describe this “round up,” the wonder- 
 ful system and efficient way in which such an immense num- 
 ber of cattle were handled, cut and assorted, and how each 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 311 
 
 rancher got his cattle. You will understand that these cattle 
 in this round up were not owned by one individual, but be- 
 longed to ranches from a radius of many, many miles, com- 
 prising possibly a number of counties. With the exception of 
 perhaps a small corral for the horses at the ranch houses 
 in those early days, fences or pastures were unknown. The 
 country was an open range, and the cattle were grazing in 
 the open prairies, drifting to the four winds. Cattle were 
 known to drift as far as 150 miles north. Each stockman, 
 or ranch, had a line rider, who rode the line or limits of his 
 particular ranch in order to get his cattle “located,” or used 
 to their grazing grounds. However vigilant, this would not 
 hold all of his stock. The line rider had to sleep at night, 
 or sometimes, or, had so much territory to cover and to 
 guard, that cattle would drift away from their stamping 
 grounds at night, or when the rider may have been engaged 
 at other points of the line. This made it necessary to have 
 the “round up,” and to get the different brands of cattle to 
 their respective owners and ranches. The custom was to 
 have a round-up in the spring of the year, and one in the fall. 
 Word was sent to stockmen for many miles around when 
 the round up was to take place at a certain ranch. Then 
 
 eight or ten neighboring stockmen would rig up a “chuck 
 wagon” and place a cook in charge. One of the men would 
 furnish the wagon one time, and the next time some one else 
 — turn about. These stockmen going with the “chuck wa- 
 gon” would meet at the appointed time with their saddle 
 horses. Each man having his bedding lashed to a horse, 
 when they met the chuck wagon, would put all their bedding- 
 in the wagon. This “chuck wagon” was drawn by two, ,and 
 sometimes four horses. Next, they would turn all their saddle 
 horses in a bunch, detail one of their number as “horse 
 wrangler,” and start off for the round up. At the round up 
 there would be a number of these chuck wagons or outfits — 
 possibly six, eight or ten such wagons, according to the notices 
 sent out, or the size of the round up. In the Slaughter round 
 up there were ten “chuck wagons,” and each wagon would 
 receive a number from the round up boss, making ten num- 
 
312 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 bers — in this case representing- some ninety men, or stock 
 owners. 
 
 On the evening before the round up, Billy Stanefor, the 
 round up boss, went to all the wagons and called for two or 
 three men from each wagon to go out from ten to fifteen 
 miles and make what is called a "dry camp.” Each man was 
 to stake his horse so that when daylight came every man 
 was ready to follow out instructions to bring all the cattle 
 towards the grounds. The men, so sent out, all going in dif- 
 ferent directions, formed a veritable spider’s web, with the 
 round up grounds in the center. As soon as the boys would 
 "whoop-em-up,” the cattle were on the run, and would make 
 for the grounds. There was little danger or chance for any 
 cattle escaping, as when they would leave the path of one 
 man they would drift into the path of the next man, and 
 the nearer they came to the grounds, the more men would 
 come in sight — finally forming one big herd, and then the 
 fun would start. We found on bringing in these cattle in this 
 manner, that five buffalo and some twenty or more ante- 
 lope had drifted in with the cattle. Several of the boys,, 1 
 for one, were sure we were going to rope an antelope. We 
 got our loops ready, and started after them. Our horses were 
 too short, and also a little too slow. We did not rope any 
 antelope. Some of the other boys fired into the buffalo but 
 did not bring in any meat either. The herd was now ready 
 for cutting. The round up being on Slaughter’s ranch, the 
 foreman, Gus O. Keith, and his men, including old man 
 Slaughter, cut their beef cattle, cows and calves first, and 
 drove them back on the range to avoid "chousing” them. As 
 soon as Slaughter was through with his part, the herd was 
 ready for general work. 
 
 Now Billy Stanefor calls out "No. 1, cut, and No. 2 
 Hold;” meaning that the men from wagon No. 1, were to go 
 into the herd and cut all of their cattle, while the men of 
 wagon No. 2 would hold the herd. When No. 1 finished 
 the round up boss would call "No. 2, cut and No. 3 Hold;” 
 — when No. 2 would go into the herd and cut, while the men 
 from wagon No. 3 were holding the herd, and so on in this 
 manner until the cutting was finished. Then, to the brand- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 313 
 
 ing of the cattle. This was also all done on the open prai- 
 rie. We made our fires to heat the branding irons, would 
 rope the calves or cattle as the case may be on horse back, 
 drag them to the fire and put the brand on them. It was also 
 the duty of the round up boss to see that no large calf was 
 cut out of the round-up herd unless it was accompanied by 
 its mother. The round-up boss had to act somewhat in the 
 capacity of a judge. He had to see that all disputes were 
 satisfactorily settled. If trouble arose regarding ownership of 
 an animal the round-up boss would find out what brand each 
 one of the disputing parties were claiming the animal under, 
 and if they could come to no agreement, the animal was 
 roped, the brand moistened with water to make it plainer, or 
 he would shear the hair off where the brand was located, and 
 in that way determine the ownership. All this was done im- 
 mediately, and then the work would proceed. In those early 
 days the ear-mark would not always be proof of ownership 
 and an animal without brand was called a “sleeper.” A 
 sleeper was nominally everybody’s property, and was so 
 called because some one had overlooked branding this animal 
 in a previous round-up — had slept on his rights. Naturally, all 
 hands had a leaning towards these sleepers; and I have seen 
 a sleeper cut out of the round-up by one man and during 
 the day changed several times to other bunches. The man 
 that was lucky to get away with a sleeper would put his 
 brand on him. However, if such an animal had an ear-mark 
 and any of the parties claimed the mark he would then hold 
 the best title. 
 
 The round-up boss would let no one ride through the herd 
 and “chouse,” or unnecessarily disturb them; these fellows 
 found guilty of such misconduct were called “loco’ed.” Oft- 
 times it was known for the round-up boss to put him out of 
 the herd and cut his cattle for him. The whole round-up was 
 conducted in a strictly business way, and such a thing as 
 “red tape” was unknown. 
 
 This work being finished, each wagon with its little herd 
 would start for the next round-up. Possibly night would 
 overtake them and pens being unknown, it would be up to 
 the boys to herd them and “sing” to them as it was usually 
 
314 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 called. Each man would rope his night horse and they 
 would herd in shifts. 
 
 This night herding is nice and novel in fair weather, and 
 on a nice moonlit night; but when it comes to one of those 
 dark nights of thunder, lightning and the rain pouring down 
 on you, your life is in the hands of God and your faithful 
 night horse. There is to my mind no nobler animal in God’s 
 creation than a faithful horse. We would always pick out the 
 clearest-footed, best-sighted horses for this work. All horses 
 can see in the night, and better than a man, but there are 
 some horses that can see better than others. 
 
 Boys, in this connection, I wish to relate a little incident 
 of what a horse can do and did at the Slaughter round-up. 
 We were told that the Slaughter ranch possessed two horses 
 that would cut without a bridle and we asked Gus Keith, the 
 foreman, to let us see the horses perform this feat. He called 
 for two horses, “Old Pompy,” a black pacing horse, and, 
 “S. B.,” a slim bay horse. They rode into the herd and 
 worked an animal towards the edge of the bunch and slipped 
 the bridle. Each horse brought out the right cow and with- 
 out a miss. This was great work for a dumb animal. 
 
 At this round-up I also saw the last wild buffalo. 
 
 It was in the year of 1880 that I sold Hugh Lewis and Jim 
 Holt, of Brenham, seven hundred steers on a contract to 
 Mr. Runge. The steers were to be delivered at the Runge 
 ranch near Yorktown, DeWitt county. They were short of 
 both horses and men and hired my brother and me to go 
 through with the herd to Yorktown. On our way we came 
 to the Colorado river at La Grange and found the stream 
 on a rampage. We were told of a man that had been 
 
 drowned at this crossing three days before in trying to cross 
 a herd of cattle. The man had all his clothes on besides a 
 
 six-shooter. In swimming across he had taken the left point 
 
 (or lead) to point the cattle across. The cattle began milling 
 in the stream and tried to turn back. He had made the point 
 on his horse, but got into the bunch of milling cattle and 
 both he and his horse went under. He was found two days 
 later some four hundred yards below the crossing. This 
 
 brought up the question to us. Who would venture to point 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 315 
 
 our herd across; and, what would it cost to have them 
 
 pointed? Crowds of people had come from La Grange to 
 
 witness the spectacle of a large herd of cattle swimming 
 across the river; there were men, women and children, all 
 eager to see. I was about the poorest swimmer in the out- 
 fit, but had lots of experience in my time, no doubt more 
 than the rest all together. Holt sauntered up to me, and 
 asked if I was afraid to point the herd, and what would I 
 charge extra to pull off the stunt. I confessed to him that I 
 was not a good swimmer and was afraid of water, but that I 
 
 was a hired hand and would not shirk my duty. 1 had a 
 
 first-class pony for the work, and told him that I would point 
 the herd if allowed to strip my clothes. He told me the 
 work had to be done, women or no women. When every- 
 thing was arranged, I stripped, mounted my pony bare-back 
 and took the left (or lower) point. I struck the water with 
 the cattle and stayed near the lead until they saw the oppo- 
 site bank, then I led out for the bank and crossed the cattle 
 without a mishap. From there on we moved along smoothly 
 until we got to the Guadalupe River. Here, at night my 
 brother, I, and two other boys were herding on first relief. 
 Some old timers had told us that it “never rained at night in 
 June,” but we had all doubts dispelled here. As we were 
 short of horses we herded in only two reliefs. After midnight 
 as 1 rode into camp to wake up the second relief I noticed an 
 approaching storm cloud in the northwest, and before the boys 
 could saddle their horses and get around the herd it was 
 thunder, lightning, and a down-pour of rain, all in one. The 
 herd started drifting south and there was no way to hold 
 them. They did not stampede but kept moving and as it 
 was very dark we could only see them by the flashes of 
 lightning, and drift with them. We must have traveled some 
 three or four miles when I called to my brother to ask what 
 had become of the other two boys. He said they nad found 
 a tree and had climbed up in it. We had not heard a sound 
 from them since leaving camp. I knew the man near me 
 was my brother by his voice, as he was always in the habit 
 of singing and talking to the cattle to quiet them. In a 
 stampede there are no “road laws,” everything in its path 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 3 16 
 
 must clear out or get run over. After a few minutes silence 
 my brother called out: “Everybody look out, trouble ahead; 
 
 my horse won’t go any further!” A flash of lightning re- 
 vealed the banks of the Guadalupe river, the cause of his 
 horse refusing to go further. We worked our way back 
 through the cattle, as the river would hold the cattle at this 
 end, and waited for daylight. We found that we had drifted 
 seven miles during the latter part of the night and just the 
 two of us in charge of the whole herd. Our horses were 
 “all in,” for we had ridden them since noon the day before. 
 We figured that we would be off at midnight, when our re- 
 lief was up, and had not changed for the night relief. This 
 was our last obstacle to speak of from there to the Runge 
 ranch. Steers those days were bought and sold “by age.” 
 When the classing and turning them over to Runge’s fore- 
 man began, some trouble arose between Jim Holt and the 
 foreman of Runge’s ranch, as to the ages of the steers. 
 Runge’s foreman asked Holt if he did not have a man in his 
 outfit that he would entrust with classing for him. Jim Holt 
 had never handled many cattle, and asked me to do his class- 
 ing, with Runge’s man. We got along fine and more than 
 pleased Holt, for, when we were through Holt found himself 
 to the “good” several hundred dollars above contract price he 
 paid, and the amount of my classing. On our way home Holt 
 stopped at a hotel in Yorktown. In this hotel I saw a sign 
 that 1 shall never forget, it read: 
 
 PASSENGERS WITHOUT BAGGAGE 
 PAY IN ADVANCE 
 AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT. 
 
 Holt had no baggage and had to dig up the cash. He was 
 considered a good-hearted man, but when drinking would 
 not stand for any foolishness. He was known as a good 
 fighter and soldier from his Civil War record. I recall one 
 time at Burton, Texas, when Holt and Dr. Watt met, dis- 
 agreed, and both pulled their “smoke-wagons” and got 
 busy. When the smoke cleared away, both men were found 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 317 
 
 E. A. ROBUCK 
 
318 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 wounded, Dr. Watt going to Knittel’s store, and Holt into 
 Hons & Bauer’s establishment. Holt was wounded in the 
 hip, the bullet lodging in the backbone. Dr. Hons, his broth- 
 er-in-law, who now lives in San Marcos, probed for the bul- 
 let, while I was holding Holt’s leg. I could feel the forceps 
 slipping off the leaden missile as the doctor was trying to 
 extract it. Dr. Hons failed to remove the ball and advised 
 Holt that it would take an operation and which would be a 
 dangerous one. Holt sent to San Antonio for Dr. Cupples, 
 who had been a surgeon in the army with Holt. Dr. Cup- 
 ples and Dr. Hons performed the operation and Holt got well. 
 He lived about two years when he and Joe Hoffman, also of 
 Burton, were waylaid and shot in a saloon in Brenham. 
 
 Dr. Hons treated me during my illness with meningitis, 
 about 33 years ago. At the same time he was also attend- 
 ing Charles Hohmeyer’s three children, who were suffering 
 from the same malady. We all got well — but 1, minus one 
 eye. There were at the time fifty-six cases of meningitis in 
 Burton and Brenham, of which 44 did not recover. 
 
 I considered myself very fortunate in securing the services 
 of my friend, Dr. Hons, and know he is one of the finest phy- 
 sicians in the State of Texas. 
 
 In 1884, Sam Hale and I, put up for Curtis & Cochran, of 
 California, 800 head of cattle. We bought these up in Wash- 
 ington, Lee, Burleson and Austin counties. Curtis & Coch- 
 ran bought some 600 head more from their kinspeople and 
 others near Bellville, and gathered them at Buckhorn, Aus- 
 tin county. My oldest brother, J. M. Craig, was employed by 
 Curtis & Cochran, to boss the herd through to New Mexico. 
 He moved their 600 head from Buckhorn to Burton, where 
 Hale and I joined him with the 800 head making a herd of 
 1400 cattle. This was entirely too large a herd to handle 
 in the woods and among the farms. 
 
 The first day we only moved the herd some seven miles 
 and camped at Charlie Tarno’s, in Sandtown, within 300 
 yards of where I was born. Old man Tarno had a field of 
 about ten acres fenced with post oak rails. Into this field 
 we turned our herd. Cochran had made the arrangement 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 319 
 
 and knew nothing about cattle. He said: “Put them in 
 
 there and give the boys a good night’s rest.” We had some 
 sixty miles of the worst kind of brush ahead of us before 
 we would get to the Taylor prairie. I warned my brother 
 and Cochran that the herd would break fence and scatter in 
 all the directions of the globe; and 1 for one, would sleep with 
 my bridle in hand. Hale and my brother followed my sug- 
 gestion. Curtis & Cochran had hired every man that came 
 to the herd, having some 14 hands, besides a cook. The firm 
 had all their money in this herd, and were down here in 
 Texas where they did not have confidence in Texas people. 
 They were so “darned” crooked themselves that they thought 
 everybody was trying to beat them, so they hired all these 
 men to be sure of their cattle, and to hold the herd. Hale, 
 my brother and 1, had our horses saddled and ready. We 
 took up our stations around the herd, one in a place. About 
 ten o’clock that night the expected happened — the cattle 
 stampeded. My brother was ahead of me, but could not make 
 the lead; so he called to me: “Go to the lead of the herd 
 and hold them up.” I made the lead and on my way I 
 passed Arthur Jones, who was in the middle of the herd, 
 whipping for dear life to get out of the way, and caused the 
 cattle in front to run so much faster. I did not see Jones 
 any more that night. Later I located Sam Hale by his voice. 
 The herd split up on us; my brother being with one part, and 
 Sam Hale and 1 held the other part. At daybreak we drove 
 our cattle towards the balance of the herd. We had the cat- 
 tle counted before a single man from camp showed up — three 
 of us holding 1400 head of cattle in a herd through a dark 
 night. 
 
 The cook told us that Curtis and Cochran had talked and 
 wailed all night about their fortune being scattered in those 
 woods, and that they would never get them back. Old man 
 Cochran came to us in the morning, accosting my brother: 
 “Well, John, how many of the ‘band’ (meaning the herd) 
 are gone?” My brother said: “Here is the count.” He 
 handed him the envelope on which we had jotted down the 
 numbers as we cut the cattle by in small bunches and had 
 counted them. The figures proved we were none short. 
 
320 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Cochran was a happy “old Yank,” and declared: “You boys 
 must have eyes like an owl, to run through these woods at 
 night and not get killed.” 
 
 With the delivery of these cattle to Curtis & Cochran, 
 my contract expired. The next day at noon I left for home. 
 My brother carried the herd on through to New Mexico, 
 somewhere near Las Vegas, and told me later that he had 
 undergone many hardships. In crossing the Plains, he had 
 been without water for the cattle, at one time, for two days 
 and two nights. After all the hard and faithful work, these 
 two old Yanks tried to beat my brother out of half of his 
 wages. They hired him at $100.00 per month, and paid 
 him $50.00. Curtis & Cochran had lost a few cattle at 
 Bell ville while herding them and authorized me to gather and 
 dispose of them and send them the money. 1 gathered these 
 cattle, sold them, paid my brother his balance, and have 
 never heard from them since. 
 
 One night while we were putting up cattle for the Curtis 
 & Cochran herd we had some l5o head in my pen at Burton. 
 After turning in for the night my brother took his money 
 and some money that Joe, my wife had given him for safe- 
 keeping, together with his sixshooter, stuck them under his 
 pillow, and turned in. He was sleeping on the front gallery. 
 All of a sudden I heard a noise, and found something had 
 frightened the cattle, and they had broken fence and stam- 
 peded. They ran south, through the town of Burton. We 
 were after them in no time and overtook them on White- 
 ner’s prairie, rounded them together and finally succeeded 
 in quieting them. Now, it happened that my brother began 
 to get restless and confided to me that he came away and 
 had left all his and my wife’s money under his pillow, on the 
 front gallery. He figured that possibly my wife might have 
 thought of it after our departure and had taken care of it, 
 but “seeing is believing,” and he was ill at ease. He rode 
 back to assure himself, while 1 held the herd. Luckily he 
 found the money and sixshooter in possession of my wife, 
 and to say the least, he felt much relieved. There were but 
 few banks in the country, and we were in the habit of carry- 
 ing the cash with us. The German people, as a rule, would 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 321 
 
 not take anybody’s check, and quite often demanded payment 
 in silver, as they did not like paper money. 
 
 Whenever I had too much money I would turn it over to 
 my wife. This was not a “force of habit,” but quite con- 
 venient. My wife would put it in what she termed the “First 
 National Bank” — her stocking. You know that is a woman’s 
 money purse. 
 
 In 1893, Dr. Hons of San Marcos and I were buying up 
 1000 head of one and two-year-old steers on contract. We 
 sold them to H. C. Beal for Louis Runge of Menardville. We 
 had leased the McCoy pasture, near Wetmore, on the Cibolo 
 Creek to hold these steers until we had the required number. 
 We were to deliver these cattle to them at the Las Moras 
 ranch, on Elm Creek, near Menard. 
 
 This was really the hardest trip that 1 ever made with 
 cattle. The cattle ran the first four nights that we were out 
 and gave us no end of trouble. 
 
 The first night we herded in a wide lane or pocket, some 
 three miles this side of the Guadalupe River on the Blanco 
 City road. The cattle stampeded. Sam Craig, Billy and Ed. 
 Eckert were holding the north end of the pocket, towards the 
 river, while Stock Wesson, 1 and the other hands held to the 
 south end. The cattle headed for the river and went onto 
 the boys with such force that they were unable to hold them. 
 Sam Craig was riding a little black pony named “Nigger 
 Babe”, a sure-footed and fast animal. Sam went into the 
 lane with the cattle, taking all kinds of chances. He worked 
 his way towards the lead but before they got to the river 
 he crowded them into the fence, which they broke and got 
 into a pasture. Sam was with them. He turned their lead 
 and brought them all back to the herd. I considered Sam 
 the best hand I ever had, day or night work, with cattle. Next 
 morning’s count showed that we had not lost any of the 
 herd. On this trip I also had my boy, Walter A. Craig, 
 then 8 years old, with me. He had his own horse, leggings 
 and spurs, and made a splendid little hand in day time. I 
 caught him asleep but once. He was on his horse under a 
 tree and two other grown men were down on the ground 
 sound asleep. He was too young to do any night herding. 
 
322 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 The second night we held the cattle in another pocket, or 
 wide lane, near Krueger’s store. The fences were good on 
 either side, just two lanes to hold, but that night we had a rain- 
 storm. I took Walter, my boy, on my horse behind me ana 
 brought him to Krueger’s store. Sam Craig and Stock Wes- 
 son held the south end of the lane. They had orders to force 
 the cattle through the fence in case of a stampede, rather 
 than let them go back the way they had come. The other 
 boys, Billy and Ed Eckert held the north end of the lane. 
 The storm came from the north and the cattle ran south, 
 throwing them on Craig and Wesson. They fought them 
 with their slickers for dear life until they succeeded in turn- 
 ing their lead. Into the six or eight wire fence they went. 
 They broke through, cutting up a number of them badly and 
 we were obliged to kill several of them. They made another 
 run, going north; broke through the line, and scattered all 
 over the mountains near Blanco City. We worked for three 
 days gathering these cattle, and Cavaness Brothers and others 
 rendered us great assistance. 
 
 The third night we moved in above Blanco and had pretty 
 good “bed grounds.” The cattle made one little run, but 
 we did not lose any in the stampede. However, some of 
 the boys were careless and let quite a number drift out of the 
 herd during the night and we gathered all next day to get 
 them back. 
 
 The fourth day we moved into an ideal “bed ground,” an 
 open prairie with mountains all around. The boys had good 
 grounds to run on. I gave Sam Craig and Stock Wesson 
 each two horses and told them to run the cattle down if 
 they could do no better; also, to take their slickers and run 
 the herd in a circle all night or hold them. I put Walter, my 
 boy, and my little nigger boy, Bill, on the chuck box in back 
 of the wagon, and told them to stay there till the cattle 
 quieted down. These boys said that the cattle ran twenty- 
 two times that night. The next morning we tried to stam- 
 pede the herd with our slickers, but they refused to be stam- 
 peded. They never made another run on us. We had no 
 more trouble of this nature but we were quite a few short 
 on account of so many stampedes. H. C. Beal having passed 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 323 
 
 HIRAM G. CRAIG AND “JOHNNIE” 
 
 on these cattle, stayed by his classing and did not cut us any 
 cattle on account of wire cuts. This was an exceptional trip 
 and I was very foolish in taking my child along at his age. 
 The trip kept him away from his mother for two months. 
 We returned in the chuck wagon and on the way gathered 
 what cattle we had lost and could find. 
 
 In 1914 one day I was en route from Brenham to Ledbet- 
 ter with my two favorite ponies, Johnny and Charlie. I was 
 riding Johnny and leading Charlie. Some two and a half 
 miles north of Carmine on the Houston and Texas Central 
 Railroad, I met Crawford Gillespie. He was section fore- 
 man, Section 7, and was trying to push one of those motor 
 cars down the track to where his men were at work. In 
 some unaccountable way the motor started and the car got 
 away from Gillespie. It went through his bunch of men, 
 who tried to board it but failed. He called to me to ditch it 
 by throwing a tie across the track. The track was fenced, 
 
324 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 and I had no chance. In fact, I did not hardly have any- 
 time to “hesitate.” It was all my horse could do to out- 
 run the car; and I saw my only chance was to beat the car 
 to Carmine, and rope it. There was no way of getting close 
 to the track on account of it being fenced. I got to Carmine 
 in time enough to jump off my horse and throw a near-lying 
 plank across the track, and ditched it directly in front of the 
 depot. It was a test of horse flesh against gasoline,, in 
 which the horse won out. This little pony is now playing 
 polo in New York. 
 
 In the early days there were in Washington county as well 
 as in many other counties of Texas, some pretty tough peo- 
 ple. Horse and cattle thieves were quite plentiful. The of- | 
 ficers knowing that my oldest brother and I were handy on 
 horseback and ready at day or in the night to uphold law 
 and order, would call on us to assist in running down this ele- i 
 ment. We kept this duty up more or less all of our lives; 
 and neither of us has ever held an office higher than a dep- 
 uty sheriff or constable. The fact is; the court house ring 
 were playing “safety first,” and knew that some of their 
 crooked bunch would get locked up if occasion warranted. 
 
 In those days we could not prohibit horse-stealing, but 
 now-a-days you seldom hear of it in this country. The horse 
 thieves were very bad and bold, and something had to be 
 done. You might, for instance, go to bed at night leaving 
 your work team in the barn or lot and awake next morning 
 to find your team had disappeared. Every possible means 
 were resorted to to stamp out this evil, but of no avail. 
 Finally they experimented with “hemp” for several years. A 
 strong dose of hemp would always tend to kind of “deaden” 
 the desire to steal and today there is very little of it going on. 
 
 With reference to the old time cowmen with whom I have 
 spent all of my life; I candidly believe them to be the best 
 people on earth today. They do not all profess to be Chris- 
 tians, but they are a noble and big-hearted set of men that 
 you can rely upon when you, or your country gets into 
 trouble. They will divide their last dollar with you, and fight 
 their weight in wild-cats for you, their friends and their coun- 
 try; they are always ready to help the poor and needy. Only ■ 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 325 
 
 the other day at one of the local commission offices, a boy 
 who had come from Arkansas with cattle told us of lending 
 his last ten dollars to a gambler and losing it. He had a 
 “pass” back home but nothing to pay for meals or lodging. 
 The boys chipped in and made up enough money for him on his 
 way home. As he was walking out of the office, John Draper 
 asked me to call him back, and handed him a ten dollar bill. 
 This is the kind of material the stockmen in general are made 
 of, and may the good Lord favor every one of them. 
 
 Now in conclusion will say that my family consists of my 
 wife and two children. The oldest child, a girl, named 
 Willie Belle, is living in Houston, Texas, and is the wife 
 of Judge Ewing Boyd, judge of the 35th District, Harris 
 County. The youngest child, a boy, Walter A., after 
 finishing his education in Waco worked for different banks in 
 Fort Worth and later for Swift and Company — where he fig- 
 ured the value of cattle from the “scales to the vat.” He 
 also wanted more elbow-room and the open air, so he en- 
 gaged in the live stock business. He dealt exclusively in Mex- 
 ican cattle and had ranching interests in Mexico, but, on ac- 
 count of the revolution he transferred his activities to this 
 side of the river, and is located at Laredo, Texas. He is 
 actively engaged in the live stock trade and considered a fine 
 judge of stock. 
 
 As for myself, 1 am hale and hardy at my age, which I at- 
 tribute to my life in the open air and being used to work. 
 
 May we all meet at the final roll call, and accompany the 
 chuck wagon to the last and great Round-up. Beware! if 
 you are a “sleeper!” 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES SCHREINER. 
 
 Of Kerrville, Texas. 
 
 One of the most prominent figures in the development of 
 the cattle industry in West and Southwest Texas is Cap- 
 tain Charles Schreiner, who is still living at Kerrville, where 
 for so many years he was actively engaged in business, but 
 is now spending his declining years amid the pleasant sur- 
 
326 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 roundings that his wonderful zeal and enterprising spirit has 
 made possible. 
 
 Captain Schreiner was born in Alsace Lorraine, France, 
 February 22, 183 8, and came to San Antonio, Texas, in 
 September, 1852. At that time San Antonio was little more 
 than a village, and the surrounding country a wilderness in- 
 fested with wild beasts and wild men. Captain Schreiner 
 foresaw wonderful opportunities for the man with grit and 
 determination, and although he was but a lad in his teens 
 he started out with a determination to carve out a career 
 for himself that would place him in the ranks of the prom- 
 inent financiers and business men of the state. In 1859 he 
 entered the stock business on Turtle Creek, Kerr county, in 
 a small way, gradually building his herds, acquiring 
 land holdings, and thus expanding his interests as the years 
 passed by. Ten years later, in 1869, he engaged in the 
 banking and general mercantile business at Kerrville, which 
 business has continued to this good time, and is one of the 
 solid institutions of West Texas. 
 
 In the establishment of a bank and store at Kerrville at 
 that early date Captain Schreiner placed himself in a posi- 
 tion to assist the pioneers of that section and thus help in 
 the development of that favored region. He was heartily in 
 accord with any project that was for the good of the com- 
 munity he had chosen for his field of operations, and with 
 the keenest of business ability he permitted no opportunity to 
 slip that would aid in its development. The result was 
 that in the course of time he became identified with several 
 industrial projects, chiefly cattle and sheep raising, was also 
 engaged in the mercantile and banking business at Junction 
 City and Rocksprings and was connected with banks and 
 mercantile concerns in San Antonio, as well as possessing 
 stock in several railroad companies, gradually building a for- 
 tune that made him several times a millionaire. Despite the 
 burden of years Captain Schreiner gave active attention to 
 his banking, mercantile and live stock interests until 1 9 1 8, 
 when he transferred the bulk of his property to his chil- 
 dren. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 327 
 
 CAPTAIN CHARLES SCHREINER 
 Banker, Merchant, Stockman and Philanthropist 
 
328 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 At the age of sixteen years Captain Schreiner entered the 
 Ranger service, serving in Captain Henry’s, Captain San- 
 some’s and Captain McFadden’s companies during 1854 to 
 1859. When the Civil War broke out he enlisted in the 
 Confederate Army and served for four years. 
 
 For many years Captain Schreiner and Captain John T. 
 Lytle were in partnership in the cattle business and the firm 
 drove more than one hundred and fifty thousand cattle up 
 the trail to northern markets. 
 
 Today the name of Charles Schreiner is linked with the 
 making of West Texas, for he has been the moving, build- 
 ing spirit that has made many things possible for that re- 
 gion. The town of Kerrville stands as a monument to his 
 genius, and the substantial business and public buildings and 
 pretty homes in that thriving metropolis lend evidence to 
 the fact that “he builded better than he knew.” 
 
 THE EARLY CATTLE DAYS IN TEXAS 
 
 By A. W. Capt, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 My mind wanders back today to the good old days of yore; 
 back to the halcyon days of the early cattle round ups and 
 drives up the “Chisholm Trail,” when cowponies were sure- 
 footed sure enough. Cowponies and “cow boys” were sure- 
 to-goodness cow boys. The later term applied to them 
 “cow punchers” was not yet coined nor applicable, for usual- 
 ly the exercise was more of a race horse performance to 
 round ’em up and hold them up before they struck the 
 breaks. 
 
 My cowboy experience dates back to the early sixties in 
 Blanco, Kendall and Gillespie counties, the then frontier of 
 Texas. During the Civil War, when the men and boys 
 were nearly all in the army, cattle on the range plentiful and 
 very wild, it was mine to ride the range alone, everybody’s 
 “roustabout” to gather their scattered cattle, brand their 
 calves and hunt their lost horses. In those days of open range 
 and free grass it was a custom practiced by the people to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 329 
 
 round up such cows as were easily penned regardless of own- 
 ership in most cases and milk them during the spring, sum- 
 mer and fall, branding the calves in the cow’s brand. Con- 
 cerning this bit of exercise I became very proficient and much 
 needed for when early grass began to rise and young calves 
 began to bawl in the spring I was called into service from 
 “Dan to Beersheba” by war widows and other folks where 
 there was no one on the ranch that wore a pair of pants, 
 to ride the range and run in old “Sooky” and any other cows 
 with calves that could be penned. 
 
 Beginning in the spring of 1870 when large herds were 
 being driven from Texas up the Chisholm trail to Kansas 
 and beyond, I got my best experience, joining the “round- 
 up” for Sam and Thos. Johnson, the then largest individual 
 trail drivers operating in Blanco, Gillespie, Llano, Burnett, 
 Hays, Comal and Kendall counties, with headquarter pens 
 and branding stall at the mouth of Williamson’s creek in 
 Blanco county and headquarters at Johnson’s Ranch on the 
 Pedernales River, Johnson City, the county site of Blanco 
 county. The round-up or range hands and range boss usually 
 gathered, road branded and delivered a herd of from 2500 to 
 3000 head of cattle, which a trail boss and his outfit re- 
 ceived at headquarters ranch, but sometimes we delivered them 
 at the Seven Live Oaks on the prairie west of Austin. After 
 a good night’s rest the ranch hands bidding their relief “So 
 long, we’ll meet you later in Kansas,” with pack and 
 ponies hit the back trails for another herd for the next outfit. 
 
 Usually the ranch hands and ranch boss covered the re- 
 treat with the last herd in the late summer. This being the 
 case in the summer of 1871 when we started from the brand- 
 ing pens on Williamson Creek, tired and worn, the boss bol- 
 stered up with a pillow in his saddle, having come in con- 
 tact with the business end of a black steer at the branding 
 pen was almost out of commission. We had a herd of 3000 
 head made up mostly of beeves of the old mossback, stam- 
 peding, bushwhacking type. The outfit consisted of the 
 cook, the only man in the outfit that everybody could cuss, 
 chuck wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen, horse wrangler 
 and sixty four rode-down mounts and sixteen typical cow 
 
330 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 boys, Dick Johnson, boss; Col. Nat Lewis, second boss; Tom 
 Moore (Banker Tom) of Llano; Tom Logan, Bill Hitch- 
 breath, Bob Collins, Guss Butterfield, Jas. Smith, Pete Lind- 
 weber, Henry Lindweber, Sr., Thos. Colbath, Hilliary Col- 
 bath, Fritz Hitchfeli, Kansas Miller, Arnold Capt and Josh 
 Nicholson, the cook. And today as 1 pen this sketch I feel 
 alone and lonely, for most of these comrades and many other 
 cowboy associates of that day have passed over the river 
 except H. C. Aten a friend beloved, and true. No better 
 cowboy ever graced or disgraced the hurricane deck of a 
 Spanish pony and if he did usually hang his long carcass on 
 the left side of his mount with his hind leg in his flank and 
 roped with his left paw, he was always “Charley at the 
 wheel,” never found wanting, but on the spot ready to de- 
 liver the goods. 
 
 On the trail that year water was scarce, herds plentiful 
 and dust more so. The first few days nothing occurred to 
 break the monotony or hush the hum drum of the cow boys 
 ragtime music, until we were crossing the Colorado River be- 
 low Austin. Had a stampede there early in the morning and 
 after a hard day’s work we put the last bovine over just 
 before sunset. The chuck wagon having been sent across 
 the bridge into Austin for supplies with instructions to camp 
 on the trail north of the city, eating was all out until 3 p. m. 
 next day. It’s a good appetizer; try it. I am recording an- 
 other stampede that is written indelibly on memory’s page 
 — a stampede of men. It occurred one dreadful hot July day 
 when the sun was at full tide and the wind refused to blow. 
 It is said men are like monkeys — imitative creatures. One 
 of the boys dropped back to the wagon and disrobed down to 
 undershirt and drawers. He looked so cool that all tried the 
 experiment, some leaving everything in the wagon but un- 
 dershirt and government drawers. It was on the prairie near 
 the head of Elm and happened to be Sunday, as we were re- 
 minded when we were met by a whole camp meeting -crowd 
 of young ladies and their beaus on horseback. The boss and 
 the wagon had gone on ahead and the boys wished they 
 could also vanish. The boss who would rather have fun 
 and go to hell in a go-cart than miss it and go to Heaven 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 331 
 
 in a chariot, had instructed the young folks to pass by the 
 herd on both sides and they did so, hence the stampede. 
 Some of the boys went off at a tangent east to see how the 
 range looked, others went west in search of water to fill 
 their canteens, a few thoughtfuls dropped to the rear to push 
 up the drags, while others held their ground trying to hide 
 their embarrassment by trying to put the words “I would 
 not live all way, 1 ask not to stay” to music. 
 
 After crossing Red River at Red River Station and enter- 
 ing the Indian Nation, now Oklahoma, the things of interest 
 or disinterest that accompanied the drive were many stam- 
 pedes, sleepless nights, gyp water and poor chuck, constituted 
 our bill fo fare. Occasionally some of the boys would ride 
 into camp weary, with a bad liver, venting their spleen on 
 the patient cook, but as he was no hog and knew when he 
 had enough old Betsy (his 44 Colt’s) which he kept in the 
 chuck wagon as a liver regulator was sometimes resorted to, 
 usually bringing order out of chaos. Buffalo, antelope and 
 Indians were much in evidence, and an occasional buffalo 
 was shot. Chasing them afforded great sport, but as for 
 chasing Indians, that was out of the question, for at that 
 time they were under the watch care of government agents, 
 and as Uncle Sam was trying to tame his Indians we quietly 
 passed them by. 
 
 On August 1st Bluff Creek was crossed and the herd 
 thrown off the trail to graze on the plains of Kansas. After 
 a few more days of hard driving we stopped on Turkey 
 Creek a few miles south of Abilene. Some of the hands 
 bought wagons and returned to Texas via Arkansaw where 
 they loaded apples. Others remained with the herd, remov- 
 ing it later up the Platte River to winter quarters. T. J. 
 Moore and I cut out our small interest in the Johnson herd 
 and moved on, he going up the Solomon River and I estab- 
 lished winter quarters on the Smoky Hill River above Abilene 
 where I wintered and suffered. Thawing out in the spring 
 I hit the grit for Sunny Texas, a poorer but wiser man. In 
 closing this sketch I wish to bear joyous testimony to the fact 
 that in all my association with men of various vocations I 
 have found no friends more noble, true and generous to the 
 
332 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 limit than the cowmen of yesterday and today. Some are es- 
 pecially blessed with this world’s goods, dear companions and 
 many true friends, yet without the companionship of Jesus, 
 the truest friend; the desolate winds of sorrow and loneli- 
 ness will sweep over your soul and for this reason, now and 
 then, despite all the happy experiences that may come to you 
 through the companionship of earthly friends there will some- 
 times be indescribable longing in your soul that earthly friends 
 cannot satisfy. You need the companionship of Christ. 
 
 “It is my joy in life to find 
 At every turn of the road 
 The strong arm of comrades kind 
 To help me on with my load. 
 
 And since I have no gold to give 
 And love alone must make amends 
 My only prayer is while I live 
 God make me worthy of my friends.” 
 
 THE COST OF MOVING A HERD TO NORTHERN 
 MARKETS 
 
 By Col. Ike T. Pryor, of San Antonio. 
 
 Trail driving of cattle from Texas to Northwestern states 
 in the old trail days was reduced to almost a science, and 
 large numbers of cattle were moved at the minimum cost. 
 
 To illustrate, I drove fifteen herds in 1884 from South 
 Texas to the Northwestern states. It required a minimum of 
 165 men and about 1000 saddle horses to move this entire 
 drive. In other words, these cattle were driven in droves 
 of 3000 to each herd, with eleven men, including the boss, 
 and each man was furnished with six horses. 
 
 The salaries of these eleven men, including the boss, 
 were $30.00 each for the ten men, including the cook, and 
 $100.00 a month for the boss. This gave an outlay of 
 $400.00 a month, and estimating $100.00 for provisions, 
 there was an expense of $500.00 a month to move a herd of 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 333 
 
 3000 cattle 450 to 500 miles. Briefly speaking, in those 
 days it was possible to drive 3000 cattle 3000 miles for 
 
 53 000. 00, or in other words, from South Texas to Montana 
 a herd could be driven of 3000 head, for not to exceed 
 
 53000.00. My average expense on the fifteen herds in 1884 
 was about S500.00 per month. The average distance trav- 
 eled by these herds was from 4^0 to 500 miles per month 
 and when 1 had sold and delivered all of these cattle to Mon- 
 tana, Dakota and Wyoming ranchmen, I had lost 1500 head 
 or 3 per cent. 
 
 Today it would cost $2500 or $3000 to move 3000 steers 
 from Southern Texas to Montana and the only way they 
 could be moved would be by rail. And I daresay the loss 
 would be equal to 3 per cent. 
 
 The old trail drivers had a margin of from $3.00 to $4.00 
 a head between Texas and the Northwest. In 1884, I paid 
 
 5 1 2.00 for my yearlings, $16.00 for my two-year olds, and 
 
 520.00 for my three-year-olds, and I had them contracted to 
 the ranchmen of the Northwest at $4.00 a head margin. 
 1884 was the last heavy drive made and in the fall of that 
 year, cattle started down and continually went down each 
 year for nine years. In other words, stock cattle in Texas 
 was selling at about $25.00 a head in 1884 and went as 
 low as $6.00 a head in 1893. Good Panhandle cattle were 
 selling in 1893 for $10.00 per head and South Texas cattle 
 were selling at about $6.00 per head. As proof of this 
 fact, I bought the Cross S cattle, about 10,000 head at 
 S6.30 per head, no calves counted, a guarantee of 2500 
 three and four year old steers out of a possible number of 
 
 10.000 head. These cattle were loaded on board the cars 
 for me at Uvalde and Spofford at this price. 
 
 1 remember one trip I made with a herd when not a man 
 had a watch or a compass. At night when we would stop the 
 tongue of the wagon was pointed toward the north star and 
 the next morning when we made our start we would take the 
 direction indicated by the wagon tongue. We maintained 
 four guards of three hours each during each night, and al- 
 though we had no time-piece it is a fact that each man stood 
 guard fifteen or twenty minutes over his time, and the last 
 
334 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 guard for the night had the short watch. This shows the 
 generous disposition of those old trail boys, in that they would 
 not throw off on their comrades. 
 
 LOST TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS 
 ON ONE DRIVE. 
 
 By John S. Kritzer, Taylor, Texas. 
 
 I am not a member of the Old Trail Drivers’ Association, 
 having never put in my application for membership, but be- 
 ing in a reminiscent mood I thought 1 would write a short 
 sketch of what 1 saw and know of trail life, and to do so I 
 will have to go back with Father Time to my earlier days. 
 
 1 was born in Independence, Mo., in 1842, and raised on 
 a farm a little while, and in Joe Shelby’s Missouri Cavalry 
 Brigade the balance of the time from 1 86 1 to 1865. When 
 General Robert E. Lee surrendered, General Shelby and about 
 three hundred of us boys concluded to take a ride across the 
 Rio Grande and help Emperor Maximillian clean up Cortena, 
 Juarez, Diaz, and a few other brigands. We started from 
 Corsicana, Texas, all young daredevils as ever fired a shot 
 at the Yankees in defense of our beloved Southland, and as 
 good marksmen with pistol or rifle as ever rode in any cav- 
 alry brigade of any country on earth. We knew the savas 
 could not do anything toward licking us. We rode down to 
 San Antonio, turned west and went through Uvalde, and 
 crossed the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass. At Piedras Negras 
 we had a fight with the Mexicans, in which only fourteen of 
 our boys were involved, but we killed fourteen Mexicans who 
 wanted to take our horses. At Uvalde we had traded some of 
 our American horses, which had given out, for some horses 
 that had Spanish brands, and these greasers thought they would 
 dismount us. Not a man in our crowd could speak Span- 
 ish, but how we could handle our gun ! They had our horses 
 by the bridle reins and were pointing to the brands on them, 
 while we were laughing at them for we knew they were flirt- 
 ing with the graveyard. General Shelby saw that something 
 was going wrong and came to us and asked what was the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 335 
 
 matter. We told him that from the signs they were making 
 those devils wanted our horses. He said, “Hold your horses, 
 and kill Mexicans.” When he said that, every man pulled 
 his gun and shot them loose from our bridles. 
 
 There was a regiment of over a thousand Mexican soldiers 
 in Piedras Negras, and they began to shoot from the tops of 
 the adobe houses, so we got in line, and as their guns would 
 not shoot more than one hundred yards, while we were 
 shooting Sharps Rifles which would kill a man a thousand 
 yards away. The Mexican colonel, under protection of a 
 white flag as large as a wagon sheet, and accompanied by 
 his staff, came out to where we had our battle line, and told 
 General Shelby that he was the “bravest American and had 
 the bravest men” that ever crossed the Rio Grande, and that 
 if his people bothered our men or our horses he would have 
 them shot. General Shelby replied through the interpreter 
 that he had issued the same orders to us and he could find 
 proof of that fact down near the river where we had killed 
 a few of his d — d horse thieves. After thanking the colonel 
 very kindly for the compliment paid to him and to his men, 
 General Shelby marched us from Piedras Negras to Mon- 
 terey, and we fought bandits and revolutionists all the way, 
 killing more than twice the number of our force. Of course 
 we lost some men too, but whenever we ran onto the enemy 
 they belonged to us. From Monterey, where we met the 
 Maximillian French soldiers, and our friends who had gone 
 there previously, we secured passports to Mexico City, where, 
 when we arrived, Emperor Maximillian gave us land near Cor- 
 doba to start a colony. But Maximillian had to leave Mexico 
 City and escape to Quarretaro, where he was betrayed, cap- 
 tured and executed with two of his generals. So we aban- 
 doned the colony and returned to Missouri. After returning 
 home I went to Wyoming and Montana and freighted for 
 Uncle Sam. 
 
 Leaving Salt Lake City for Kansas City in the spring of 
 1869 I decided to come to Texas, so I came down through 
 the Indian Territory to Llano where I bought 1000 steers, 
 fours and up. Three-year-olds were not counted beeves in 
 ; those days. I drove these steers to Fort Sill and sold them 
 
336 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 to an Indian contractor for the government and in the fall 
 drove to Baxter Springs, where I made the acquaintance of 
 Doc Day, Isom Goode and other old cowmen. 
 
 In 1871 I drove 400 yoke of work oxen to Fort Harker 
 in the Smoky Hills near Ellsworth, Kansas, and was cap- 
 tured by the Osage Indians after I crossed the Cimarron River 
 with my horses. They held me prisoner for about an hour, 
 and I suppose I would have been scalped, but the Indians saw 
 the dust of a big herd being driven by Jim Scobey, and turned 
 me loose. The Osages were big men, and rigged out in war 
 regalia. Each warrior had one side of his face painted red 
 and the other side painted black. I saw the dust kicked up 
 by that herd and called the Indians’ attention to it, and they 
 immediately left me. 
 
 The next year or two I drove to Abilene, Kansas, on the 
 Smoky River. Bill Hickok was city marshall there, and was 
 a desperate character. I then drove to Dodge City, taking 
 one herd of the old Jingle Bob steers which 1 had bought 
 from Coggin Brothers and J. M. Dawson, from the Plains to 
 Gainesville. These were the old John Chissum steers from 
 Seven Rivers, near Roswell, New Mexico, and the most of 
 them died with tick fever. Before 1 reached Chicago I lost 
 $21,000 on them, and was busted. 
 
 Major L. G. Cairness staked me in 1882, when he con- 
 tracted 10,000 steers from Dan Wagoner. 1 received only 
 6,000 and drove them to Hunnewell, Kansas, in four herds, 
 which took all summer, as it was such a short drive. We 
 made $72,000 on this drive, lost only three steers and saw 
 lightning kill them. This was my last trail work. 
 
 I would be delighted to meet some of the old drovers again. 
 God bless them. But lots of them have laid down their sad- 
 dles, spurs and hobbles, coiled the riatta, and crossed the 
 River Styx and are resting in the shade of the trees. 
 
 Now in conclusion, if you think this Epistle of John to 
 the Cow Punchers of the old Chisholm Trail is of any conse- 
 quence in the way of reminiscence, or will cast any lustre on 
 the fame of those brave and daring men of the saddle and 
 trail, put it in your book. If not, cast it aside, but still in 
 friendship remember the giver, an old plainsman who has 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 337 
 
 helped to skin ’em, fought Yankees, Mexicans, wild Indians 
 and cow thieves. Farewell until we rattle our hocks on 
 the other side. 
 
 MOSE WESLEY HAYS 
 
 1015 W. Agarita Ave., San Antonio, Texas 
 
 Mose W. Hays was a foremost cattleman and business 
 man of the Northeastern Panhandle country, and was one of 
 the oldest residents in that part of the state. 
 
 During the quarter of a century in which he has known 
 the Panhandle all the agricultural development and industrial 
 changes have taken place there, for through all the ages dur- 
 ing which Northwest Texas had been a portion of the new 
 world continent its resources and its landscape features had 
 never experienced such development and mutation as they 
 have during the short time of white men’s occupation and 
 exploitation of this region. Mr. Hays has accordingly wit- 
 nessed all the important history of that section of the state, 
 and is one of the few men whose lot has been permanently 
 cast with the Panhandle since 1877. 
 
 Born in Warren County, Kentucky, Mr. Hays at the age 
 of two years was taken by his parents N. M. and Sarah 
 (Philipps) Hays, both native Kentuckians, to Jackson county, 
 Missouri, about twenty-five miles east of Kansas City and 
 later the family became pioneer settlers of Colorado in which 
 state the parents spent the remainder of their lives. Mr. 
 Hays became identified with the cattle industry in boyhood 
 and it has formed his principal and most profitable pursuit 
 throughout his active career. In 1871 he left the family 
 home in Colorado and went west, spending five years in 
 Nevada and California, during most of which time he was 
 a cow boy. 
 
 From the Pacific slope he came east to Texas. With his 
 brother-in-law Joe Morgan, he drove a bunch of Mexican 
 cattle from Corpus Christi, Texas, to the open range in the 
 Panhandle country. This was in 1877 and he has lived in 
 that part of the state ever since until the past five years, 
 when he took up his residence in San Antonio, having retired 
 
338 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 from active business. It makes him one of the old timers as 
 there are only a few now living there who were in the Pan- 
 handle as early as that. Up to 1902 his ranching opera- 
 tions were carried on mostly in Hemphill county, where for 
 a number of years he had the noted old Springer ranch. His 
 last ranch was located in the southeastern part of Lipscomb 
 county where he owned about thirty-five hundred acres of 
 land, his residence and ranch headquarters being three miles 
 south of Higgins. His ranch was known for its typical west- 
 ern hospitality as well as for progressive and enterprising 
 methods of operating which were everywhere in evidence, 
 Mr. Hays has been uniformly successful in the cattle busi- 
 ness and has attained a most satisfactory degree of prosperity. 
 He was one of the three owners comprising the Higgins Hard- 
 ware Co., which conducted the leading hardware store of 
 Lipscomb county 
 
 In numerous other affairs of public and business nature 
 he has exerted his influence, and he is a man of recognized 
 ability and integrity in whatever he undertakes. 
 
 Mr. Hays was married early in life to Miss Lon Turner of 
 Mills County, Iowa, and has one child, Mrs. L. C. Kelley of 
 Wichita, Kansas, who as Bonnie Hays attended the Mul- 
 holland school in San Antonio. In April, 1912, Mr. Hays 
 married Miss Bessie Long of San Antonio (formerly of 
 Owensboro, Kentucky) and for the past four years they have 
 lived in their home in Agarita Avenue, Beacon Hill, building 
 one of the first modern bungalows on that street. 
 
 THE PLATTE WAS LIKE A RIBBON IN THE SUNSHINE 
 
 By J. W. Jackson, Bartlett, Texas. 
 
 My father and mother, Jacob and Jane Jackson moved to 
 Texas and settled on Donahoe Creek in Bell county in Sep- 
 tember, 1851, when I was nine years old. I have two broth- 
 ers younger than myself who were cowmen, G. W. Jackson 
 of Cleo, Oklahoma, and J. D. Jackson of Alpine, Texas. 
 
 When I was a lad I chased rabbits and lizards, trapped 
 birds, fought the old ganders, rode the calves in the milk 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 339 
 
 N. L. WORD 
 
 PRES. TOM 
 
 JOE COTULLA 
 
 W. S. HALL 
 
340 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 pen, and went to the country schools when I could not find 
 an excuse to stay at home. When the Civil War came on 
 and took all of the able-bodied men, they left their cattle 
 and horses almost at the mercy of the world, so the old men 
 and boys tried to take care of the stock that was left. 
 That was when my hard work first began, for I was ex- 
 pected to do the work of a man. 
 
 My first long drive up the trail was in 1872, when we 
 trailed 2290 head of cattle from Tom Lane’s old ranch in 
 Milam county to Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. The old 
 trail drivers who were out that year can tell what heavy and 
 constant rains we had all through the spring and summer. 
 We had to swim all of the rivers and creeks, but I think we 
 had the best herd to cross water that was ever driven up the 
 trail. In our herd we had some three hundred old long-horn 
 steers, from ten to fifteen years old, which had been raised 
 in Little River and Brushy bottoms during the Civil War, 
 and when we gathered them they were almost as wild as 
 deer. There was a big bunch of these old steers that worked 
 in the lead of the herd, and when we came to a river or creek 
 that was swollen these old steers would walk right into the 
 muddy water and pull for the other side, the balance of the 
 herd following. 
 
 We had one little scrap with the Indians, but no one was 
 hurt. They killed one steer during the fight. 
 
 We crossed Smoky Hill River just a short distance above 
 the little town of Ellsworth, Kansas. The village was on the 
 north side of the river then, and when we arrived there the 
 river had been swollen by the heavy rains and looked to be 
 a mile wide and was very swift. We had to wait until it 
 ran down within its banks before we could cross. We se- 
 cured a small boat to take us across and had to make two 
 trips to get our stuff over. 
 
 We went from Ellsworth to Fort Kearney, Nebraska, and 
 struck the Platte River, traveling up this stream on the south 
 side for nearly four hundred miles, grazing the herd as we 
 went. The Platte River stretched across the country like a 
 ribbon in the sunshine. In some places it was a mile and a 
 quarter wide, and a fertile green valley reached back to the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 341 
 
 hills on either side, no shrubbery being visible anywhere ex- 
 cept a few big cottonwood trees. We found game here in 
 abundance, deer, antelope and buffalo, and I roped two buf- 
 falo on that trip, as well as killing several. 
 
 We delivered the cattle near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and 1 
 took the saddle horses and chuck wagon and started back 
 home over the same trail, reaching Bell county just before 
 Christmas, 1872. This ended my first long drive. 
 
 PUT UP FIVE HUNDRED STEERS TO SECURE THREE 
 HUNDRED DOLLARS 
 
 By E. L. Brounson, Sample, Texas. 
 
 1 was born September 14th, 1868, and have spent most 
 of my life in the cattle business. My father was wounded in 
 the Civil War, and became an invalid, so when I was twelve 
 years old I went to work on the range to help support our 
 family. I helped to clean the first pasture that was fenced 
 in our part of the country. This pasture belonged to Bob 
 Bennett and was rented by J. D. Houston, now deceased. 
 
 We moved to Cuero in 1875, at the time when the Tay- 
 lor-Sutton feud was in full sway. 
 
 In 1 883 I went to Goliad county with a thousand head 
 of cattle belonging to old man George Lord. There had 
 been a prolonged drouth in the upper country, and we heard 
 that there was a stretch of country comprising over fifty 
 thousand acres in Goliad county where the range was open 
 on Turkey Creek, so we drove these cattle there. We 
 were the first to reach there and found grass good and wa- 
 ter plentiful, but in a short time other cattle were moved in 
 and by the first of November there were fully 20,000 cat- 
 tle brought there to winter. It proved a hard winter, for 
 the range was eaten off and water got so scarce, the cattle 
 died by hundreds. There is where 1 first met Green David- 
 son, who was there looking after cattle. You may not be- 
 lieve it now, but I skinned cattle by his side all winter, and 
 will say he could take the hide off a cow just as quick as any 
 man you ever saw. I also met G. A. Ray there. He and 
 
342 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 his father put 700 two-year-old heifers on that range and 
 got back 240. In the spring of 1884 I hired to Mr. Ray for 
 $12 per month, and went home with him where I broke 
 horses, dug post holes and worked cattle until the spring of 
 1885, when I went out to Alpine, and on to the Rio Grande. 
 Here we were provided with mounts, eight horses for day 
 work and one gentle horse for night riding. These day 
 mounts were half-broke ponies and had been out on the 
 range about a year. We were given thirty-six shoes to put 
 on the nine horses and told to shoe them. I had never shod 
 a horse in my life, but went at it and guess I made a good 
 job of it for we used those horses right along and no one 
 ever made complaint about our work. Our boss was Gid 
 Guthrie, who died a few years ago at Alpine. We gathered 
 our herd on the Rio Grande and drove it across the plains 
 to Honeywell, Kansas. 
 
 In 1886 we drove a herd over the same trail for Lee 
 Kokernot of Gonzales, with Gid Guthrie as boss. That 
 same year we drove a herd belonging to George Miller of 
 the 101 Ranch, then on the Arkansas River in the Indian 
 Territory. When I got back home I had my wages in my 
 pocket, and I had two good horses, so began to buy a few 
 cattle for myself. At that time the country was open from 
 Cuero to Colorado, and by 1893 1 had accumulated a herd 
 of 500 or 600 head of cattle, and moved them to Bee 
 county, near Mineral City, where I rented the old Charlie 
 Fox pasture which I later disposed of with my cattle to 
 Kenedy, Clair & Wood for $ 14 per head. 
 
 My first attempt to borrow money was at a bank in Cuero 
 which had been in existence about a year. 1 wanted to bor- 
 row $300 which I needed to pay the lease on the pasture I 
 had rented and the president of the bank made me put up 
 500 two-year-old steers as security. 
 
 I went broke in 1903 at Elgin, Kansas, and have been 
 broke so many times since that 1 have no record of the 
 number. Passed through the drouth of 1917, and rented 
 a Johnson grass patch near San Antonio and let my cattle 
 graze the suburbs of that city. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 343 
 
 SOME INTERESTING THINGS SEEN ON THE 
 CATTLE TRAIL. 
 
 By John B. Conner, Yoakum, Texas. 
 
 I was on the trail in 1885 with the — X outfit for Lytle 
 & Stevens, who had six herds of 3000 head each and one 
 herd of 2000 head, the last mentioned herd being bossed 
 by A1 Jones, a negro. My boss was a white man named J. 
 G. Jones of Gonzales. Other bosses from Gonzales were 
 Arthur Johnson, W. W. Peavey, Milton Fly, and the well 
 known Mac Stewart was our pilot through the Panhandle. 
 I could go into detail and give some interesting accounts of 
 the drives 1 was in, but will confine my sketch to some of 
 the things of interest to me that I witnessed that year. 
 
 The first bad thunder storm I was in occurred on the 
 Salt Fork of Red River when 1 was on night herd with the 
 saddle horses. The lightning was continuous, so was the 
 thunder, which was most terrific. While the storm was 
 in progress the horses bunched together around me, stuck 
 their heads between their knees and moaned and groaned 
 till 1 became frightened and decided that the end of time 
 had come. I was only nineteen years old, and thought I 
 was as brave as any man, but the action of the horses was 
 too much for me, so 1 got down off my horse and lay flat 
 down on the ground and tried to die, but could not. The 
 storm passed on, and I found myself unhurt, so after that 
 fearful experience 1 did not mind other storms. 
 
 Another thing that interested me was the catching of 
 mustang horses in No Man’s Land. One day 1 ran across 
 a party of men in camp who were making the capturing of 
 these mustangs a business. They had several head tethered 
 nearby which they had just captured, and showed me a 
 large bunch standing about a mile away which they in- 
 formed me they had been running for seven days. These 
 men worked in relays or reliefs and kept the mustangs on 
 the go without permitting them to rest or get to watering 
 places. In the seven days three colts had died from ex- 
 haustion. The men told me they kept just in sight of 
 them to keep them on the run all day, and finally ran 
 
344 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 them down. The captured horses I saw there were all 
 beauties. 
 
 About sixty miles south of the Palo Duro River I saw 
 the first drift fence, which had been constructed to catch 
 drifting cattle during blizzards. This fence ran east and 
 west across the plains and served its purpose well, but oc- 
 casioned heavy losses in some instances. As I journeyed on 
 and when within about twenty miles of the Palo Duro, I 
 began to see dead cattle every few hundred yards, and the 
 nearer 1 approached to the river the carcasses seemed to 
 increase until I reached the river where there were literally 
 hundreds of dead cattle scattered around over the prairie. 
 
 1 was told by the round up men that these cattle had drifted 
 down to the drift fence where they almost perished for wa- 
 ter and when they came back to the river they drank so 
 much water it killed them. 
 
 We had 3000 head of the — X cattle in our herd and had 
 to make a three days’ drive without water to get to the river. 
 There were also two more herds of 2000 each of the JA 
 brand, bossed by Fly and Doak, following us, making 7000 
 head in all, and when we reached the Palo Duro River where 
 the old stage line from Dodge City to New Mexico crossed 
 the stream, we found about twenty outfits of round-up ranch 
 hands there with a lot of gathered cattle. 1 thought sure 
 we were going to have a general mix-up that night, for 1 
 never saw so many cattle in my life before, but we kept sep- 
 arated by lots of hard work and constant riding. We did 
 not drink the river water ourselves, but dug shallow pits 
 away from the river, let the water seep in and used that. 
 
 Sometimes the cowboys, when off herd, would have great 
 sport chasing antelope, but could not catch them. There was 
 a certain species of wolf in that region called a “swift,” of a 
 dark brown color, which we often tried to catch but they 
 were too swift for us. We often captured wild turkey gobblers 
 which had strayed out from the rivers to the level prairie. 
 When we jumped them they would fly a mile or two, then 
 we would run them down. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 345 
 
 UP THE TRAIL TO NORTHERN NEW MEXICO. 
 
 By L. A. Franks, of Pleasanton, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Guadalupe county, Texas, on the San Ge- 
 ronimo Creek, February 21, 1847. Moved to Atascosa coun- 
 ty in 1853. My father, Ben F. Franks being a cattleman 
 from his boyhood days, 1 was raised a cowboy from the 
 cradle up and spent my boyhood days in Atascosa county.. 
 My father having passed away in 1862, myself and brother 
 were left to take care of our mother and sisters. I worked 
 cattle and fought Indians for several years, and in 1867 I 
 settled on a ranch of my own in LaSalle county. Was mar- 
 ried in 1870 to Miss Caroline Chapman of Bell county. 
 After several years raising cattle I started up the trail with 
 my first herd in 1872 for G. W. Chapman and myself. I 
 left LaSalle county in March for the Wichita, Kansas, mar- 
 ket, and went by way of San Antonio, Austin and Fort Worth, 
 and straight on up the trail. We left with 1000 head of 
 steers and with plenty of water and grass we had a good trip 
 and lost only a small number of steers on the way, arriving 
 at the Wichita market in June. Returning to my ranch I 
 remained there until 1886 and started up the trail again for 
 Presnail, Withers & Co., this time for Northern New Mexixco. 
 1 left Presidio county in April and this trip was full of hard- 
 ships all the way out to Roswell, New Mexico. We went by 
 way of Alpine and Toyah and struck the Pecos River at 
 Hash Knife Ranch and the night we got there our herd stam- 
 peded early in the night and we did not get them checked 
 until early morning. Again at Toyah we had a stampede that 
 lasted all night and until sunrise the next morning and this 
 time we lost 22 head of steers. We went up the Pecos to 
 Seven Rivers and on up. Striking the Pecos again we fol- 
 lowed it as far as Roswell, New Mexico. We had a tough 
 time getting there, with no grass and no rain. We suffered 
 heavy losses all the way up the Pecos, pulling and digging 
 cattle out of bogs every day and losing some each day. We 
 were a dilapidated looking bunch, cattle, horses and men and 
 when we arrived within five miles of Roswell we had a glo- 
 rious rain and storm that made our trip the balance of the 
 way very good. We left the Pecos at Roswell and went up 
 
346 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 by old Fort Sumner, crossed over to the Canadian River 
 and by the old Bell Ranch, then went on up the Goodnight 
 trail through the mountains and reached the market in 
 July with 1600 head of steers out of the 2200 that we left 
 Presidio county with in April. This was my last trip up 
 the trail and I came back to Atascosa county and am still 
 here. 
 
 MADE SEVERAL TRIPS UP THE TRAIL. 
 
 By N. L. Word, Alice, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Noonan, Georgia, June 6, 1846, and came 
 to Texas when but a boy. Made my first trip up the trail in 
 1871 with my brother Charlie, who had 500 big steers, which 
 we placed in a herd of 500 more belonging to Emmet Rut- 
 ledge and John Scott, which made a herd of 1000, and we 
 started from Gonzales, drove them to Abilene, Kansas, and 
 sold the steers belonging to Rutledge and Scott, while Brother 
 Charlie drove our steers on to Omaha, Nebraska. 
 
 My next trip was with 1200 head of horses belonging to 
 D. R. Fant and myself. This was the first large bunch of 
 horses driven up the trail. As we disposed of these horses 
 at a good figure 1 took another herd of horses the next sea- 
 son, 900 head. We bought the first herd from Upshur 
 Brookin, Mike Carrigan and Tom Welder, and 1 purchased 
 the second herd from John Welder. 
 
 After that, the next year, I drove 2000 one and two-year- 
 old steers to Ogallala, Nebraska, and when we reached there 
 I put in 2000 more with the herd and drove to Sydney 
 Bridge, Nebraska, where I delivered half of them to D. R. 
 Fant, who owned them, the remaining 2000 were driven to 
 the 999 Ranch in Wyoming, where I delivered them to 
 parties who had contracted with Mr. Fant for them. 
 
 My next trip was with 2500 two-year-olds which were 
 taken to the R — S Ranch on Wolf Creek, Indian Territory, 
 and delivered to D. R. Fant, who had purchased the lease on 
 this ranch and had also purchased 4000 cattle with the lease. 
 Mr. Fant also bought the 17 — Ranch lease and cattle, 
 about 1500 head. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 347 
 
 I made a trip from Santa Rosa ranch with 2500 two-year- 
 old steers. I drove these for half the profit; the price Mr. 
 Fant put on them was $12 per head. I took them to Runnels 
 county and sold them to John Blocker, after the trail was 
 closed. 
 
 I have bought cattle all over the country from the Santa 
 Rosa Ranch to San Fernandez, Mexico, but during the past 
 few years my activities have been limited in this respect for 
 I have bought and shipped only a few. 1 bossed the Santa 
 Rosa ranch for D. R. Fant for eight years, and helped put 
 up many herds for him. 
 
 PROBABLY THE OLDEST FEEDER IN TEXAS. 
 
 By R. F. Sellers, Matthis, Texas. 
 
 My father, Robert Sellers, came to Texas in 1835, from 
 Tennessee and was one of the first men to build a log house 
 in LaGrange. He secured a headright of a league of land 
 in the lower part of Gonzales county, but did not think 
 enough of it to even go to see it. He was one of the num- 
 ber who went from LaGrange at Sam Houston’s call to hold 
 Gonzales from the invading Mexican army, but there were 
 not enough Texans to accomplish this task, so General Hous- 
 ton detailed him and a few others to keep the women and 
 children ahead of the Mexican army. 
 
 I was born in Fayette county in 1849. Father bought a 
 fine tract of land on the prairie on the east side of the Colo- 
 rado River, fourteen miles above Columbus, and moved there 
 in 1852, and when I was twenty-one years old he turned his 
 stock and farm over to me. 
 
 In 1871 1 made a trip up the trail to Newton, Kansas, 
 with Barnes & Seymour. We had several hundred old wild 
 steers in the herd that were from four to fifteen years old 
 which had been raised in the brush on the Sandies, and they 
 stampeded frequently, giving us a world of trouble. So right 
 there I gained a lot of experience in handling stampeded cat- 
 tle that has been worth a great deal to me in working with 
 cattle in the years that followed. We started this herd about 
 
348 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the 10th of May and reached Newton the 12th of August. 
 After we passed Fayette county there were but few settle- 
 ments, and when we got up near Red River we found it to be 
 a wild country. Almost every man we met carried two six- 
 shooters and a winchester for protection. When we passed 
 through the Indian Territory we had no trouble with the In- 
 dians, but they attempted to stampede our herd several 
 times. Two or three miles off the trail there were thou- 
 sands of buffalo, all the way to Kansas, but they were too 
 wild for us to get near them, and the only way to approach 
 near enough to kill the buffalo was to take advantage of the 
 wind and get on the wind side of them. Many men in those 
 days made it a business to kill and skin buffaloes for their 
 hides which they hauled into the forts and sold. On this 
 trip I saw seven head together that had been killed and 
 skinned. 
 
 There were a great many wild horses to be seen, but they 
 were also too wild for us to get very close to them. One 
 day a man nooned at our camp who told us that he had 
 made a great deal of money for several years capturing these 
 mustangs. He had erected pens at convenient distances into 
 which to run them. These pens were made of poles which 
 had been hauled from the river bottoms twenty-five to fifty 
 miles distant. In capturing these horses he told us that his 
 system was to keep right after them in a walk keeping up 
 the same gait day and night, never allowing them to ap- 
 proach a water hole or take time to graze, and in due time 
 he could drive them into his pens. He sold them to the 
 farmers in Kansas, as that country was just settling up. 
 
 I commenced feeding cattle in 1876. In 1882 we sold 
 our farm and I went into the cattle business, paying as high 
 as $22. So per head for my cattle. In 1884 the price had 
 declined to $5 a head, and I drove them to Colorado and sold 
 them. 
 
 In 1885 I put up a herd for Graham & Sisson of Colo- 
 rado, with the understanding that 1 was to buy and put in 
 with them if I wanted to do so. I gathered these cattle in 
 Lampasas and adjoining counties, and it was a very dry spring, 
 the worst that had been experienced in many years. There 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 349 
 
 was but little water on the trail from Lampasas to the Indian 
 Nation. We drove the herd to Baird City and shipped them 
 by way of Fort Worth up to Pease River. After we crossed 
 Red River we found but little water that our cattle would 
 drink, and we traveled at one time three days and nights 
 without water for them, but the morning of the fourth day 
 a heavy rain storm came upon us and filled all of the shal- 
 low holes in the ground with water and supplied our herd. 
 I never in my life saw cattle drink as much as that herd 
 drank. From there on we did not have difficulty in getting 
 water and grass, and made it to the Graham & Sissons 
 Ranch in Colorado with our cattle in fine shape. 
 
 1 suppose 1 am the oldest feeder in the state, as 1 com- 
 menced in 1876 and have missed only four or five winters 
 since that time. 1 have bought steers in every county from 
 Brown and Comanche to the coast, and have sold from $2.7 5 
 to $14.75. 
 
 THE SON OF A WELL KNOWN TRAIL DRIVER. 
 
 By Robert Farmer Jennings of San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 My parents are Robert J. and Dorcas Ann Jennings. I 
 was born September 30, 1881, in Guadalupe County, Texas, 
 and when 1 was three years of age my -parents moved to 
 Frio county, where they resided near Pearsall until I was 
 fifteen years old. The following three years I attended school 
 in San Antonio, after which I went to Childress county and 
 spent six months on the Shoe Nail Ranch, which belonged 
 to Swift & Company, meat packers, where I worked as a cow- 
 boy. My father at the time was manager of this ranch. In 
 July, 1899, I returned to South Texas and began to collect 
 a bunch of cattle of my own, and ranched in Dimmitt, La- 
 Salle and Zapata counties for the following five or six years, 
 during which time a drouth prevailed over the country and I 
 lost all of my accumulation of cattle. I went to Mexico in 
 1907 as manager of the Piedra Blanca Ranch and remained 
 there until April, 1909, then returned to Texas and began 
 handling cattle with my uncle, W. H. Jennings. From here 
 I went to Osage county, Oklahoma, and spent two seasons, 
 
350 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 again returning' to Texas to engage in buying and bringing 
 cattle out of Mexico. At the time of President Madero’s 
 assassination I was on General Trevino’s La Bahia Ranch to 
 buy cattle, but we could not agree on the price. General Tre- 
 vino sold several thousand head of his cattle to other parties 
 and lost the remainder entirely through being at enmity with 
 Carranza, who confiscated the Trevino cattle and had them 
 driven to Piedras Negras in great herds and killed for his sol- 
 diers. Out of 40,000 head General Trevino lost outright 
 probably 25,000. 
 
 I ranched in Texas until 1916, when some associates and 
 myself bought the majority interest in the Piedra Blanca Cat- 
 tle Company of Mexico cattle and I went to that ranch as 
 manager. I stayed there one year, but on account of having 
 no protection from the bandits that infested that region, we 
 sold these cattle and brought them to this side of the Rio 
 Grande into Texas. 1 returned to Atascosa county, where I 
 was interested in cattle, and have spent the remainder of the 
 intervening time in South Texas. 
 
 1 was married to Miss Ella Alberta Lowrey in December, 
 1917, and am now residing in San Antonio. 1 have cattle in- 
 terests in LaSalle and Dimmitt counties in connection with 
 W. H. and J. D. Jennings. 
 
 In September, 1919, 1 was elected secretary of the Old 
 Time Trail Drivers’ Association, which position I still hold. 
 Being the son of an old trail driver I complied with the re- 
 quest of Mr. George W. Saunders, the president, to give this 
 brief sketch of my life. 
 
 WHEN “LOUISIANA” CAME TO TEXAS. 
 
 By T. M. Turner, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 On August 9, 1869, I arrived at Goliad, from Louisiana. 
 At Richmond 1 overtook Bryant Reynolds and Leander But- 
 ler, who were on their way to Goliad, and accepted their 
 invitation to travel with them. I had come to Texas to be 
 a cowboy. During the Civil War I had served as a scout 
 in the Confederate Army, and had encountered some thrill- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 351 
 
 JERRY M. NANCE 
 
 JAMES GIBSON 
 
352 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ing experiences while acting in that capacity, but I always 
 wanted to be a cowboy, for it was a life that particularly ap- 
 pealed to me. 
 
 We traveled through the piney woods for two days, after 
 which we came to the prairie and here I encountered a young 
 Englishman named Johnson, under a live oak tree unsaddling 
 his horse. He had recently arrived from England and was 
 on his way to Rockport, but decided to accompany us. John- 
 son was a pretty green tenderfoot, like myself, and when he 
 found a jackrabbit he tried to catch him with a rope, think- 
 ing the rabbit was crippled because he ran off on three legs 
 and had a bump on one side of his tail. The last time I saw 
 that Englishman he was still running that rabbit. We arrived 
 at Ranee Taylor’s ranch, and next day I was engaged by Mr. 
 Taylor to build a corn crib. While at this work, B. F. 
 (Dock) Burris, a prominent stockman of Bee county, came 
 there and wanted to know if there was a chap on the ranch 
 who wanted work. Mr. Taylor told him he could probably 
 employ me, so we made a trade. He was to start me at 
 $12.50 per month and raise my wages as 1 made good. So 
 I started my cowboy life August 1 8, 1 869, on Goat Creek, 
 Goliad county, Texas, and began rounding up on Pettus Prai- 
 rie. When we threw the cattle together I thought we had all 
 the cattle in Texas there, and would have nothing to do the 
 following day. Dock Burris said to me, “Louisiana, you go 
 over to those mesquite trees and hold them as we cut them 
 out. If you need help I will send another hand to you.” I 
 did as I was told, and presently I heard Bryant Reynolds say- 
 ing, “Here she is, Dock,” and the reply, “All right, Bryant. 
 Wait until I can get there, for all hell can’t cut her out 
 alone.” They were talking about an old brindle cow, a 
 typical Texas longhorn with the bush of her tail cut off, 
 including three inches of the bone. She was coming in my 
 direction and Mr. Burris called to me, “Hold her up, Louisi- 
 ana, hold her up.” I did my best to stop her, but she had 
 her head set and turned down within a foot of the ground, 
 determined to go right on. One of the boys called out, 
 “Tail her, Louisiana, tail her,” and when I caught her tail 
 with both hands my horse went one way and Old Brindle 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 353 
 
 and I went another. The boys yelled with glee and shouted 
 to me to “stay with her.” Indeed I stayed, until Dock got 
 to me and said “turn her loose,” at the same time getting 
 in between me and that maddened old brindle cow. On our 
 way to the branding pen Mr. Burris and I were working the 
 tail end of the cows and calves. He had a pretty little brown 
 pony in the herd which he told me belonged to his son 
 Shannon, and said he did not permit the cowboys to ride it 
 for fear they would hurt his back, but as I was not much 
 larger than Shannon he would let me use the pony. He 
 staked the pony out that night so he would not be too full 
 of grass to run after the cattle the next day. When we had 
 everything arranged the next morning to make our start 
 Mr. Burris caught the pony by the right ear and told Bryant 
 to lay my saddle on him right easy. The little horse squat- 
 ted right near the ground as the saddle girth was being slowly 
 drawn tight, and when I mounted him, Mr. Burris let go of 
 his ear and threw his hat under the pony’s belly. Things be- 
 came interesting about this time, and I turned the reins loose 
 for 1 had to use both hands to hold to the horn of the sad- 
 dle. The boys yelled, “Stay with him, Louisiana,” and 1 
 stayed until the reins became entangled in his front feet and 
 from sheer exhaustion the little brown pony ceased pitching. 
 
 We branded about two hundred calves below the old mis- 
 sion at Goliad. It was my first experience in this line of 
 work, but when I saw the boys grab the yearlings by the 
 tail, jerk them down, run their tails between their hind legs 
 and yell, “Come on with the branding iron,” I thought it was 
 time for me to do likewise, so I caught one of the yearlings 
 by the tail and set back, when lo, she sent both hind feet 
 into my stomach and I landed on my back, and then it was 
 “twinkle, twinkle, little star- — what in hell is the matter 
 now?” This little motley faced heifer must have been Old 
 Brindle’s calf. 
 
 1 was sent to W. G. Butler’s Ranch in Karnes county and 
 drove big-jawed and crippled beeves from there to Rockport, 
 where they were killed for their hides and tallow, and the 
 meat fed to hogs. 
 
354 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 In March, 1870, we started a herd of beeves to Abilene, 
 Kansas. At Fort Worth, then a little cross-roads town, we 
 met two short-horn cowboys who were yelling and shooting, 
 and we came near having trouble with them, because they 
 turned our cattle back. Mr. Butler and I told them in a very 
 emphatic manner to strike a high ball to town, and they 
 struck it, and the last we saw of them was a streak of Fort 
 Worth dust. We had a fine time that year as everything was 
 in good condition and going smooth. In those days I thought 
 1 was a “sticker” with a bunch of cattle in sunshine, rain or 
 storm, but Pleas Butler could work all of the Karnes county 
 starch out of any other man in Texas. No man ever drove a 
 bunch of cattle up the trail any better than Pleas Butler. 
 
 PUT UP MANY HERDS FOR D. R. FANT. 
 
 By Thomas M. Hodges, Junction, Texas. 
 
 My father moved to Goliad county in 1838, and located 
 fifteen miles from Goliad, where I was born August 30, 
 1849. I grew to manhood here and worked on the range 
 until 1870, when I went up the trail with a herd belonging to 
 Barton Peck. On this trip we endured hardships of all de- 
 scriptions, stampedes, hailstorms, thunder and lightning, 
 trouble with Indians, and other things not to be mentioned. 
 However, we reached Dodge City, Kansas, in good shape, 
 sold the herd, and came back overland, bringing our horses 
 and wagons. 
 
 I am a brother-in-law to the late D. R. Fant, and for many 
 years helped to put up and start many herds up the trail for 
 him, but I made only one trip, and that was the one men- 
 tioned above. 
 
 My father moved several hundred cattle from Old Caney 
 to Goliad in 1838 and soon had the largest herd in that sec- 
 tion. He had a great deal of trouble with the Indians, for 
 they came down into our settlement almost every moon for 
 many years. They did not bother our cattle, only killing a 
 beef occasionally to eat, but they stole lots of horses and 
 killed quite a number of the settlers. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 355 
 
 I met George W. Saunders, the president of our organiza- 
 tion, in 1859, when his father settled near us in Goliad coun- 
 ty. We went to school together, worked cattle together, and 
 the ties of friendship that bind us have endured all these 
 years. The work that he is doing to perpetuate the record 
 of the men who helped to make Texas the great state that 
 she is today is characteristic of the “get up and do things” 
 manner of my good old friend. 
 
 I am now living at Junction, Kimble county, Texas, where 
 I am engaged in the hotel business. I have been a citizen 
 of this county for many years, came here when the popula- 
 tion of the county was much less than it is now, and have wit- 
 nessed wonderful development since 1 have been here. I 
 have raised a large family, most of my children having grown 
 to manhood and womanhood right here, and becoming useful 
 citizens. 
 
 WHEN GEORGE SAUNDERS MADE A BLUFF “STICK.” 
 
 By T. T. Hawkins, of Charlotte, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Guadalupe county, near Seguin, April 7th, 
 1859, and have spent practically all of my life on ranches. 
 I first went up the trail with a herd of horses, in 1879, 
 from Corpus Christi to Cherryville, Kansas. This was one 
 of the hardest trips I ever made. Our chuck wagon consisted 
 of a Mexican mule about fourteen hands high. The next 
 trip 1 made was in 1879, this time with a herd of two-year- 
 old steers owned by G. W. Littlefield, driven from the O’Con- 
 nor ranch near Victoria to Yellow House Canyon. This was 
 a very pleasant drive, and we had good grass and plenty of 
 water on the way. 
 
 The next year I went with a herd of 1800 cattle bossed 
 by Nat Jackson, going from Kyle, Texas, to Ogallala, Ne- 
 braska, where we delivered them to Col. Seth Maberry, after 
 which we drove from there to the Red Cloud Agency to sup- 
 ply a government contract. 
 
 The fourth trip was made in 1881 when I went from Tay- 
 lor, Texas, to Caldwell, Kansas, with a horse herd owned 
 by Kuykendall, Sauls & Burns, with John Burns as boss. 
 
356 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 During 1882 and 1883 I worked in the Panhandle of 
 Texas, but in 1884 1 went on the trail again with a horse 
 herd owned by H. G. Williams, and bossed by Bill Williams. 
 On this trip, somewhere in the vicinity of Abilene, Texas, we 
 came up with George W. Saunders’ outfit as they were going 
 up to Kansas. Here we had a stampede, our horses mixed 
 together, so we just let them stay together and drove them 
 from there to Dodge City. 
 
 On this trip several things took place that should be men- 
 tioned for the benefit of the readers of this book, for they 
 give a clear idea of some of the dangers that beset the men 
 who traveled the trail in those old days. When we reached 
 the Comanche reservation, the Indians demanded horses and 
 provisions from us. As George Saunders could talk Spanish 
 fluently, and was good at making a bluff stick, our outfit and 
 Carroll Mayfield’s outfit, which had overtaken us, decided to 
 appoint George to settle with the Indians as best he could. 
 Accordingly he accompanied the chiefs and some of the bucks 
 to a tepee and held a council with them. The old chief 
 could speak Spanish and when he learned that George was 
 familiar with his old raiding range he became quite friendly 
 and told him that he knew every trail on the Rio Grande 
 from Laredo to El Paso, knew all of the streams by name, 
 the Nueces, Llano River, Devil’s River, Guadalupe River, 
 Pecos River, the Concho and Colorado Rivers, besides many 
 creeks. He became very talkative, and going to a rude wil- 
 low basket he had in his wigwam he brought forth several 
 burrs which he said he had taken from cypress trees on the 
 head of the Guadalupe River. He told Mr. Saunders that 
 he had killed “heap white man” on his raids, but that he 
 was now “heap good Indian, no kill no man.” 
 
 Saunders offered to make settlement by giving them one 
 horse and some provisions, and the Indians seemed well 
 pleased with his offer. When we started our herd about 
 twenty young bucks riding on beautiful horses, came and 
 helped us swim the cattle across the Canadian River. A num- 
 ber of our horses bogged in the quicksand and had to be dug 
 out, which sport the Indians enjoyed immensely. They fell 
 right in with our boys and helped in every way they could to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 357 
 
 pull the horses out, and when this work was finished they 
 gave us an exhibition of their riding. Some of the bucks 
 would run by our crowd and invite us to lasso them. 
 
 Saunders finally decided to rope one of them, a tall young- 
 fellow who was mounted on a well trained horse, so getting 
 his lariat ready he awaited the coming of the Indian and as 
 he passed, laying flat on his horse, George threw the rope 
 and it encircled both horse and rider. The Indian’s horse 
 shied around a tree and the Indian and his horse and George 
 and his horse were all thrown heavily to the ground when 
 the rope tightened. The Indian was painfully injured, but 
 when we ran to their assistance we found no serious damage 
 had resulted, although it was a narrow escape for both of 
 the performers. The rope had been drawn so tight around 
 the Indian that it required .some time for him to get his lungs 
 in proper action. We thought the Indians would be of- 
 fended by the accident, but they laughed and guffawed over 
 it in great fashion, and we left them in fine spirits. 
 
 As we proceeded on our way we heard the Kiowas were 
 in an ugly mood, and the next day the old Chief, Bacon Rind, 
 and about 200 Kiowa bucks and squaws came to us and they, 
 too, demanded horses and provisions. We sent them to 
 Saunders, of course, for he had so successfully managed the 
 Comanches the day before we trusted him to handle these 
 Indians the same way. We told them Saunders was “heap 
 big boss,” and to talk to him. Saunders parleyed with them 
 for some time, finally telling them to come back the next 
 day.. They left grudgingly, and came back that evening, re- 
 newing their demands, so Saunders had all of the wagons 
 drawn up together, and offered the Indians a small amount 
 of flour, some sugar, coffee, bacon, prunes, beans and some 
 canned goods out of each wagon. All of this stuff was placed 
 where they could see just what he was offering to give them 
 to depart in peace, and he also told them two horses would 
 be given in addition to the provisions. Some of the Indians 
 seemed satisfied and were willing to accept the offer, but 
 others wanted more. In the band of Indians was a pock- 
 marked half-breed who had been the most insistent that more 
 be given them, and he finally got all of the bunch demanding 
 
358 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 more. Saunders finally lost patience with them and told 
 the cooks to put all of the stuff back in the wagons, and the 
 men to straddle their horses and start the herds. As George 
 mounted his horse and started off, the pock-marked half- 
 breed and a dozen bucks made a dash at him, and before he 
 realized what was happening they had grabbed him by the arms 
 and caught his horse by the bridle. He had drawn his pis- 
 tol but was unable to use it because of the vise-like grip that 
 held him. At the same time forty or fifty buffalo guns in 
 the hands of the Indians were leveled at his head, and for an 
 instant things looked bad. The half-breed, who spoke Eng- 
 lish fluently, was cursing and abusing Saunders, and telling 
 him they were going to kill him right there. The squaws had 
 all vanished, nobody knew where. Harry Hotchkiss and sev- 
 eral of the other boys, including three of Saunders Mexican 
 hands, ran to his assistance, and their bravery no doubt 
 saved his life. They leveled their pistols on the Indians, 
 the Mexicans in a rage screaming, “Dammy you, you killee 
 Meester George, me killee you.” This was a critical mo- 
 ment for George Saunders, but he kept his nerve, for he 
 realized that if there was one shot fired he would be a 
 “goner.” He talked to the Indians in every language except 
 Chinese, telling them they were making a serious mistake, and 
 that he would send to Fort Sill and get the soldiers to come 
 and protect him. This talk had the desired effect, and they 
 lowered their guns and departed without any provisions, al- 
 though Saunders gave them a stray horse in our herd which I 
 think belonged to the Comanches. The Indians were in an ugly 
 mood when they left, the pock-marked Indian swearing ven- 
 geance and saying, as he rode away, “We will come back and 
 take all we want from you when the sun comes up.” 
 
 While parleying with the Indians Saunders offered to give 
 them orders for provisions on men behind, who he told them 
 were rich men and would gladly give them cattle, horses and 
 money, naming Bell, Butler, John Blocker, Jim Dobie, Forest, 
 Clark, King, Kennedy, Coleman, O’Connor and many other 
 prominent trail men of that time. But the Indians said, “All 
 no good. Pryor man give order last year, no good.” Saun- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 359 
 
 ders was worried and told us we had given him a h — 1 of a 
 job, but he was going to play it strong. 
 
 That night Saunders put on only two reliefs, some of them 
 to hold the herd and the others to reconnoiter and give the 
 alarm at the first sign of Indians. He told all of the boys 
 to get their shooting irons in good shape, for there was like- 
 ly to be trouble. 
 
 The Indians did not molest us during the night, and early 
 next morning Mr. Saunders told us they would probably show 
 up in a little while and he gave us instructions as to what to 
 do. He told us to congregate behind his herd when the In- 
 dians appeared, keep in line and not mix with the Indians, 
 for in case of a fight we should not run the risk of shooting 
 some of our own men. We were to keep cool while he was 
 parleying with the Indians, and if he saw that a fight could 
 not be avoided he would give a keen cowboy yell as a sig- 
 nal, and every man was to act. 
 
 Just after sunrise we saw the Indians coming across the 
 plain, in single file and in full war garb, headed by two chiefs, 
 Bacon Rind and Sundown, and the pock-marked half-breed. 
 The Indians came right up to us, and as they were approach- 
 ing Saunders said, “Remember, boys, we must win the 
 fight. If I give the signal each of you must kill an Indian, so 
 don’t make a miss.” They looked hideous in the war garb, 
 and as they rushed up one of the chiefs said, “How Big Chief 
 Bad Man, no give poor Indian horse or grub. Indian take 
 um.” Saunders told them they would get nothing. They 
 began to point out horses in the herd which they said they 
 were going to take, and George informed them that he 
 would shoot the first Indian that rode into the herd. The 
 pock-marked Indian held a short whispered conversation with 
 the two chiefs and started towards Saunders, seeing which, 
 the boys, who were already on their mettle and tired of 
 waiting for the signal, began pulling their guns, and the In- 
 dians weakened. They instantly saw that we were determined 
 to give them a fight, and withdrew. Saunders had to do 
 some lively talking then to hold our crowd back. There 
 were about thirty-five men in our bunch, including the cooks 
 and wranglers, and the Indians numbered about two hun- 
 
360 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 dred warriors. As they left, the pock-marked half-breed 
 showed the white feather, and Saunders called him all the 
 coward names in the Indian, Spanish and English language 
 that he knew, but the rascal knew he had lost and his bluff 
 was called. In resentment the Indians went to Neal Mane- 
 well’s herd, which was nearby, and shot down ten beeves. 
 Saunders and several of our boys went over to the herd and 
 offered assistance to the boss, Mr. Cato, but he said they 
 were too late to save the beeves, and it was best to let the 
 Indians alone, as we could all drive out of their reservation 
 that day. We pointed our herd up the trail and had no 
 further trouble with them. 
 
 That pock-marked Indian was known to most of the old 
 trail drivers. He was an outlaw and thief, and was regarded as 
 a desperate character all around. I learned that he was killed 
 by a cowboy in 1886. George Saunders had lots of expe- 
 rience in dealing with Indians during those days, and he often 
 told me that when he made a bold bluff, if it did not 
 stick he was always ready to back it up with firearms or 
 fast talking. 
 
 In 1885 and 1886 I carried herds for H. G. Williams from 
 Kyle, Texas, to Arkansas City, and made my last drive in 
 1886 when I delivered a herd to Miles Williams at Abilene, 
 Texas. I have been in the cow business ever since, the 
 greater part of the time associated with H. G. Williams. 
 
 How dear to my heart are the scenes of my trailhood, 
 When fond recollection presents them to view — 
 
 The water-barrell, the old chuck wagon, 
 
 And the cook who called me to chew. 
 
 THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS IS DRYING UP. 
 
 By George F. Hindes, Pearsall, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Alabama in September, 1844. My first ex- 
 perience as trail driver was in the fall of 1856, at the age 
 of twelve years. 1 was put in charge of a small herd of 
 breeding cattle in Caldwell county, Texas, by my father and 
 we started west. We drove through San Antonio, down Main 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 361 
 
 street and out South Flores street.. When the Civil War 
 broke out in 1861, we had quite a nice little herd of gentle 
 breeding cattle, as well as a good bunch of horse stock that 
 I had caught from the mustangs or wild horses that were 
 plentiful on the range on the Frio and Nueces Rivers at that 
 time; but when the war closed, or broke up, and I got out 
 of the army in the spring of 1865, our stock of cattle and 
 horses were all stolen or scattered to the four winds, so we 
 were all “broke” again. In the meantime I had met the 
 finest little girl in the world, and felt that the game of life 
 would not be worth the candle without her, and when I men- 
 tioned the subject to her, to my surprise she told me that 
 there would be no trouble about it as I was in good standing 
 with her papa, but when I told her I was “broke,” she merely 
 laughed and said, “everybody was broke,” and that she would 
 help me, so we married and she is still helping me to this 
 good hour — over a period of fifty-five years. After we were 
 married in the spring of 1865, the Indians killed my father 
 at his home on the Frio in McMullen county, in August 1865, 
 so my mother, four sisters and one little brother were left for 
 us to care for. During the reconstruction times we had all 
 kinds of trouble on the border with the Indians, Mexicans, 
 thieves and outlaws, too bad to write about, and would not 
 be believed anyway (ask my friend Ed. English if it was a 
 Sunday school picnic), so better be it forgotten. By hard 
 work and close economy, I had got together fifteen hundred 
 head of good mixed cattle by the spring of 1872, and start- 
 ed up the trail in March for my first trip. 
 
 I was herd-boss, had a yoke of oxen, mess cart, one negro 
 and eight Mexicans with me on that trip, but of the crowd 
 only myself and the negro, Jack Hopkins, are now living to 
 tell the tale. As a boy, 1 had always wanted a good mount, 
 was ambitious to ride good horses and have the best rifle, 
 and as a married man I was anxious to have $10,000 in 
 money in the clear. When I returned home in the fall, I 
 had $15,000 in cash and $10,000 life insurance in favor of 
 my wife and babies, and felt that I was “some” financier, as 
 that was the first real money 1 had ever had, and it was all 
 our own. I started my herd from the San Miguel in Atascosa 
 
362 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 county, and as I traveled the well defined trail nothing of 
 interest happened until I got to Red River Station on the 
 Red River. There 1 found the river big swimming, and as 
 another herd was close behind me I could not turn back, so 
 I asked my men if they would follow the herd across, and 
 they said they would, so I spurred “old Dun” into the river 
 and swam across with my lead cattle following close behind 
 and all landed in safety, but 1 did not want any more of it, 
 as the river was wide, muddy and swift. I had carried three 
 herds across the Rio Grande before that successfully, but this 
 was the worst ever. We moved along slowly through the 
 territory trying to fatten our stock on the fine range, but we 
 had so many thunder storms, hard rains and stampedes we 
 did not make much progress. Ask Bob Ragsdale about it. 
 When we got within eighty or one hundred miles of Cald- 
 well on the Kansas line, we butted into the Osage tribe, who 
 demanded a good beef out of each and every herd passing 
 their camp. About fifty of their ugliest bucks came to my 
 camp where we were making dinner and took time to eat up 
 everything the cook had and then made their wants known, 
 and I said certainly I had one for them and asked their chief 
 spokesman to please pick it out, as I was in a hurry, and at 
 the same time told my men to “hookup” and move out, and 
 they were ready to go. So the chief picked out a high 
 grade steer, very fat about a fifteen hundred pounder and 
 was about to shoot him, when 1 tried to explain that he was 
 a favorite of mine, but it was no use, as they thought that 
 that would make no difference. I think a dozen of them 
 shot him at once and killed him before I could say “scat.” 
 In less than ten minutes they had him skinned, cut up and 
 packed on ponies and were gone to their camp. My friend, 
 Mr. John Redus, with whom 1 had been traveling and who 
 was camped close by, seeing what they were doing to me, 
 had thrown his herd on the trail and was pushing them along 
 pretty lively, when my men got my herd straightened out on 
 the trail four or five hundred yards behind Redus’ herd. By 
 that time the Indians were coming like black birds. I think 
 they were one hundred strong, all well mounted and well 
 armed with guns, pistols, bows and arrows. They were ex- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 363 
 
 SAM GARNER 
 
364 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ceptionally friendly with me, and uncomfortably sociable, 
 showing a great deal of the bull dog familiarity which I 
 could not enjoy. They did not ask me for anything more, 
 only invited me to their camp and told me all about their 
 many squaws and babies, but I took their word for that. 
 When they called on friend Redus for a beef, they disagreed 
 with him when he offered them a crippled steer, but a good 
 one in fair flesh, so they all bunched up between our herd 
 for a council of war and in a few minutes 1 saw them load 
 their guns, string their bows and a hundred of them ran 
 full drive into his herd, shooting and yelling the regular 
 war-whoop, scattering his herd of about one thousand good 
 beeves to the winds, killing a hundred or more right there 
 on the prairie in sight. When the smoke and dust cleared 
 away all he had left was his men and horses, and about two 
 hundred and fifty head of beeves that ran into my herd, 
 where the Indians did not follow them. Mr. Redus brought 
 suit against the government for the beeves; lost it, and I was 
 a witness for him for some twenty years. We hurried up 
 from there until we got into Kansas and on to Wichita on 
 the Arkansas River. 1 think Redus’ claim was finally paid, 
 but not in full. 
 
 I handled cattle up the trail several years after that and 
 delivered twenty-five hundred head to Messrs. Hackney and 
 Dowling up at Chugwater above Cheyenne, Wyoming. Al- 
 ways made a little money, but never bossed another herd 
 through from start to finish after 1872. I know the game, 
 and I know if a man made good at it he had two or three 
 months of strenuous life. 
 
 The Texas pioneers and old trail drivers are fast passing 
 away, and will soon be only a memory, but that memory is 
 dear to my heart, and when they are gone the world will 
 never know another bunch like them, for the milk of hu- 
 man kindness is drying up, and the latch string is being- 
 pulled inside. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 365 
 
 TOOK TIME TO VISIT HIS SWEETHEART. 
 
 By H. C. Williams, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 I was born on a stock ranch in Refugio county in 1856, 
 and spent most of my life working with cattle. In those early 
 days people lived on cornbread, beef, milk, butter and cof- 
 fee, about the only store-bought articles being coffee and 
 sugar, and not much of that. I helped to gather and drive 
 cattle to Rockport for W. S. Hall in 1869, and for several 
 years thereafter. In 1872 I drove a herd to that place for 
 George W. Saunders, who is now the president of our Trail 
 Drivers’ Association. George was a good boss and a hard 
 worker. He was also a lover of fine clothes and pretty 
 girls, and one day while we were near Williams Reeves’ ranch 
 four miles above Refugio, George had us to stop the herd 
 and make camp so he could call on his sweetheart, Miss 
 Rachel Reeves. We had plenty of time to reach a good stock 
 pen six miles further on, but he was so anxious to see his 
 girl that he held us there. George later married Miss Reeves 
 in 1884. I have known Mr. Saunders all of my life and 
 know he will “stand hitched” any place on earth. He never 
 forgets a friend. 
 
 I worked stock in all the coast counties, and knew all of 
 the old timers in that region. In 1880 I went to Kansas and 
 drove a drag herd with pack horses from Caldwell county, 
 Texas. 
 
 In 1874 I built seven miles of barbed wire fence for W. 
 E. and Tom McCampbell of Rockport, it being the first 
 barbed wire fence in San Patricio county. 
 
 I am now living in Bexar county on a farm and ranch 
 and can ride all day and do any kind of farm or ranch work. 
 My father was a well known stockman in the early days and 
 was known as “Uncle Boiling” Williams. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE TRAIL 
 
 By Jasper (Bob) Lauderdale. 
 
 I was born near Belton, Bell county, Texas, August 17, 
 1854. My parents moved to Belton in 1849 from Neosho 
 county, Missouri, coming in by ox wagon, then moved to 
 
366 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Gonzales where, after remaining a short time, they returned 
 to Belton and maintained the stage stand until 1 8 5 1 , when 
 all earthly possessions were wiped out by a flood. My par- 
 ents both died when I was young and I was raised by Uncle 
 Alex Hodge until I came to Atascosa county in 1873. Dur- 
 ing my early boyhood in Bell county I rode the range and 
 helped with herding and branding cattle, enjoying the expe- 
 riences of the then early conditions existing in Texas, one 
 of which caused so much amusement that I am going to 
 recite it here. 
 
 One day a Mr. Isabell came traveling through the coun- 
 try trading eight day clocks for cattle, giving one clock for 
 four cows and calves, and as no one had a clock it did not 
 take Isabell long to gather a herd. One of the settlers, with 
 whom he traded, took his clock home and after winding it 
 set it on the mantle and when the family gathered round 
 after supper, the clock struck eight. It scared the family 
 so that they scattered, thinking it was something suppernat- 
 ural, and it took the old man until nearly midnight to get 
 them together and in the house. I helped Isabell drive 
 his cattle as far as Comanche Springs on his way to Fort 
 Worth and returned to the range, remaining until 1872, when 
 with Isaiah Mock, Hoffman and Moore we drove a herd of 
 cattle to Alexandria, La., with W. C. Wright, who loaded 
 them on boats for New Orleans, then we returned home. Dur- 
 ing the fall we branded “Mavericks” and put up trail herds 
 and in the spring of 1873 Olley Treadwell came through with 
 a herd for Kansas belonging to Sim Holstein of Gonzales. 
 Bob Allen and I hired to Treadwell and went to Wichita, Kan- 
 sas, this being my first trip over the Chisholm trail, with 
 nothing unusual or exciting except we saw some buffalo. 
 
 At Wichita during the summer, Bud Chapman, Bud Hilder- 
 brandt, Bill Bennett and I helped “Shanghai” Pierce cut and 
 load a train of steers for the market at St. Louis. This was 
 the first bunch of cattle I ever saw loaded on cars. 
 
 In the fall of 1873 I went to work on the range for Bill 
 Fountain and we gathered and drove 200 head to W. B. G. 
 Grimes’ slaughter house on the coast, near Powder Horn 
 where they were slaughtered for their hides and tallow. On 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 367 
 
 our return we gathered a herd of 25o cattle and drove them 
 to Harrisburg, then five miles from Houston and on this 
 trip 1 led the pack horse and cooked for the outfit. I then 
 went with Bud Chapman to Fort Ewell where we gathered 
 cattle and brought them back to his ranch and in the spring 
 of 1874 started 3000 head up the trail, going as far as the 
 Salado with them. Upon returning I worked for “Billy” 
 Childress, John Slaughter and Mrs. O’Brien. In the spring 
 of 1875 three Mexicans and I were herding 400 head of cat- 
 tle near Carrizo Springs, Texas, when Lem English and Len 
 Hay, two boys, who were playing close by discovered a bunch 
 of Indians. The children ran to the house and gave the 
 alarm and Ed English came out and helped us put the cattle 
 in his pen and we stood guard all night, although the In- 
 dians did not attack us as they had previously had a taste of 
 old English’s rifle. On their way out the Indians killed one 
 of Ed’s sheep herders. 
 
 In the spring of 1876, Dick Horn, Jack McCurley and I, 
 with some Mexican hands, gathered and delivered by Billy 
 Childress and John Slaughter, to Bill Dougherty two herds of 
 about 5000 head at Indian Bend Ranch. In the fall of 1876 
 I went to Runnels county and took charge of a herd for J. 
 W. Murphy and George Hindes and wintered on Elm Creek, 
 above where the city of Ballinger now stands, and the follow- 
 ing spring drove them to Dodge City, Kansas. 
 
 On the trip I saw old Sitting Bull and about 1200 of his 
 bucks and squaws in charge of Government troops; these 
 were the Cheyenne and Sioux Indians who had massacred 
 General Custer and his men and were being taken 
 to Fort Reno. There were about 2000 horses taken with 
 the Indians. The troops had 100 pack mules so well trained 
 that you could not make them break line; they moved in 
 single file and were taught this to enable them to travel 
 through the mountains. The Indians were traveling in their 
 usual way, poles tied to the necks of ponies like shafts in a 
 buggy, but much longer and in willow baskets lashed to these 
 poles the old bucks and squaws rode who were too old to 
 ride horseback — their tepees and supplies were also carried 
 in this manner. Squaws with their papooses strapped to 
 
368 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 their backs rode bareback, and in passing through their camp 
 I saw one old buck dressed in moccasins, breech clout, a frock 
 tail coat and an old-fashioned preacher’s hat. 
 
 Upon my return from Kansas in 1877 I went to a point 
 near Oakville and received a herd of cattle for Lewis & 
 Bluntzer and drove them to Saddle Creek, near the mouth of 
 the Concho, where it empties into the Colorado, at a point 
 near where Paint Rock now stands. Shortly after I left, 
 the horse wrangler. Lebora Chappa, who had remained with 
 Joe Reame, was killed near Salt Gap by the Indians. 
 
 In November, 1877, George Hindes, Volley Oden and I 
 took an outfit to Laredo and bought and received a herd of 
 cattle on the Gonzales and Ambrosia Rodriguez ranches and 
 returned to the La Parita Ranch in Atascosa county on Christ- 
 mas day 1877, then road-branded and in the spring of 1878 
 started up the trail. On the trail with me was Joe Collins 
 with his herd and a herd of Bill Dewees in charge of Joe 
 Eggle and when crossing the North Fork of Red River, at the 
 foot of the Wichita mountains, Joe Collins’ cook was killed 
 by a Mexican, whom we were unable to capture. We rolled 
 the cook in his blanket and dug his grave with an axe, and 
 a broken handled spade, the only implements at hand. On 
 the Mobeetie road crossing at the North Fork of the Red 
 River near Fort Sill the Indians, Cheyennes and Sioux, were 
 holding a medicine dance and afterward went on the war 
 path; they killed Tuttle & Chapman’s cook, took 35 head 
 of horses on Crooked Creek near where 1 had camped,, shot 
 Foreman Rainey’s horse. and headed for the Bad Lands of the 
 Dakotas. 
 
 We reached the H. & D. ranch on September 7th, 1878, 
 and remained there until the cattle were ranch branded and 
 returned to Cheyenne and then to Denver by train. 
 
 In the spring of 1879 I started for Dodge City with a herd 
 for John Camp and a little above San Antonio our oxen gave 
 out, requiring us to use Mexican “stags” with Mexican yokes 
 to Dodge City. In the Fall and Winter of 1879, C. F. Car- 
 roll and I made several trips down the Rio Grande below La- 
 redo and bought cattle from the Tortilla Ranch in Mexico and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 369 
 
 from Pedro Flores, Juan Benavidas, Jesus Pena and others 
 for Camp, Rosser and Carroll. 
 
 In the spring of 1880, Carroll and I started to Kansas and 
 at Bandera we threw our herds together because several of 
 Carroll’s hands quit him and 1 drove the combined herds to 
 Ogallala and delivered them to Charles and Joe Shiner, who 
 then sold 1000 head of two year olds, steers and heifers, to 
 Billy Campbell and I drove this lot to Pine Bluff, Wyo., turn- 
 ing them over to Campbell’s men. In the spring of 1 88 1, I 
 took a herd of three and four year olds for Mitchell & Press- 
 nail to Ogallala and turned the big steers over to Seth Ma- 
 berry and then shaped up another herd of 2500 one and two 
 year old steers and 1000 one and two year old heifers out 
 of the Mitchell, Pressnall and Ellison herds and went to 
 Crazy Woman Fork of Powder River at the foot of Big Horn 
 Mountains and delivered them to Stoddard, Latman & How- 
 ard. 
 
 Returning in 1881, I worked my own cattle until 1884 
 and that year shipped to Dryden on the Southern Pacific. 
 In 1885 I traded with John Camp and the Pecos Land & 
 Cattle Co., and “hit” the trail again. 
 
 John Doak, Dan Franks and I gathered a herd and sold 
 out to Zook & Odem and I went to Independence Ranch in 
 Pecos county and turned them over to Bill Alley. Returning 
 home in 1886 with Jess Presnail, I went to Fort Stockton and 
 gathered a herd, drove up the Pecos to Fort Sumner and re- 
 mained six weeks cutting out steers, then drove to Las Ve- 
 gas and loaded them for Cheyenne, Wyo., and upon my re- 
 turn to Fort Sumner I took the balance of the herd, 1000 one 
 and two year old heifers, to Grant, New Mexico, and de- 
 livered to a Kansas City outfit. On this trip with me were 
 Clem Crump, Sharp,, Bob Gould, Henry Ritterman, Theo 
 Leonard, Rainey, Jack Brown and Jim Matthews. Leaving 
 Fort Sumner with the herd for Grant we traveled up Yoss 
 Creek (Isinglass) Seven Lakes, Pena Wells, Pinta de Agua 
 Lake, and Canyon de Agua, struck the Rio Grande at La 
 Jolla, crossed the river, and came out by the Rancho Rita 
 Coloral, struck the Indian Reservation at Querrian and up the 
 St. Jose River and delivered the cattle, returning to Albu- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 3 70 
 
 querque. Pressnall, Matthews and I went to El Paso and 
 San Antonio. 
 
 In 1887 I went to Fort Stockton and spent the year brand- 
 ing and tallying cattle for the Union Beef Company, returned 
 to Pleasanton and in the spring of 1888 went back and fin- 
 ished receiving between 14,000 and 1 5,000 head for this 
 company, and 7,000 calves were branded during this period 
 that were included without cost. 
 
 In 1889 I drove a herd from the McDaniel pasture at Lytle 
 for Jesse Pressnall and John Lytle to Trail City, Colorado, 
 and delivered them to John Blocker, who drove them North. 
 This was my last trip over the old “cattle trail.” 
 
 On the trail from San Antonio our watering places were 
 at Leon Springs, Cibolo, at Boerne, the Guadalupe at Com- 
 fort, Goat Creek, Devil’s River, James River, Llano, San 
 Saba, Calf Creek, Brady, Cow Creek, Elm, Colorado, Bull 
 Creek, Holmes Creek, Red Bank, Hord’s Creek at Coleman 
 City, Jim Ned, Pecan Bayou, Burnt Creek, Deep Creek at 
 Callahan City, Mexia, South Hubbard, North Hubbard at Al- 
 bany, Clear Fork at Brazos at Fort Griffin, Elm Creek near 
 Throckmorton, Millett Creek and Brazos at Millet Ranch, Pony 
 Creek, Wichita, Beaver, Paradise, Pease River and crossed 
 Red River at Doan’s Store, which, in 1877, consisted of 
 three buffalo hides and a wagon sheet, then up the North 
 Fork of Red River, crossed Croton Creek, crossed the North 
 Fork at Wichita Mountains, up the North Fork of Red to 
 Old Indian Camp, Elk Creek, Cash Creek at its head, Wash- 
 ita, Canadian, Sand Creek, Wolf Creek, Otter, Beaver, Buf- 
 falo, Wild Horse and the Cimarron where “Red” Clark con- 
 ducted a road house called the “Long Horn Round Up” and 
 on the opposite side was old Julia’s “Dead Fall”; thence up 
 Bear Creek to near its head and crossed Bluff Creek at Mai- 
 ley’s road house, Mulberry Creek within sight of Dodge City. 
 From Dodge City to Ogallala we watered at Duck Creek, 
 Saw Log, Buckner’s, Pony Creek, Pawnee, Smokey, Saline at 
 Buffalo, Kansas, the South and North Solomon, South and 
 North Sappy, Beaver, Driftwood, Republican, Frenchman, 
 Stinking Water, to Ogallala on the South Platte, up the 
 South Platte to Chug Water by Big Springs, Julesburg up 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 371 
 
 Pole Creek to Syndey, Pine Bluff, Horse Creek and to Chug 
 Water. 
 
 Among those who traveled with me on the trail and whom 
 I met in Kansas were: Eli Baggett, Eli Williams, John Mer- 
 ritt, Tom Christian and Doc Day, Littlefield and Dilworth, 
 Tom Mayhorn, Geo. Hodges, Jess McCoy, Joe Murray, Dunn 
 and Bob Houston, Ab Denmark, Matt Patten, Sam Tate, Bill 
 Colley, Dick Dismuke, Jim Tally,, Gordon McGriffin, Uncle 
 Jim Ellison, Alonzo Millett, Captain Millett, Hy. Millett, Bill 
 Jackman, Mark Withers, Alex Magee, Dick Withers, Monroe 
 Hardeman, Bob Jennings, John, Bill and Ab Blocker, Jenks 
 Blocker, Henry Maley, Geo. Saunders, Dick Crew, John Lit- 
 tle, Geo. Hill, Joe Crouch, Ben Gilman, Charles, Henry, Mike 
 and Joe Shiner, Geo. Burrows, Dick Edwards, Rufe Walker, 
 John Doak, Jim Currey, Will Peacock, Waddy Peacock, Jim 
 Matthews, Bob Savage, Doc Rabb, Bud Chapman, Solomon 
 Tuttle, Bud and Tobe Driskill, Dal, Cell, Till and Jess Dris- 
 kill, Hy. Patterson, Kingsbury and Holmesly, John Good, Mont 
 Woodward, Lou O’Shea, Steve Birchfield, Bill Birchfield, Geo. 
 Arnett, Gus Black, Billy Henson, Ace Cutcherfield, Bill Lytle, 
 Finis Bates, Jeff Woodley, Joe Glenn, Jim and Charley 
 Boyce, Noah Ellis, Mack Stewart, Walter Polley, Jim Dobie, 
 Dillard Fant, Sam Glenn, Wallace Fant, Levi Anderson, A1 
 and Dave Hughes, Henry Griffin, Jerry Ellis, “Black Bill” 
 Montgomery, Doc Burnett, John Gamel, Billy Childress, 
 John Slaughter, Joe Matthews, Meyer Halff, Bill Butler, Lott 
 and Virgil Johnson, Everett and Willie Johnson, Tom New- 
 ton, Bill Waugh, Mose Stephenson, Henry Yegge, Henry 
 Earnest, Ike, Sol and George West, Allen Harris, Jesse Ev- 
 ans, John and Jim Kenedy, Ira Word, John Morrow, John 
 Frazier, Sam Wilson, Ben and Bill Choate, Nat Word, Geo. 
 Reno, Sebe Jones, John Dolan, Bill Murchison, Jim 
 Rowden, Bill Perryman, Jim Reed, Tom Merrill, Uncle Henry 
 Stephens, Jake DePoyster, Cal Mayfield, Col. Risinger, Jack 
 Morris, Willie O’Brien, Bill and Campbell Fountain, Ike Hill, 
 “Als” Franks, Coleman (Uncle Coley) Lyons, Bob Rags- 
 dale, C. H. Tardy, Nat Haynes, Bob Turner, “Eb” Stewart, 
 Wash Mitchell, Jim Townsend, Bob Miller, Clint Lewis, Perry 
 Thompson, “Uncle” Ed Lyons, Joe Cotulla, Sam Camp, W. 
 
372 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 S. (Bill) Hall, Less Harris, Bill Irvin, Lee Trimble, Ben Bor- 
 roum. 
 
 In 1908 I drove the last big - herd to San Antonio, 1300 
 head for D. & A. Oppenheimer, and delivered them to Tom 
 Coleman at his feed pens. Dan kicked about driving so 
 many in one herd and only a few years before he would not 
 think of starting on a drive with only 1300 cattle. 
 
 FROM TEXAS TO THE OREGON LINE. 
 
 By W. A. Peril, Harper, Texas 
 
 I was born in Benton county, Mo., in 1845, and moved to 
 Burnet county, Texas, with my parents in 1858, where we 
 resided until 1 86 1 , when we moved to Gillespie county, 
 with a small bunch of cattle which my father had bought 
 in Milam county. 
 
 In 1862 I went with a party and bought a herd of cattle 
 from the Toutout Beauregard Ranch, forty miles below San 
 Antonio, which we drove to Gillespie county, camping at 
 Powder House Hill on our way up. 
 
 In 1864 I went down into Mexico with a herd, going by 
 way of Fort McKavett, passing near the head of the South 
 Concho River, by way of Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos, 
 to old Fort Stockton, on to Presidio del Norte on the Rio 
 Grande in Mexico. 
 
 In 1868 I went with W. C. Lewis with a herd of beeves for 
 the government, to be delivered at old Fort Hudson on 
 Devil’s River. We went by way of Kerrville, Bandera, Uvalde, 
 Fort Clark and San Felipe Springs (Del Rio.) 
 
 In 1869, George T. Dorris & Son of St. Louis, and Felix 
 Dorris of Montana, contracted with W. C. Lewis of Freder- 
 icksburg, and Pleas Oatman of San Antonio, for 1700 head 
 of beeves and 150 stock cattle to be delivered to them at 
 Salado Springs in Bell county, and I was employed to help 
 make the delivery in four herds. Lewis took one herd from 
 Crabapple Creek in Gillespie; I took one herd from near 
 Loyal Valley; Old Man Hoerster took one from Mason, and 
 John Oatman one from Llano. They were all old wild 
 longhorns, from five to fifteen years old, and we had to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 373 
 
 brand them on the horns and saw off the point of the left 
 horn when we delivered them. The Dorris Company then 
 hired me to go to Montana with the herd, and we went by 
 Belton, Waco, Cleburne, Fort Worth, Gainesville, Fort Ar- 
 buckle, east of Wichita to Abilene, Kansas. We had to swim 
 all the rivers from the Brazos to the Republican. We had a 
 boat on one of our wagons to carry our camp outfit and 
 the boys who could not swim crossed the rivers in it. We 
 had many rainstorms and stampedes before we reached Kan- 
 sas, but I will not undertake to describe them. After we left 
 Abilene we drove north, crossing the Republican River, the Big 
 and Little Blue Stocking, the Platte at Fort Kearney, thence 
 up the Platte by Fort McPherson to Julesburg, up Lodge Pole 
 Creek to Cheyenne City; through Cheyenne Pass and over 
 the mountains to Laramie City; on around the base of the 
 mountains by Elk Mountain; crossing the North Platte where 
 it flowed out of the mountains; then through Bridger Pass 
 on down Bitter Creek to Green River. At Green River Sta- 
 tion we had a snowstorm, and the owners decided to winter 
 at Brown’s Hole, about seventy-five miles down Green River. 
 Two tribes of Ute Indians came in and camped near us the 
 following spring. They moved out before we did and took 
 some of our horses with them. That winter we had to cut 
 ice for the cattle to get water. We moved out from there 
 about the first of May, 1870, when the snow was melting 
 and had to swim streams again. We went back to Green 
 River Station, and there the owners decided to drive the cat- 
 tle to Nevada. We took the California and Oregon route 
 west to the parting of the ways near old Fort Bridger, taking 
 the northern route down Bear River, through Bear Lake Val- 
 ley, Soda Springs, on down to Snake River to where the 
 old routes divided, then followed the California route, cross- 
 ing the Portneff, Goose Creek, Raft River, through the City 
 of Rocks, Thousand Springs Valley to Humbolt Wells, down 
 the Humbolt River to Lassen’s Meadows. They shipped all 
 of the cattle that were fat to San Francisco, and I took 500 
 head up near the Oregon line and kept them until the spring 
 of 1871, when we rounded them up and sold them on the 
 range, and I started for Texas via the railroad route, passing 
 
3 74 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 through Winnemucca, Nevada, Ogden, Utah, and Cheyenne, 
 Wyoming, coming on through Denver, Kansas City and St. 
 Louis; by boat down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and 
 Galveston; to Columbus by rail, to San Antonio by stage, and 
 then went to my home in Gillespie county on horseback. 
 
 AN OLD FRONTIERSMAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCE 
 
 By Joe Chapman, Benton, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Tennessee February 18, 1854, and came to 
 Texas with my parents when I was about five years old. My 
 father stopped in Parker county for a short time, then bought 
 a tract of land in Jack county, nine miles north of Jacksboro, 
 on Hall’s Creek, and opened up a fine farm there. At that 
 time we were on the extreme frontier, and the country was 
 infested with hostile Indians who made raids almost every full 
 moon, and we had to keep our horses locked with trace 
 chains to trees in the yard to keep the redskins from steal- 
 ing them. In July, i860, my father was waylaid and killed 
 by the Indians, while he was out deer hunting in a little ravine 
 near home. This tragedy happened just at sundown, and 
 was so near home I heard his gun fire and we all thought he 
 was shooting a deer. But when he failed to return we be- 
 came uneasy, and gave the alarm, and next morning the 
 neighbors found his body. He had been shot eighteen times 
 with arrows, scalped, and his clothing taken. His gun had 
 been broken off at the breech evidently in the hand-to-hand 
 struggle that took place when the Indians closed in upon 
 him. 
 
 Sometime previous to the killing of my father, the Indians 
 had murdered a man named Cooley, our nearest neighbor, 
 three miles away. Also in the same year one of the Brown- 
 ing boys over on the West Fork was killed and his brother 
 shot through the breast with an arrow. Before that the 
 Loss Valley murder took place, in which several women and 
 children were killed, one of the women, Mrs. Cameron, being 
 scalped and left for dead, but recovered. After father’s death 
 we went back down in Parker county and remained there un- 
 til the winter of 1861-2, then moved to Cook county, and 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 375 
 
 G. O. BURROW 
 
 J. O. TAYLOR 
 
 W. J. WILSON 
 
 TOL McNEILL 
 
376 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 often had to leave there on account of the Indians, some- 
 times going as far east as Collin county. 
 
 In 1863, on Christmas Day, the Indians made a raid on 
 the head of Elm, where the large town of Saint Jo now stands, 
 and all of the people went to the old Spanish fort on Red 
 River for protection. They killed many people and stole 
 lots of stock in this raid. I knew a little boy and girl named 
 Anderson who escaped and came to old Fort Wallace the 
 next day. Their parents and other members of the family 
 were murdered, and the little boy’s throat was cut and gashed 
 with lances. Another family was killed and their home burned. 
 The Indians also killed a little boy named Guinn, cut his 
 arms off and stuck his body on a pole. Near the same place 
 later on the Box family were captured, th& father being killed 
 before their eyes and the mother, two grown daughters and an 
 infant being carried away into a captivity worse than death. 
 Up near Fort Sill one of the daughters, a beautiful girl in her 
 teens, was treated in a most shocking manner by the savages. 
 These tragedies occurred when 1 was but a child, but I re- 
 member many of them vividly. 
 
 During the four years of the Civil War the people of the 
 Red River country, Montague, Cooke, Wise and Denton coun- 
 ties, had a severe struggle to get along. Everything was of 
 primitive style, and we had to get along the best we could. 
 Most of our houses were built of logs, some of them roughly 
 hewn and with the bark on, and the cracks “chinked” with 
 sticks and mud, with dirt floors and a big wide chimney. 
 Sometimes a family would get “tony” and hew logs on one 
 side and make a puncheon floor for their home and thus 
 get into the “upper class.” In the summer we would move 
 out and live in these log houses, but in the fall and winter 
 the Indians kept us in the forts. We had plenty to eat, al- 
 though we had to take our grain fifty miles to a mill to have 
 it ground. We had no money, but did not need much for 
 we could not buy such things as coffee, sugar, soap, matches, 
 pins or anything to wear, and we were compelled to spin 
 and weave all of the cloth that made our clothing. Rye, 
 corn, wheat, okra seed and roasted acorns were used as a 
 substitute for coffee. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 377 
 
 In 1868 my brother, about eighteen years old, was way- 
 laid and killed by Indians between Gainesville and Fort 
 Wallace while on a trip to the fort. Thus the savages had 
 killed two of our famliy, in each instance our chief support 
 and protector. That same year we moved to Atascosa coun- 
 ty, where we had relatives, and as I was about fifteen years 
 old I was considered large enough to be of help in working 
 with cattle, on the round ups and roping and branding on 
 the range. In those days every waddy had two crooked 
 irons attached to his saddle and a pocket full of matches, 
 and the maverick that got away was sure enough a speeder. 
 In the fall of 1870 I worked on the Redus ranch on the 
 Hondo, working cattle with George, John and Bill Redus 
 and Tally Burnett. Later I worked for V. A. Johnson, but 
 mostly for Lytle & McDaniel. I learned all I know about 
 handling cattle from V. A. Johnson and Tom McDaniel. If 
 a boy working under them did not make a good hand in the 
 brush or on the trail there was simply nothing to him. There 
 is Uncle Bob Ragsdale, Will Lytle and Captain John Lytle, 
 with whom 1 worked, who were all good men and true. All 
 have reached the end of the trail and gone over the great 
 Divide, except Uncle Bob Ragsdale. 
 
 I made my first trip up the trail in 1872 with a herd for 
 Lytle & McDaniel, with 1800 head of cattle from yearlings 
 up to grown beeves and cows. We routed them across Mus- 
 tang Prairie to the Medina, then up the Louse and over to 
 the Lucas to the old John Adams Ranch, on to San Antonio, 
 skirting the northwestern part of the town and passed on to 
 the Salado. After we passed San Antonio we had quite a 
 rainstorm and our cattle split up in small bunches and scat- 
 tered everywhere. We lost about thirty head in this stam- 
 pede which we did not get back. Tom McDaniel was se- 
 lected as boss of the outfit, which consisted of sixteen 
 men. Four men had interest in this herd, viz, Tom McDan- 
 iel, Jim Speed, Uncle Ben Duncan and Newt Woofter. Gus 
 Black, Tom Smith and myself were the only white hands 
 with the outfit, the other hands being Mexicans, except old 
 Jack Burckley, the cook. Jim and Dock Watts, who lived 
 at the Mann Crossing on the Medina, came to us further up 
 
378 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the trail. Woofter went with us but did not come back. Jim 
 Speed was killed in Moore several years ago; Tom McDaniel 
 died in 1887; Uncle Ben Duncan died in 1919, and the old 
 cook also went the way we must all go sooner or later. Gus 
 Black of Eagle Pass is the only one of my old comrades on 
 this drive who is still living. 
 
 In 1874 I made a trip up the old Chisholm trail with 
 1000 beeves which had been selected and put in the Shiner 
 pasture below Pearsall. We went to work gathering them 
 about the 20th of February and it took us until the 5th of 
 March to get them out of the thickets, inspected and road- 
 branded. These cattle were in good shape and as fine beeves 
 as you ever saw, no she stuff, and mostly threes and up. 
 There were a few twos, but they were all fours when we 
 got through and ready for the market. On the morning of 
 March 5th we pointed those old moss-headed beeves up the 
 trail and made it to the Davis ranch that night. Uncle Bob 
 said we could pen them there and perhaps get a little sleep, 
 but a norther and a dry thunder storm blew up and everybody 
 had to get around that old pen and sing to them while 
 they were milling around like a grindstone. We pulled out 
 from there at sun rise the next morning and drove to the 
 old John Adams ranch on the Castroville road, where we 
 penned the beeves again and had another bad night. No- 
 body got any sleep, but we kept them in the pen. When 
 the herd reached New Braunfels Uncle Bob, who was act- 
 ing boss, turned the herd over to Bill Perryman, and turned 
 back. Our regular boss was V. A. Johnson, who had been 
 detained in San Antonio on account of sickness in his family. 
 
 We crossed the Guadalupe River in a rain, and just after 
 nightfall we had a severe storm with lots of thunder, light- 
 ning and cold. It was so dark most of the hands left us 
 and went to the chuck wagon except W. T. Henson, myself 
 and old Chief, a negro. We had to let them drift, and it 
 took us two or three days to get them back together. We 
 were about thirty head short when we counted and pulled 
 out from there. When we reached the vicinity where Kyle 
 is now located we had another big storm and a general mix- 
 up with some other herds that were near us. We had quite a 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 3 79 
 
 time cutting' our cattle out and getting them all back, es- 
 pecially some strays that were in the herd. 
 
 We had storms and stampedes all the way up to Red River, 
 which we reached about the 16th of April. We never did 
 succeed in holding all of them at any time. We had a few 
 old trouble-makers in the herd, which, if they had been shot 
 when we first started, would have saved us a lot of worry. 
 They ran so much they became regular old scalawags. But 
 strange to say, we never had a single stampede while passing 
 through the Indian Territory. The Indians did not give us 
 as much trouble on this trip as they did in 1872. 
 
 Ed Chambers was killed at Pond Creek, while in charge 
 of a herd for Tucker & Duncan. We had some exciting 
 times getting our herd across Red River, which was on a big 
 rise, and nearly a mile wide, with all kinds of large trees float- 
 ing down on big foam-capped waves that looked larger 
 than a wagon sheet, but we had to put our herd over to 
 the other side. Henson and I were selected to go across 
 and hold the cattle v/hen they reached the opposite side. 
 We were mounted on small paint ponies, and the one I was 
 riding got into some quicksand just under the water and 
 stuck there. I dismounted in water about knee deep, rolled 
 him over and took off my saddle, bridle and leggings, then 
 undressed myself, and called some of the boys to come in and 
 get my things, while I headed my horse for the north bank 
 with just a rope around his neck. I figured that if my little 
 pony could not make it across I would use one of those moss- 
 headed steers for a ferry-boat, but the little fellow took me 
 safely over. He swam all of the way with his nose just out 
 of the water. Three herds crossed the river that day and 
 one man was drowned, besides several cattle. Hub Hunt of 
 Gonzales got away from his pony in some way and we had 
 to fish him out, and a fellow named Barkley was knocked 
 off and pawed in the face by his horse, and we got him out 
 too. We had one horse, which I had intended to ride, which 
 would not attempt to swim at all, and we had to take him 
 across on the ferry-boat. We tried to get him to swim the 
 river but he would only turn up on his side, curl his tail, and 
 float back to the bank. He was a fine looking red roan, was 
 
380 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 raised on the Noonan Ranch near Castroville and branded 
 circle dot on left shoulder. He fell on me one night during 
 a stampede at Wichita, and seemed to be a Jonah all around. 
 
 It took about four weeks to move our herd across the Ter- 
 ritory, during which time we had some fun killing and roping 
 buffalo. Some of our outfit returned by way of the old Cof- 
 feyville trail, as the Indians were on the warpath on the 
 Chisholm trail because some buffalo hunters had killed some 
 of their bucks and they wanted revenge. 
 
 PARENTS WERE AMONG EARLY COLONISTS 
 
 By Henry Fest, 1708 South Flores Street, San Antonio, Tex. 
 
 My father, Simon Fest, ,and mother, Mary Fest, were 
 married in Alsace, France, in the fall of 1845, and immediate- 
 ly started for the United States, a journey which lasted three 
 months and 15 days, landing at Indianola, Texas; from there 
 they came with the Castro Colony, locating at Castroville, 
 the 11th day of February, 1846, where they first stopped 
 for about two months, and then came to San Antonio, 
 where my father took up his trade as stone mason which 
 yielded the handsome return of fifty cents per day while my 
 mother followed the occupation of seamstress at the same 
 price, fifty cents a day, doing such work for the Bracketts, 
 Mavericks, Nat Lewis, Dignowity and other citizens here at 
 the time who could afford such luxury. 
 
 With such accumulations as they could make above ex- 
 penses of maintenance, my father acquired a yoke of steers 
 and an old wagon which he used in hauling hay, cut with 
 a scythe-blade, and selling to the Government for the use of 
 the soldiers then stationed here. Meantime he bought a lot 
 on Main Avenue, then Acequa street, for which he pair $50, 
 and erected a log cabin with a tullie roof, and began to live 
 at home. As time went on he began buying cows, and trad- 
 ing with the Indians for hides they brought in, which he sold 
 to Mr. Gilbeau “the local hyde dealer.” After accumulating 
 more cows than could be accommodated in the village, he ac- 
 quired land at the head of the river, where Alamo Heights is 
 now, and went back into the hay business for the Govern- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 381 
 
 nient; in 1852, a colony of relations was made up with whom 
 he went down to the Gallinas (Prairie Chicken’s Paradise) 
 where he followed the cattle business, remaining there after 
 all the balance of the colony had dispersed except himself 
 and his only neighbor, Simon Rieder; and at which place, 
 the Test Ranch, 1 was born on the 9th day of May, 1856. 
 He stayed there until 1859, and then moved down on the 
 Atascosa Creek, two miles east of Pleasanton, which is called 
 until yet “the Fest Ranch,” where we lived all during the 
 Confederate War, father having become a member of Captain 
 Tom’s Company of Indian Scouts and remained with it until 
 the war broke up, while we had to get along as best we 
 could in his absence. The family consisted of mother, six 
 children and two orphans father was raising. The children 
 large enough to work, engaged in enlarging the little field 
 father had begun to open up before entering the service, 
 each one doing his bit. The family ran the ranch, culti- 
 vated the land, harvested the crops and cared for the live- 
 stock, in addition to doing a variety of things for use and 
 comfort that only pioneers know how to do with skill and 
 success. Among those other things were: burned their own 
 lime, dressed the hides, tanned them with live-oak and mes- 
 quite bark; while the mother made the shoes for the family 
 and for the neighborhood, made hats of coon skins, and still 
 found time to spin the wool clipped from our own flocks, 
 which was woven into cloth on the neighborhood loom. The 
 cloth was dyed with a weed called “Indigo” that grew in the 
 creek near by and by mother made into clothes for herself 
 and children. 
 
 The important matter of food was well looked after, with 
 plenty of meat and field produce there was no need to go 
 hungry. But, the things that go with it. Coffee? Yes, we 
 had coffee — made out of corn, acorns, and sweet potatoes, 
 while honey was used as a substitute for sugar. With an 
 abundance of milk, cream, butter and eggs, this home-made 
 “Postom” went all right until we renewed acquaintance with 
 real coffee afterwards. 
 
 While shelter, food and clothes were thus acquired, we 
 were not lacking in matters of excitement and thrills. In 
 
382 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 addition to the usual exhilerating experiences of ranch life — 
 there were Indians, lots of them, and they were real savages 
 who did not stop at stealing or murdering when it suited 
 their purposes to do so. This constituted a real danger that 
 had to be considered, and hence, the old men past the age of 
 going into the Civil War, were associated together as “Home 
 Guards,” and their duties were to notify all the families in 
 the country of any reported approach of Indians, and the 
 families were disposed of by going into a designated place 
 where they could be the better protected against the Indians 
 by the guards surrounding their retreat, until all danger had 
 passed. 
 
 With this kind of environment, boys naturally learned 
 horseback riding, loved it, and practiced to become skillful 
 “bronco busters” and good shots. 
 
 After the war, my mother became tired of life on the ranch 
 with its incidents, and father sold much of his stock and 
 moved his family to San Antonio on South Flores street where 
 he ran a dairy at which I worked until I was fifteen years 
 old. Then father made me quit bronco riding and put me 
 in a blacksmith shop, but the repairs on Mexican carts and 
 freight wagons which freighted between here and Mexico, 
 was too hard a job for a boy of my nature, and my liking 
 for the bronco-riding caused me to run away from the 
 shop and go on the trail to Kansas. My first trip was in 
 1871, leaving San Antonio on the 9th day of March, and 
 returning the 8th day of September. When I got back I ran 
 a bunch of men doing nothing but branding “mavericks” on 
 the Frio and Nueces for a man by the name of Goins. I con- 
 tinued at that until January, 1872, and in February following 
 made a contract with a man by name of Votaw to take a 
 herd to Kansas for him, as boss. Coming back in October of 
 the same year, I went to work for my father again, running 
 stock for him until 1876 — in which year (the Centennial) I 
 went north and returned the latter part of 1876. In 1877 1 
 went into the butcher business for myself, afterwards sold out 
 my market and engaged in the mercantile business, in which 
 I continued until 1907, when I sold out and retired. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 383 
 
 PHIL L. WRIGHT. 
 
 Phil L. Wright, fire and police commissioner of the City 
 of San Antonio, was horn in Kentucky in 1868, the son of 
 Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Wright, who were Tennesseans. When 
 only three years of age his parents brought him to Texas, 
 where he attended the public schools until 1884, when he 
 went to West Texas to work on the cow ranch of High 
 Webb, near San Angelo. In the spring of 1885 he went up 
 the trail the first time with a herd of twenty-three hundred 
 head of cattle belonging to Mr. Webb, William Sherman be- 
 ing boss of the outfit. The herd was gathered on the range 
 covering Runnels, Tom Green, Concho and adjoining coun- 
 ties and started from a point on the Colorado River where 
 the city of Ballinger now stands, and was driven to the 
 Rocky Mountains in the state of Colorado, fifty miles behind 
 Pike’s Peak where the major portion of the cattle were sold 
 to a man by the name of Frost. The remainder of the herd 
 was ranched in the mountains and a man from the outfit by 
 the name of Billy Irwin was left in charge of them. 
 
 The route taken by this herd was by way of Abilene, 
 Texas, crossing the Brazos River at Seymour, Pease River 
 at Vernon, Red River at Doan’s Store, by way of Comanche 
 Springs and out through the neutral strip, known as No 
 Man’s Land, crossing the Arkansas River on the Kansas and 
 Colorado line just above the town of Coolidge, Kansas, strik- 
 ing the Union Pacific railway at Kit Carson, on to Hugo, 
 Colorado, and from Hugo to Colorado Springs, Manitou, 
 through Ute Pass around the foot of Pike’s Peak, fifty miles 
 up in the mountains to the Frost Ranch. 
 
 The Webb Ranch was in Runnels county on the Colorado 
 River adjoining the Blocker Ranch. The first year he went 
 up the trail John Blocker was delivering herds at Hugo, Colo- 
 rado, and they drove along the same trail with him and saw 
 hundreds of dead Blocker steers along the route. 
 
 After the herd was disposed of Mr. Wright returned to 
 Texas with other members of the outfit, and resumed work 
 on the Webb Ranch, working the range for Mr. Webb until 
 he resigned to accept a position on the TS and SOX Ranch 
 which was run by W. L. McAuley, where he worked for 
 
384 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 about two years, then accepted employment with the Concho 
 Cattle Company, where he worked until the spring of 1881, 
 when he resigned to accept a position with D. E. Simms, 
 who was gathering a herd for the trail. 
 
 This herd started on the trail at Paint Rock, Concho coun- 
 ty, Bob Pearce being boss of the outfit. It was driven by 
 way of Colorado City, taking the plains at the head of the 
 Brazos River, going by way of Plainview and Canyon, to 
 Amarillo, where the herd was quarantined and shipped from 
 there by rail to Colorado. 
 
 Mr. Wright then returned to San Antonio, Texas, where his 
 people resided, and secured employment in the San Antonio 
 fire department, his first position being that of pipeman. His 
 promotions in the department were as follows: Assistant en- 
 gineer, engineer, lieutenant, captain, first assistant chief, May 
 1st, 1899, and in the year 1905, was appointed chief of the 
 department. Remained chief until 1911, when he resigned 
 of his own accord. In 1912, he was again made chief of 
 the department and remained chief until June, 1917, when 
 Commissioner Lowther, for political reasons, declined to re- 
 appoint him. Mr. Wright was elected commissioner of fire 
 and police June 4th, 1918, holding that position at the pres- 
 ent time. 
 
 Mr. Wright was married in 1906 to Miss Pearl Morris, who 
 died in February, 1909, leaving a son, Phil L. Wright, Jr., 
 now twelve years of age. He was married again in 1916 to 
 Miss Jewel Mitchell, they having a girl, Alma lone, three 
 years of age. 
 
 REFLECTIONS OF THE TRAIL 
 
 By George W. Saunders, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 1 was born at Rancho, Gonzales county, Texas, February 
 12th, 1854. My father and mother settled in that county in 
 1850, coming with several other immigrants in ox wagons 
 from Mississippi. In 1859 they moved to Goliad county and 
 settled twelve miles west of Goliad, on Lost Creek, where 
 father previously selected a place to start a cattle' ranch. At 
 that time I was only five years old, but I can remember rid- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 385 
 
 ing a side saddle belonging to one of my sisters and helping- 
 keep up the tail end of the herd part of the time on this 
 trip. At Helena I saw my first white house, and when we 
 crossed the San Antonio River at Wofford Crossing I remem- 
 ber how excited we all were when our herd was in the swift 
 water. Part of them floated down below the ford, and it 
 required a great deal of time to get them out at different 
 points for half a mile down the river. Never having seen 
 anything like this before, my mother thought all of the cattle 
 were lost when she saw them going down the stream. In a 
 few days we reached our new home and camped on the site 
 which father had selected and father and my two oldest 
 brothers, Mat and Bill, assisted by some hired help began 
 cutting and hauling timber to build houses and stock pens, 
 while myself and brother, Jack, a third brother older than 
 I, range herded the cattle to locate them. 
 
 Fish and game were plentiful, deer were constantly in sight 
 of our camp, in fact that country was in a perfectly wild 
 state. Only a few cattle were on the range which was as 
 fine as could be found anywhere. In a few months we were 
 comfortably quartered and happy in our new location. Father 
 had taken a herd of cattle on shares from William Rupe, get- 
 ting every third calf for attending to them, and we all kept 
 busy looking after the stock. We soon became acquainted 
 with the settlers, with whom we worked the ranges, and 
 neighbored with them in every sense of the term. The fol- 
 lowing families were among those who lived from five to 
 thirty-five miles from us: Pettus, Hodges,, Word, Peck, 
 
 Reynolds, Meyers, Lott, Burris, Rutledge, Best, Fant, Rupe, 
 Choate, Borroum, Butler, McKinney, New, Rawlings, Hender- 
 son, Paschal and others. This being before the days of the 
 chuck wagon, the men would set a date and place to meet 
 for what we called a “cow hunt.” Each man would bring 
 bedding, coffee pot, tin cup, a wallet of biscuit, salt, some- 
 times sugar, four or five horses each, and we would work the 
 surrounding range until all cattle belonging to the outfit were 
 gathered and held under herd, then we would select a pack 
 horse for our equipment and move to some other part of 
 the range, gathering cattle as we went. When grub got 
 
386 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 scarce we would send after more supplies to some nearby 
 ranch. Usually it required from ten to fifteen days to make 
 these trips, then each man wouuld take his cattle home, put 
 all the calves in a pen in order to locate the mother cows, 
 and range herd the dry cattle for a few days and locate them. 
 We were prosperous and happy until the Civil War started, 
 and father and my oldest brother entered the service the first 
 year, and another brother enlisted the second year, which left 
 Brother Jack and myself to take care of our stock with the 
 assistance of a few old men and some negroes. 
 
 We worked the range constantly during the war. The 
 range was full of wild mustang horses, and they caused us a 
 lot of trouble for we had to keep our horse stock from get- 
 ting with them, for once they got mixed with the mustangs 
 they soon became as wild or wilder than these wild horses. 
 In order to capture or kill these mustangs the stockmen built 
 pens around water holes and prepared traps to ensnare them. 
 To these pens wings would be constructed in the shape of a 
 V, forming a chute through which the mustangs would be 
 compelled to go to water. Once a bunch of mustangs passed 
 through the chute to the water hole the gate would be shut 
 by a watchman who had lain in wait in concealment tor the 
 horses, and the animals were securely snared. They would 
 then be forced into a small, well built enclosure constructed 
 of rails to a height of eight or ten feet, where they were 
 roped and made gentle. These animals were of Spanish 
 origin and were noted for their endurance on the range and 
 trail. The settlers used various unique methods in capturing 
 them, one way being to walk them down. Some men would 
 take three or four days’ supply of provisions, start a bunch of 
 mustangs, follow them as closely as possible, and when they 
 got out of sight of the pursuer would pick up their trail, 
 keep right after them, never giving them time to eat or 
 rest day or night. Usually on the second day of the chase 
 he could get closer to them; the third or fourth day he could 
 drive them in home with a bunch of gentle horses and easily 
 pen them. They were caught in many different ways and 
 oftentimes shot in order to rid the range of their presence. 
 Before long they disappeared entirely. Our cattle increased 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 387 
 
 GUS BLACK 
 
388 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 
 to such proportions with new herds coming into our country 
 from East Texas and Louisiana that by the time the war ended 
 our range was overstocked. We sold a few cattle to the gov- 
 ernment, and a few to Mexican freighters for work oxen. 
 
 I shall never forget the first stampede 1 experienced. George 
 Bell, who was exempt from military service on account of one 
 eye being blind, agreed to take a herd of beeves to Mexico 
 and exchange for supplies for the war widows. The neigh- 
 bors got together about two hundred of these beeves, my ' 
 mother putting in twenty head. We delivered the herd to 
 Mr. Bell at the Pettus ranch where Pettus Station now stands. 
 This was in 1864, when I was ten years old. We put our 
 cattle in the herd and brother Jack and I agreed to help 
 hold them. That night shortly after dark something scared 
 the beeves and they made a run. I had never heard any- 
 thing like tthe rumbling noise they made, but I put spurs to 
 my horse and followed the noise. We ran those cattle all 
 night and at daybreak we found we had not lost a beef, 
 but we had five or six bunches four or five miles apart, and 
 two or three men or boys with each bunch. We soon had 
 them all together and Mr. Bell started them on the trip. 
 When he returned from Mexico he brought us one sack of 
 coffee, two sets of knives and forks, two pairs of spurs, two 
 bridle bits, and two fancy “hackamores” or bridle headstalls, i 
 for which he had traded our twenty beeves, and we were 
 well pleased with our deal, for in those days such things were 
 considered luxuries, and we were glad to get them, particu- 
 larly the knives and forks, for we had been drinking bran 
 coffee, and were using wooden knives and forks we had 
 made ourselves. Those were hard times in Goliad county 
 during the Civil War, and when the internecine strife ended 
 the soldiers came home broke and all anxious to make up 
 the time that had been lost during the four years that had 
 passed. Reconstruction set in. Some outlaws and crooks 
 drifted into our country; considerable friction and hatred ex- 
 isted between the boys of the blue and the gray; negro sol- 
 diers were stationed at different points to keep order, but 
 it soon resulted in serious clashes that called for more Texas 
 Rangers and United States marshalls. As is usually the case, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 389 
 
 right and justice finally prevailed. During this time our stock- 
 men were hunting markets for the cattle on our overstocked 
 ranges. We sold a few steers to Foster & Allen, Shanghai 
 Pierce and Joel Collins, which were shipped from Powder 
 Horn. Slaughter houses at Rockport killed considerable 
 beeves at the time, but we needed a greater outlet for the 
 ever-increasing herds on the ranges. 
 
 My father drove a herd from Goliad to New Orleans in 
 1867, swam all the streams and bayous, and through the 
 exposure he contracted rheumatism from which he suffered 
 until his death, which occurred at Saunders’ Station, near 
 San Antonio, in 1904. Mother died at same place in 1893. 
 Father was born at Fayetteville, North Carolina, and mother 
 was born at Birmingham, Alabama. Besides the brothers I 
 have mentioned elsewhere in this sketch, I have three sisters 
 living, Mrs. F. L. Henry, wife of a prominent McMullen county 
 stockman, and Misses Nancy and Ann Saunders, all of whom 
 live near Christine, Texas. 
 
 In 1868 or 1869 a few stockmen drove small herds to Bax- 
 ter Springs, Kansas, or other northern points and met with such 
 success that everybody had caught the trail fever. My two 
 brothers, Mat and Jack, took a herd to Baxter Springs in 1870, 
 and their reports of thrilling encounters with the Indians, stam- 
 pedes, buffalo chases, and the like filled me with a wild desire 
 to go on the trail too. I was barely seventeen years old, and 
 felt that I was able to take care of myself on a long trip as 
 well as any man. My parents finally consented for me to 
 go, and I hired to Monroe Choate, of the firm of Choate & 
 Bennett, to go with a herd. The firm was receiving herds in 
 different parts of the country, to send up the trail. They 
 sent fourteen herds that year. Mr. Choate told me the 
 name of the boss of each herd and aasked me which boss I 
 would rather go with. I told him I wanted to go with the 
 first herd that started, and he informed me that Jim Byler 
 would boss the first herd and would start at once. That 
 suited me fine, so I said, “Put me with Byler.” Mr. Byler 
 was asked what he thought about taking a sevventeen-year- 
 old kid on the trip and remarked, “His age is all right,, if he 
 has staying qualities, but most kids are short on sleep, and 
 
390 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 generally sleep on watch.” I told him I would not sleep dur- 
 ing stampedes or Indian fights, and he promised to give me 
 a trial, and that made me exceedingly happy. 
 
 We left Helena with a full chuck wagon, the necessary- 
 number of horses and men, and went to the Mays pasture 
 on the Cibolo near Stockdale, Wilson county, and received a 
 thousand steers. Dunk Choate counted the cattle and Mr. 
 Byler pointed the herd north and Dunk said, “Adios, boys, 
 I will see you in Abilene, Kansas. I must go now and start 
 other herds.” 
 
 We went by Gonzales, Lockhart, Austin and Georgetown, 
 without any unusual happenings, but on the Gabriel we had 
 a bad stampede during a thunderstorm, and the herd was split 
 up into several bunches. They were all found the next day. 
 Some of the bunches had men with them and some did not. 
 They were all trailed and found except me and seventy-five 
 steers. By ten o’clock the boss finally located the trail of 
 my bunch and found it ten miles down the Gabriel. When 
 he rode up, he asked, ‘‘Are you awake? Why didn’t you 
 bring these cattle back to the herd?” I said 1 could not 
 find the trail the steers made and I did not know what di- 
 rection to go to find the herd. We got back to the main 
 herd about four o’clock in the evening, and I was so tired 
 and sleepy 1 told the boss I was just bound to eat and sleep 
 a little. He said, “Go eat and sleep all night, 1 will herd 
 your relief. You deserve a rest.” This sounded good to me, 
 for up to this time I thought the boss was mad. 
 
 After a good night’s rest 1 was on the job early the next 
 morning, ready to do my share in keeping the herd on the 
 move. The cattle were easily scared and for several days 
 were very nervous and made many runs, but the boys kept 
 strict watch on them and they finally became reconciled. We 
 went by Waco, Cleburne and Fort Worth. Between the last 
 named places the country was somewhat level and untim- 
 bered, and was full of prairie chickens and deer. When we 
 reached Fort Worth we crossed the Trinity River under the 
 bluff where the present street car line to the stock yards 
 crosses the river. Fort Worth was then but a very small 
 place, consisting of only a few stores, and there was only 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 391 
 
 one house in that part of the town where the stock yards 
 are now located. We held our herd here two days, finally 
 proceeding on our journey and crossed Red River at Red 
 River Station and took the Chisholm Trail through the In- 
 dian Territory. Here we saw lots of Indians, who came to 
 our herd with the usual greeting, “how John,” to beg to- 
 bacco, and provisions. Byler got by these Indians without 
 any trouble, but we found all the streams in that region 
 up and had to swim them or lose time, for Byler wanted 
 to keep the lead, and we therefore crossed many rivers at a 
 time when other men would have hesitated. 
 
 At Pond Creek we encountered our first buffalo. The 
 plains were literally covered with these animals, and when 
 we came in sight of them all of the boys quit the herd and 
 gave chase. It was a wonderful sight to see these cow- 
 boys dashing after those big husky monsters, shooting at 
 them from all angles. We soon learned that it did no good 
 to shoot them in the forehead, as we were accustomed to 
 shooting beeves with our pistols, for the bullets would not 
 penetrate their skull. We would dash by them and shoot 
 them between the eyes without apparent effect, so we 
 began shooting them behind the shoulder and that brought 
 them down. I killed two or three of the grown buffaloes 
 and roped a yearling which I was glad to turn loose and 
 let him get away with a good rope. I soon became satis- 
 fied with the excitement incident to killing buffalo, swimming 
 streams, being in stampedes, ’ and passing through thunder 
 storms, but I still longed to be mixed up in an Indian fight, 
 for I had not yet had that sort of experience. 
 
 We crossed Bluff Creek into Kansas, and passed Newton 
 during the latter part of May. A blacksmith shop, a store, 
 and about a dozen dwellings made up this town at the time, 
 but when we came back through the place on our return home 
 thirty days later, it had grown to be quite a large town, due 
 to the building of a railroad. It did not seem possible that 
 a town could make such quick growth in such short time, but 
 Newton, Kansas, sprang up almost overnight. 
 
 We stopped our herd on Holland Creek, twenty miles from 
 Abilene, Kansas, where we were met by Pink Bennett and a 
 
392 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 buyer. Pink sold 300 fat beeves out of our herd to this 
 man, and I went to Abilene with them to help load them on 
 the cars. They were the first cattle I had ever seen loaded 
 on a train, and I was anxious to see how it was done. 
 
 We held our herd there until several more herds belonging 
 to Choate & Bennett arrived. They sold some out of each 
 herd, and we soon had a surplus of men and horses. W. 
 G. Butler had done likewise and he also had too many men 
 and horses to continue on with the cattle, so it was arranged 
 that some of us could start home, and accordingly about fifty 
 men, with five chuck wagons, five cooks, and about 1 5 0 
 horses hit the back trail for Texas. We had a lively time 
 en route home, for we had nothing to do but drive the 
 horses, make camp, eat and sometimes sleep. When we 
 reached the Washita River we found it out of its banks. We 
 cut timber and made a raft by tying the logs with ropes, but 
 could not ferry the rude craft until a rope had been 
 stretched across the river, which was some 300 yards wide 
 and very swift and deep. Several of the boys attempted to 
 make it across with the end of a rope, but each one failed. 
 Some of them got half way across, turned the rope loose and 
 swam back. One of them got near the opposite bank, but 
 lost the end of the rope, and landed without it. I was the 
 fifth one to try this difficult feat, and determined to suc- 
 ceed, so taking one end of the rope in my mouth, passing 
 it over my shoulder, I entered the water, the boys on the 
 bank releasing the rope gradually as I swam out, and I made 
 it across. When I neared the opposite side I was almost ex- 
 hausted, but grasped an overhanging willow limb and pulled 
 myself ashore with the rope still in my mouth. The man 
 who had preceded me across came to my assistance and 
 helped me up the slippery bank, then there was a cowboy 
 yell of approval from the other side as the boys realized 
 that I had succeeded in accomplishing a dangerous feat. I 
 felt very proud of myself, and think I added several inches to 
 my stature right there, for I was only seventeen years old, 
 and had succeeded in an undertaking in which four stalwart 
 men had failed, but I am willing to confess I could not have 
 gone ten feet further in my exhausted condition. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 393 
 
 We soon put our outfits across with the raft, but lost 
 the hind wheels of one of Butler’s wagons. We carried the 
 wagon beds over on the raft, but pulled the wagons across 
 with ropes, in the same manner as we ferried the raft. It was 
 clumsy work, for we had to draw the wagons and effects up 
 a steep slippery embankment, and this required a great deal 
 of time, patience and profanity. When we got everything 
 across, we rigged up our outfit and resumed our journey. I 
 know of only three men living today who were on this trip 
 back to Texas, they being Ben Borroum, now of Del Rio, 
 Texas, Louis Massengale and Jess Little, who live some- 
 where in South Texas. 
 
 We crossed Red River opposite Denison, rode into town, 
 and visited all of the stores and saloons. The people there 
 were glad to see us come and glad to see us leave. Our 
 next town was Denton, where the officers demanded our pis- 
 tols. The law prohibiting the carrying of pistols had been 
 enacted only a short time before and was then in effect, but 
 we could not think of parting with our life-long friends, so 
 when a demand was made for us to surrender them we pulled 
 our pistols and rode out of town shooting into the air. The 
 officers did not follow us.. 
 
 We stopped at Fort Worth and all the other towns on our 
 route, as we leisurely traveled homeward, finally reaching our 
 destination safely. I was mighty proud of this my first trip, 
 and reached home with a pair of shop-made boots and two 
 good suits of clothes, one of which was a black changeable 
 velvet affair that I had paid fifty dollars for in Kansas. I 
 carried these clothes in a pair of saddle bags all the way 
 home, and found after I reached there that I could have pur- 
 chased them cheaper from a local merchant. But little did 
 I care, for 1 was determined to “cut a shine” with the girls 
 when I got back off that notable trip. 
 
 Referring back to some of the incidents that occurred on 
 the trip I can recall several amusing things that happened. 
 The prairies near Abilene, Kansas, where we held our herds, 
 were partly taken up by grangers who lived in dug-outs, a 
 square hole in the ground or on the side of a bluff, with 
 timbers placed across and covered with dirt. Each granger 
 
394 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 had taken up about 160 acres of land, part of which was 
 cultivated. They had no fences, so to mark the boundaries of 
 their homestead they would plow a furrow around it. As 
 there was no timber in the country, except a few cotton- 
 woods which grew along the streams, the grangers were 
 compelled to use buffalo chips for fuel. While we were 
 there with our herds, many other herds came in and the 
 whole prairie was covered with cattle for many miles around. 
 I visited lots of camps and met many old friends from Texas. 
 Buyers were plentiful, cattle sold fast, and the grangers were 
 active among the herds asking the cattlemen to bed cattle 
 on their lands so they could get the chips for fuel. One 
 evening I noticed several men and women in buggies and 
 buckboards going to different herds and begging each boss to 
 bed his herd on their respective lands. They soon got into 
 a “squabble” with each other, claiming they had asked a 
 certain boss first, and this caused the cowboys to congregate 
 around to see the fun and encourage the row. Levi Ander- 
 son wais the boss in question, and they all claimed he had 
 promised to bed cattle on their land. Levi was puzzled, for 
 he was not used to the customs of that country, and said 
 the reason he had promised was because he thought they 
 were all joking. He said those dug-out people were somewhat 
 different from the folks where he lived, remarking that 
 “Down in Texas if you gave a man dry dung he would 
 fight you, but here in Kansas they will fight you for dry 
 dung.” The grangers figured that 1000 cattle would leave 
 enough chips on the ground in one night to give them 500 
 pounds of dry fuel in a few days. 
 
 Ben Borroum and I were herding together one day, and as 
 all of the cattle were in sight we did not notice that they 
 had gotten on a small patch of corn just coming up, until 
 they had pawed and trampled the corn, crushed twenty little 
 chickens to death and ran all of the family into the dug-out. 
 This negligence on our part cost Choate & Bennett about 
 $ 100 . 
 
 Jack Potter once told me that while he was up in this 
 part of Kansas he got lost from his outfit one night and rode 
 up to one of these dug-outs and asked if he could stop with 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 395 
 
 them until morning. The granger told him he was welcome 
 to do so, although their accommodations were very limited. 
 They fed his horse for him, and then invited him down into 
 the dug-out which contained one room about sixteen feet 
 square, but as neat as could be. In this room there was a 
 nice clean bed, one table, four chairs, a stove, cooking uten- 
 sils, the man, his wife and two small boys. The wife soon 
 prepared a good supper for Jack, and after he had eaten they 
 sat up and talked to him for quite a while, during which time 
 the little boys fell asleep on the bed, while the parents, who 
 seemed to be a very intelligent couple, told Jack about 
 themselves and their plans. They were enthusiastic over the 
 prospects to make a fortune in that new country, and talked 
 about everything in general, but all this time Jack was 
 puzzling his brain over how all of them were going to sleep 
 on the one bed in that dug-out. Finally the mother picked 
 up the two boys and sat them over in a corner, leaning them 
 against the wall still asleep, and then she informed Jack that 
 he could occupy the bed, and she and her husband went up 
 the steps. Potter turned in and was soon asleep, and slept 
 soundly all night long, but when he awoke the next morning 
 he found himself sitting in the corner with the two little 
 boys and the man and woman were occupying the bed. Jack 
 told me he knew that couple was just bound to prosper any- 
 where, even in Kansas. After breakfast he gave them five dol- 
 lars, but they protested, saying that fifty cents was enough to 
 pay for the poor accommodations he had received, but Jack in- 
 formed them that what he had seen and learned, right there 
 was worth five dollars to him. Remember, this was Jack 
 Potter, not Jim Wilson. 
 
 1 passed through this same old herding ground some twen- 
 ty-five years later, and I was astonished to see the changes 
 that had taken place. Pretty farms and new dwellings cov- 
 ered the whole region, and there were fine herds of good 
 cattle, horses, sheep, mules and hogs everywhere, and the 
 whole country looked prosperous. 
 
 After I reached home from my first trip 1 went to work 
 on the range driving cattle to Rockport packeries in summer 
 and winter and putting up trail herds each spring, following 
 
396 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 this occupation for several years, selling our family’s cattle 
 to the well known trail drivers, J. D. Reed, Dillard Fant and 
 others. Cattle accumulated fast on the ranges. Many ranches 
 were established, each ranch owner running his own outfit 
 and exchanging brands with stockmen in different parts of the 
 state. The ranchmen would brand calves and sell beeves for 
 each other, then meet and make settlement once a year. 
 Such arrangements were made between stockmen from San 
 Antonio to Brownsville and from Victoria to Laredo. It was 
 nothing strange for one man to own cattle throughout the 
 above-mentioned territory. The cattle business gradually 
 moved westward, forcing the redskins back; many of our 
 stockmen began buying pure bred bulls, and improving their 
 stock. Among those who first began to grade up their cattle 
 were King & Kenedy, Reynolds, Coleman, Matthis & Fulton, 
 W. A. Pettus, N. G. Collins and others. The chuck wallet 
 and pack horse disappeared and their places were taken by 
 the chuck wagon. Fences came and the open range passed 
 away forever. 
 
 During those days I belonged to Uncle Henry Scott’s Min- 
 ute Company for two years. This company was organized at 
 Mission Refugio in 1873 to protect the citizens of the border 
 against Mexican bandits. During these two years a number 
 of massacres were committed by these bandits, many of whom 
 paid the penalty for their lawlessness. Among the families 
 which were murdered by the Mexicans were the Swift family 
 near Refugio, John Maden near St. Mary’s, the Nux family 
 and others at Nux Store, twelve miles west of Corpus Christi; 
 Lee Rabb, the Penescal family and others whose names I 
 cannot recall. When our company was called out for duty 
 we went at a moment’s notice, regardless of what we were 
 doing or where we were, and we rode with such vengeance 
 that our company soon became a terror to the invading 
 murderous Mexicans. 
 
 For one year I was a deputy under Sheriff James Burk 
 of Goliad, during which time 1 had some very narrow es- 
 capes and made many dangerous arrests of desperate char- 
 acters. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 397 
 
 For a few years after the war there was a woman in that 
 region by the name of Sally Skull, who was quite a char- 
 acter. She traded horses through our country, and operated 
 alone, with a band of Mexican helpers, from Texas into 
 Mexico, and had a record of being the most fearless woman 
 ever known. Nearly all of the old citizens of that section 
 remember Sally Skull. 
 
 In those early days cattle buyers usually met the sellers 
 at some appointed place to close a deal for stock, and they 
 would bring the purchase money in gold and silver in sacks 
 on the backs of pack horses. When they reached the meet- 
 ing places the sacks of money would be carelessly dumped on 
 the ground where sometimes it would remain for two or 
 three days without molestation, then when settlement was 
 made for cattle bought the sacks were opened, the money 
 dumped out on a blanket in camp, and counted out to each 
 man who had participated in the trades. I fear that kind 
 of an arrangement would not work today, but in those 
 days those rugged pioneers dealt strictly on the square. 
 
 Pasture fencing commenced on the coast in 1872-3, and 
 in a few years each cattleman had a pasture of from 1000 
 to 50,000 acres, which stopped the exchanging of brands, 
 for before a great while every man had his cattle in his own 
 pasture and ran his own cow outfit. Space will not permit 
 mention of the cattle stealing, fence-cutting, trouble between 
 cattlemen and others, which called for the assistance of Texas 
 Rangers and United States Marshalls, with whose aid the cat- 
 tlemen established law and order. With the organization of 
 the Cattle Raisers’ Association a few years later the doom of 
 the cattle and horse thief was sealed, for the organization 
 soon grew to such proportions, with its expert inspectors at 
 all markets and shipping points, that it made it almost im- 
 possible for a thief to exist. 
 
 In 1874 I was married to Miss Rachel Reeves, who was 
 the daughter of W. M. Reeves, a well known stockman of 
 Refugio county. We began housekeeping on my ranch eight 
 miles from Goliad, where the present railroad station, Clip, 
 is now located. I later sold this ranch to W. A. Pettus, 
 (better known as Buck Pettus) one of the most prosperous 
 
398 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 stockmen of Goliad county, and years later when the rail- 
 road was built from Beeville to Goliad it went across my 
 old ranch and the station was named Clip in honor of Mrs. 
 Pettus, whose maiden name was Miss Clip Lott. 
 
 In 1880 my wife’s health failed and I took her to San 
 Antonio for treatment, and as I had to be near her I could 
 not follow my work as a stockman, so decided to get into 
 some line of business in San Antonio to make a living in the 
 big city. I finally bought several hacks and teams and ran 
 them day and night, carrying passengers over the city. The 
 1. & G. N. and the S. P. railroads were just building into San 
 Antonio, the city was flourishing and full of prospectors and 
 stockmen. As I was acquainted with many of the visitors, 
 mostly stockmen, I did a thriving business. 
 
 My wife died in January, 1883, and the following March 1 
 sold out my business, carried my two little girls to the home 
 of my parents in Goliad county, then returned to San An- 
 tonio and bought 300 Spanish mares which I shipped to 
 Vinita, Indian Territory, and drove from there through East- 
 ern Kansas, selling a few and paying fines for damage they 
 did to unfenced fields along the way. I shipped from Spring- 
 field to Hannibal, Mo., where I decided to try to dispose of 
 all of these mares. At this place I advertised “Wild Texas 
 Ponies for Sale at Wm. L. Fry’s Stables, with an Exhibition 
 of Roping and Riding Wild Horses.” I put my stock in a 
 large lot adjoining the stable on the morning of the sale, 
 and everybody in the town was there to see them, all anx- 
 ious to witness the bronco busting. 1 mounted a dry goods box 
 and announced that these horses were for sale and invited 
 buyers to come forward and select the mares they wanted, 
 and in order to hold the crowd I told them the bronco-riding 
 would be the last act of the show, but that they would not 
 be disappointed. Quite a number bought horses, and as each 
 animal was sold two of my expert cowboys would lasso it, 
 and hold it by the jaw and ears until a hackamore was se- 
 curely placed on its head, then it was led through a gate and 
 delivered to the buyer, who in turn employed negroes to take 
 it home for him. We kept this up all morning, when word 
 was passed around that all of the horses that had been sold 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 399 
 
 AB. BLOCKER 
 
 BOB LAUTERDALE 
 
 MARION McBEE 
 
 C. C. LINCECUM 
 
400 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 were running loose in the town and surrounding county with 
 ropes dragging. It seems that the negroes who had under- 
 taken to lead the horses away, in each instance did not under- 
 stand how to handle these broncos, and they would get 
 away. One negro said it would take a long time to learn 
 the nature of such horses, for they would lay down and kick 
 and paw all of the rope around their bodies and legs and 
 leave him nothing to hold to and he just had to let go the 
 rope. The buyers were good natured and did not blame 
 me in the least. I sold fifty head of the mares here, at good 
 prices, and when the buying slacked up, I roped an outlaw 
 horse, saddled him wild west fashion, and Anderson More- 
 land, one of my cowboys mounted him. This horse was a 
 professional and on that occasion he did full credit to his 
 past reputation, to the great delight and enthusiasm of the 
 crowd of spectators. When we drove our herd out of 
 town several of the citizens went with us for several miles. 
 From here we drove them to Pittsfield, Illinois, selling and 
 trading as we went, finally disposing of all of our Texas 
 horses, but we still had about twenty large native horses that 
 we had taken in exchange. We shipped these by boat down 
 the Illinois River to St. Louis. This was our first boat ride, 
 and was greatly enjoyed by myself and my companions. We 
 sold out at St. Louis and came home by train. 
 
 After returning to Texas I bought 150 saddle horses or 
 cow ponies and shipped them to Wichita Falls, then the ter- 
 minus of the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad. From this 
 point we drove them to Tascosa on the Canadian River above 
 the LIT Ranch, where I sold them to Will Hughes at a big 
 profit. After the sale was made we went to the ranch house 
 together, and there I discovered that Hughes and I were boys 
 together at Goliad, but his Goliad name was not Hughes. 
 
 When I returned to San Antonio Harry Fawcett and my- 
 self bought the Narcisso Leal livestock commission business, 
 with offices and stables opposite the Southern Hotel on Dolo- 
 rosa Street. We put up our sign in September, 1883, and 
 our business thrived from the very start; we sold horses by 
 thousands on commission for parties who drove to the San 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 401 
 
 Antonio market from South Texas and Mexico. During the 
 fall and winter we bought considerable horse stock ourselves, 
 which we sent to the Bluntzer pasture near San Patricio and 
 also to the Tobey pasture in Atascosa county, expecting to 
 sell them the next spring to trail drivers. Not being able to 
 get as much for them as we thought they were worth, we 
 decided to drive these horses up the trail ourselves, so we 
 sold our commission business back to Leal, gathered our 
 horses, brought them to San Antonio and for several days 
 held them on Prospect Hill, which is now in the city limits. 
 On April 5th, 1884, we loaded our chuck wagon and hit the 
 trail for Dodge City, Kansas. We went by Kerrville and 
 Junction City following what was then known as the Upper 
 or Western Trail. At Seymour we crossed the Brazos, and 
 at Doan’s Store we crossed Red River. I will not attempt to 
 describe the trouble we had on this trip with Indians, stam- 
 pedes, and swollen streams, as other sketches in this book 
 have treated those subjects with full justice. There were 
 many herds on the trail that year, and we wanted to keep 
 in the lead, but to do so required systematic work, so 1 kept 
 my herd moving forward all the time. I would go on ahead 
 and select herding ground for nights and grazing grounds for 
 nooning, grazed the horses up to these grounds and grazed or 
 drove them off, never allowing them to graze back at all, 
 for in this way I gained a great deal of valuable time, for 1 
 had learned that good time and lots of it was lost by the 
 old way of stopping a herd and allowing it to graze in every 
 direction, sometimes a mile or more on the back trail. In 
 such cases the stock would travel over the same ground 
 twice, which, in the long run would amount to considerable 
 mileage when you consider that the distance from Texas to 
 the markets was from 1000 to 1500 miles. Good trail 
 bosses who made quick time with stock in good shape were 
 always in demand. Ab Blocker, Gus Black, Mac Stewart, 
 Fayette Butler, Pleas Butler, Jim Byler, Sim Holstein, Henry 
 Clair, Jones Glenn, Jesse McCoy, Bob Jennings and Bob Lau- 
 terdale were all record-breakers in taking herds through in 
 quick time and fine shape, but Ab Blocker claims the blue 
 ribbon. 
 
402 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We reached Dodge City minus a few horses which were 
 lost on the trail but they were brought up by other herds and 
 delivered to me at this point. One night while we were 
 there a storm came up and caused several herds to stampede 
 and there were about 15,000 horses mixed up. Two men 
 were killed by lightning that night. It took several days 
 to gather and separate the horses. Several outfits from dif- 
 ferent parts of Texas gave the same road brand and this 
 caused no end of trouble. Mr. Fawcett, my partner, had 
 come up to Dodge City by train, and was present during the 
 big stampede which he thought was great sport. He said he 
 would buy the leaders if we could pick them out, as he 
 wanted to ship them to England to show the chaps over 
 there what a running horse was like, and if he could ever 
 get the blooming rascals gentle he would run foxes on them. 
 
 Just before we started this herd up the trail Harry Hotch- 
 kiss, who is now manager for the Houston Packing Co., ar- 
 rived in San Antonio from England, and helped us to get our 
 herd together. Harry was an old friend to Mr. Fawcett and 
 was so delighted with the prospect of getting into the horse 
 business that he bought too head and put them into our 
 herd. He made a good hand from the very start and was 
 of great assistance to me on the trail. We had told him we 
 expected to make $15 to $20 per head profit on our horses 
 when we sold them up the trail, and he was looking forward 
 to making a neat sum on his investment. One night while 
 we were camped in a rough region between the Saline and 
 the San Saba River, west of Maberry’s pasture, our herd 
 stampeded during a storm. I had told the boys on first re- 
 lief not to attempt to hold the herd if they stampeded as 
 the country was too broken and that I would rather trail the 
 horses the next day than to take any chances of some of 
 my men getting killed. The boys all came to camp and at 
 daybreak the next morning we were all ready to start 
 cutting sign. In a few hours we rounded up most of them, 
 while Hotchkiss was holding the herd and counting his 
 horses as they came in in each bunch. 1 brought in several 
 bunches, and each time Hotchkiss would come to me and 
 want to know if I thought he would ever get all of his 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 403 
 
 horses back. I would tell him 1 did not have time to 
 talk to him for I was in a hurry to go after other bunches. 
 The herd was pretty badly scattered, and had left plain trails 
 in every direction. Some were followed for ten or fifteen 
 miles before they were overtaken and brought back. This 
 required fast work by all of us, for we had to gather them 
 before they could mix with other range horses and be lost 
 entirely. I brought a bunch into the herd about two o’clock, 
 and found we were still about 200 head short. Hotchkiss 
 rushed up and commanded me to stop and explain to him 
 how 1 could figure $15 or $20 per head profit for him on his 
 horses when half of them were gone on the first ten days 
 out, adding that it was a “blawsted rotten misrepresentation,” 
 and that Fawcett and I must make it good. I told him not 
 to worry, that we would get them all back, and as 1 left him 
 he was cussing and cavorting around in great fashion; in 
 truth he was about the maddest man I ever saw. In a little 
 while I met some of the boys with about twenty of Hotch- 
 kiss’ horses in the bunch they were bringing in and I told 
 them to assure him that he would get all of them back before 
 night for he was in great suspense and needed consolation. By 
 5 o’clock that evening we had recovered all of our horses 
 and Hotchkiss was a happy boy. Ten men riding at full 
 speed all day, changing horses each time they brought in a 
 bunch, accomplished a wonderful work that day. 
 
 We had another Englishman in our outfit on that trip; 
 who was also a tenderfoot, and fresh from England. His 
 name was Lambert, and he had begged to be permitted to go 
 with us, agreeing to furnish four horses, and help us free of 
 charge as he wanted to learn to be a bronco buster. He 
 was game and would undertake anything he was told to do. 
 He insisted that he be allowed to do night herding, and when 
 given the work, went to sleep, his horse drifted into the herd 
 and he fell off, causing a stampede. After that I set him 
 free to go and come as he pleased. He would visit other 
 herds in front and behind us, getting all the news, so we 
 called him our reporter. My Mexican hands were riding wild 
 horses when in open country and during good weather. Lam- 
 bert begged me constantly to let him ride a bucking horse, 
 
404 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 so one day at noon, while we were camped in a beautiful prai- 
 rie country, I had the boys to rope the worst bucking horse 
 in the herd, saddle him, tie the stirrups, and fix a roll in front 
 of the saddle. Then I mounted a well reined horse, took 
 firm hold on the rope attached to the bronco’s hackamore, 
 while Lambert was assisted to get on. As soon as all was 
 ready I gave the bucker slack enough to get his head down. 
 Lambert was eager to show what he thought he could do and 
 said to the horse, “Gaddup, old chap, I’ve rode worse ’orses 
 than you.” But “old Chap” did not move, just stood there 
 all humped up. I told Lambert to hit him over the head with 
 his hat as the other boys did bucking horses. He took his 
 big hat in hand, reached forward and brought it down be- 
 tween the horse’s ears. At the same instant the horse and 
 the Englishman went straight up in the air with their heads 
 toward the north, turned in the air and came down with their 
 heads toward the south. Lambert quit the horse and hit the 
 ground running, yelling “ ’Old the blooming rascal. ’E made 
 such peculiar movements I lost my balance.” The boys who 
 had bet on Lambert riding the horse, raised their bets, Bill 
 Williams betting two to one on the Englishman, so he tried it 
 again. That horse threw Lambert five times before he gave 
 it up and said if the horse had a straight back he could ride 
 him, but his back was too crooked for him to stay on. 
 
 Lambert pulled off a lot of stunts for our amusement on 
 the trip, but decided that bronco-busting was too hard to 
 learn. One day he accidentally roped a wild mare with a 
 rope that was tied around the neck of a little mule he was 
 riding. The mare dashed through the herd and caused a 
 stampede. Some of the horses ran across the rope and 
 threw mare, mule and Englishman all to the ground. When 
 the dust cleared Lambert was found holding the mule by the 
 tail while the mule held the mare, until the boys roped her 
 and removed Lambert’s rope. 
 
 Lambert was the possessor of a red saddle blanket, and 
 when we were in the Comanche country the Indians got 
 friendly with our outfit and made signs that they wanted that 
 red blanket. Tel Hawkins and some of the other boys told 
 the Indians to take it, and when they began to pull it from 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 405 
 
 under Lambert’s saddle he pulled his pistol and I rushed up 
 just in the nick of time to prevent bloodshed, for Lambert 
 meant business. 
 
 While the boys were trading and hurrahing with the In- 
 dians I went to the old Comanche chief’s tepee and had quite 
 an enjoyable conversation with him. He told me he knew 
 all of the region in South and Southwest Texas, named many 
 of the streams and told of raids he had made down there. He 
 also said he knew Creed Taylor, Captain John Sansom, John 
 R. Baylor, Bigfoot Wallace, and other citizens of that sec- 
 tion, who he said were “Heap bad mans. Killie heap In- 
 dians,” and indicated that his warriors always dreaded to meet 
 these well known characters, for they always “shot to kill.” 
 
 In July, 1884, I bought two cars of saddle horses and a 
 chuck wagon and shipped them from San Antonio to Alpine 
 where I received a herd of cattle for Keeney, Wiley & Hurst, 
 which they had bought from Millett & Lane. John Kokernot 
 delivered this herd to me, and I took them to Seven Rivers, 
 New Mexico, via Saragosa, Pecos City and up the Pecos to 
 Seven Rivers where I turned them over to Mr. Keeney. It 
 was a long dry drive and I was glad when through with it. 
 After delivering this herd I went to Tat Huling’s Ranch in 
 Rattlesnake Canyon, 35 miles west of Van Horn in El Paso 
 county, and remained there two months helping Huling do 
 ranch work, and prospecting for gold in the Delaware and 
 Guadalupe Mountains with an old miner named Dyer, who 
 claimed that Indians had told him where he could find a rich 
 mine near an old Indian camp. While prospecting we camped 
 at a spring where the Urcery boys of Oakville, Texas, later 
 established a cattle ranch. We searched through the Dela- 
 ware Mountains, going up into the Guadalupes, and came 
 back by the salt lakes. These lakes cover a territory fifteen 
 miles long and two or three miles wide with salt three to 
 seven feet deep. 
 
 By appointment I met N. H. Hall at Toyah in October. 
 He was in quarantine there with several thousand head of 
 cattle, and was anxious to get a thousand two-year-old heif- 
 ers to his ranch in Luna Valley, Arizona, for spring breeding. 
 Mr. Hall offered me extra big wages to take them through, 
 
406 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 and as I had previously promised to make the trip for him, 
 
 I consented to start as soon as the herd could be made ready. 
 The weather was getting cold, and the route was through a 
 dangerous region occupied by old Geronimo’s band of Apa- 
 ches, and 1 knew that I would have a hard trip, but I picked 
 1000 of the best heifers in the best condition, selected the 
 best horses, and secured the best men I could find, all well 
 armed, and pulled out with the herd, going by Cottonwood 
 Ranch, the Gran Tinnon Ranch, passed the head of Dela- 
 ware River, Guadalupe Peak, and stopped several days at 
 Crow Springs, just over the line in New Mexico, to prepare 
 for a 107-mile dry drive to the water of the Sacramento 
 River. When I started the herd from Crow Springs I left 
 my horses there until the next morning, so as to have fresh 
 mounts when they overtook us the second day, then we sent 
 the horses on to water thirty miles up the Sacramento. From 
 the mouth of the Sacramento the channel of the river was a 
 dry bed of gravel for 30 miles with great bluffs on either side 
 hundreds of feet high. The herd strung out up this canyon 
 for several miles, and we pushed forward as rapidly as pos- 
 sible. When we reached the water I turned the cattle up 
 the steep mountain side as fast as they arrived and got their 
 fill. It was ten hours from the time the lead cattle reached 
 the water until the tail end got there. They were in very 
 poor condition, and a pitiful sight to see, with their sunken 
 eyes and some of them barely able to creep along. There 
 was no grass in the canyon, but we found good grass and 
 water on the mountains and range herded them several days, 
 then put them back in the canyon several miles above and 
 followed it up to the divide where we crossed over to Dog 
 Canyon. On this divide I saw my first wild elk, and some 
 of the tallest pine trees I had ever seen. Dog Canyon was 
 very steep and we had to lock all the wagon wheels to pass 
 many places. At the mouth of Dog Canyon our route was 
 around White Mountain, and in this region was where old 
 Geronimo was depredating. We often saw the signal fires 
 of the Indians at night, and in order to play safe we would 
 bed our herd in the evening, eat supper before dark, then 
 take our horses and wagon and camp a mile or more away 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 407 
 
 from the herd so the Indians would not find us if they at- 
 tacked the herd. No fire was built at those camps to guide 
 the redskins. Next day we would round-up the herd and 
 move on. We were not attacked and I suppose it was be- 
 cause our cattle and horses were in such poor condition the 
 Indians did not care for them, and further they were not 
 seeking a fight with a bunch of Texas cowboys. We went by 
 Tularosa and La Luz, across Melpia at the government cross- 
 ing, and crossed the Rio Grande at San Marcial, proceeding 
 on to Magdalena, where I was taken seriously ill. Mr. Hall 
 met us here and took the herd on to Luna Valley, Arizona. 
 Remarkable as it may seem, I lost only five head of these 
 cattle on the entire trip, which were bogged in a marsh 
 at La Luz. At this marsh we had considerable difficulty in 
 pulling out about fifty head that were bogged, but we could 
 not save the five head mentioned above. 
 
 The trip was made in cold weather, part of the time 
 freezing temperatures prevailed, and we suffered a great 
 deal from the cold and exposure. 
 
 This made the third herd, or trip, I had taken that year, 
 which was a record-breaker, and I decided to recuperate, 
 so 1 went to Socorro, N. M., reaching there the 20th of De- 
 cember, 1884, and after spending awhile there I went to El 
 Paso, and found employment with the Newman & Davis out- 
 fit which was working in Chihuahua, Mexico, just across 
 from the mouth of Van Horn Canyon. I was over there 
 during the Cutting trouble and helped to get many cattle 
 across into Texas before the threatened confiscation occurred. 
 
 In the spring of 1886 I returned to San Antonio, and again 
 went into the livestock commission business under the firm 
 name of Smith, Oliver & Saunders, being associated with 
 Frank Oliver, now of Victoria, and Capt. Bill Smith, one of 
 San Antonio’s most respected citizens who is now deceased. 
 I finally sold my interest in this firm to Jace Addington and 
 bought the cattle end of the business, and going it alone 
 with offices at the Sap stock yards near the Sap depot on 
 the Hickman property, later purchasing the Weller Stock 
 Yards on Medina street, and was successful in building a 
 good business. Afterward Dr. Graves, Captain Lytle, Jess 
 
408 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Pressnall, John Price, W. H. Jennings and myself formed a 
 company and built the Union Stock Yards. 1 sold my yards 
 on Medina Street and moved to the present location thirty- 
 one years ago, and have continued right here ever since. 
 I am the oldest livestock commission man in the state today 
 who is still actively engaged in the business. I incorporated 
 my business fifteen years ago, sold shares to leading stock- 
 men all over the country, and today I am the president and 
 general manager of the firm which is known as the George 
 W. Saunders Live Stock Commission Company, with offices 
 at San Antonio and Fort Worth. The Fort Worth branch 
 is managed by my son-in-law, W. E. Jary. We enjoy a lib- 
 eral patronage from all parts of Texas, New Mexico, Okla- 
 homa, Louisiana, and Old Mexico, and do a gross business 
 of between five and six million dollars annually. 
 
 Besides actively giving my attention to my commission 
 business I supervise the management of four small ranches 
 and a 700-acre farm. 1 have always tried to follow the 
 policies of my father and deal justly and fairly with all men, 
 but considering the bad influences that many times engulfed 
 me, the many temptations to deal unfairly, and the glowing 
 prospects to greatly profit by yielding to them, it required 
 an iron will and determination to resist, hence I feel proud 
 that my record is not worse. I have made money in almost 
 every undertaking, but my sympathy for suffering humanity, 
 and my liberality in dealing has kept me from accumulating 
 a fortune. I believe that ninety-five per cent of the people 
 who know me are my friends, and I value them more than 
 the millions of gold which perhaps I could have accumu- 
 lated by sacrificing their friendship by unfair dealing. I have 
 always been willing to give to charity or any laudable pur- 
 pose that had for its object the uplift of my fellowman, and 
 have always lent aid and encouragement to every undertaking 
 that was for the upbuilding of our state and my home city, 
 San Antonio. I served two years as alderman of Ward 2 in 
 San Antonio during the Clinton Brown administration, dur- 
 ing which time we voted $3,500,000 city bonds, had them 
 approved and sold and spent the money in municipal im- 
 provements, building sewers, widening streets, and paving 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 409 
 
 thoroughfares, making a modern city of the old Mexican 
 town. During the world war I served as chairman of the 
 Exemption Board, Division No. 1, free of charge, and did 
 all I could to help win the war. 
 
 My two daughters by my first marriage are now Mrs. W. 
 E. Jary of Fort Worth, and Mrs. T. M. Webb of Palestine. 
 On January 1, 1889, 1 was married to Miss Ida Friedrich of 
 San Antonio. Of this union we have one daughter, Mrs. 
 C. D. Cannon of San Antonio. 
 
 I have seen and participated in many unpleasant things 
 during my sixty years of active life, but I think they are 
 best forgotten. I do not think it would be amiss, how- 
 ever, to mention some of the hardships and examples of self- 
 denial endured by the people of the early days. During the 
 Civil War our family and all of our neighbors were com- 
 pelled to make almost everything they used or wore; 
 all ropes were made from hides or horse hair, all of 
 
 our clothing was spun and woven at home, and I have carded 
 and spun many nights until late bed-time. Leather was 
 
 tanned by the settlers with bark from oak trees and used to 
 rig saddles and for other purposes. Our shoes were made 
 by country shoemakers; our saddle trees were made at home; 
 we used water from creeks and rivers. Before the country 
 was stocked all the streams contained pure clear water. We 
 carried corn in sacks on horseback fifteen to twenty-five 
 miles to mills to be ground into meal, or ground the corn 
 at home with small hand grist mills; wagons, ox yokes, looms 
 and spinning wheels were made at home; hats were plaited 
 
 and made from palmetto. The rich and the poor in our 
 
 days were on equal footing, because these necessities could 
 not be bought. As 1 look back to those times I am impressed 
 with the marvelous changes time has wrought. The people of 
 those good old days were brave and fearless, but if a high 
 powered automobile had gone speeding through the country 
 at night with its bright headlights glaring, and its horn 
 screeching, I am sure the inhabitants would all have taken to 
 the brush, thinking it was some supernatural monster. 
 
 The descendants of the early settlers of Texas are today 
 identified with every industry in the country. Their intelli- 
 
410 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 gence and traits of character are not surpassed by any people 
 on earth, because they are quick to learn, quick to act, brave, 
 honest and true to God and country. A quarter of a century 
 of my life, from 1861 to 1886, was a continual chain of 
 thrills, not by choice, but by the customs of those times. The 
 dangers through which 1 passed during those days makes me 
 shudder when I recall them, but I attribute my preservation to 
 the earnest prayers of my devoutly religious father and 
 mother, who continually entreated Almighty God to protect 
 their reckless boy. They taught me to trust in the Divine 
 Father from infancy, and their admonitions have continued 
 with me to this day, never dimmed but brightening as the 
 years pass. 1 do not claim to have followed their teaching 
 to the letter, but the training 1 received at their knees has 
 been a guide and great support to me through life. Had 1 
 not received this early training to fortify me against the 
 many temptations 1 cannot think what would have been the 
 outcome. 
 
 1 want to say a word about some of the men with whom 
 I have been associated during my business career, for 1 feel 
 that such affiliation has contributed to my success in the 
 business world. As good fortune would have it I fell in 
 with the best men of our country, men of honesty and in- 
 tegrity, and leaders in the affairs of county and state. They 
 helped me to attain that which 1 think 1 now possess, a 
 good name, which is “rather to be chosen than great riches.” 
 They were loyal at all times, and ever ready to advise and 
 assist me. 
 
 And right here 1 want to pay a tribute to the noble 
 women of our land, for they are more deserving of praise 
 than all of the men combined. Consider the pioneer moth- 
 ers and wives of our glorious state, and think of the 
 hardships and privations they endured for the sake of being 
 near and helping husband or father to make a home in the 
 new country. Their social pleasures were few, their work 
 heavy. Dangers lurked on every hand, but bravely and un- 
 complainingly these women endured their hard lot, cheering 
 and encouraging the men who were their protectors. God 
 bless them ! I often heard it said in the days of my youth 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 41 1 
 
 J. B. MURRAH 
 
 T. A. COLEMAN 
 
 W. A. PERIL 
 
 R. B. PUMPHREY 
 
412 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 that the women were the hope of our nation. They have 
 fulfilled that hope in every sense of the term, and I believe 
 they will ever continue to do so. 
 
 I was the first man to introduce roping contests in this 
 state some thirty years ago, but the practice was so badly 
 abused and so many cattle crippled and killed, that I regretted 
 the introduction, so accordingly in after years I was the first 
 to petition the Legislature to pass a law prohibiting the sport. 
 
 From 1868 to 1895 it is estimated that fully 35,000 men 
 went up the trail with herds, if the number of men computed 
 by the number of cattle driven is correct. Of this number or 
 men about one-third were negroes and Mexicans, another 
 third made more than one trip. Let us conclude that one-half of 
 the white trail drivers who made one trip have died, and we still 
 have some 6,000 survivors of the trail scattered all over the 
 world, all of whom ought to be members of our association. 
 This would give us the strength to forever perpetuate our or- 
 ganization, for as it is now our sons are eligible to mem- 
 bership and they in turn can make their sons and grandsons 
 eligible as they grow to manhood. I have urged the organiza- 
 tion of the old trail drivers for thirty-five years. Many of 
 my old comrades promised to participate in the organiza- 
 tion, but it was put off from time to time, until 1915, when 
 I called a few together and started the movement which has 
 steadily grown until today I feel that my efforts in this mat- 
 ter have been in a large measure successful. If we had or- 
 ganized earlier, however, 1 am sure we would have preserved 
 the record of many of our old comrades who have crossed 
 over the Great Divide and retained much of the trail slang 
 and customs that have passed away. 
 
 1 have carefully read most of the sketches that appear 
 in this book. They tend to show that the early settlers and 
 old trail drivers did more toward the development of this 
 state than all other things combined, and it would be the 
 father of all mistakes to allow the record of these men to 
 go down in unwritten history. Therefore, this book was pre- 
 pared to preserve that record. My greatest wish is that the 
 proceeds from the sale of the book will be used for the pur- 
 pose of erecting a monument, one hundred feet high to the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 413 
 
 drivers of the famous old trail, somewhere on the trail near 
 San Antonio or Fort Worth. 
 
 BURIED A COWBOY IN A LONELY GRAVE ON 
 THE PRAIRIE. 
 
 By Alfred Iverson (Babe) Moye, Kenedy, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Georgia and reared in Texas, my father 
 
 settling in Tyler county. In December 1870, I went to 
 
 Helena, and while I was there a young man named Silvers 
 was killed by the sheriff. M. J. Bean was collector for the 
 stockmen and I went with him on one of his trips. As 
 we crossed the Frio River we saw a number of people con- 
 gregating at a little house and learned from them that the 
 Indians had the day before murdered the Stringfield family. 
 The oldest girl was later found by some Mexicans, and she 
 is now living in San Antonio. Two little boys, aged four 
 and six years respectively, were taken away by the Indians 
 and the oldest of the two was found dead by the roadside 
 
 with his head split open, but the other was never heard from. 
 
 The following spring I hired to an outfit to go to Kansas 
 with a herd which we received in the mountains about fifty 
 miles above Uvalde. While we were herding the cattle in 
 the valley Indians would appear on the mountains and bow 
 to us and make signs which we did not understand. I went 
 out one day to hunt for a bunch of our horses and found 
 a bunch of Indians instead. They took after me, but I out- 
 ran them back to camp. I guess my eyes were out of fix, 
 for it seemed to me that there were about a hundred red- 
 skins in the band, but investigation later proved that there 
 were only about fifteen. Ten men of our outfit went back 
 over the ground and found three arrows they had shot at 
 me while in the race. About the last of March we got our 
 herd of 1500 beeves road-branded and starting with them, 
 we soon reached Red River, which we crossed at Red River 
 Station into the Indian Territory. The Territory at that time 
 was unsettled, nothing there except buffalo, Indians and 
 fugitives from other states. These men would steal and rob 
 and lay it on the Indians, so we had to guard our horses every 
 
414 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 night to prevent them from being stolen. One night a Mexi- 
 can boy and myself were on guard and the Mexican struck a 
 match to light his cigarette and as he did so somebody shot 
 at us three times in quick succession, and when we returned 
 the fire the boys at camp rushed out to our assistance. The 
 scheme was to scare us away from our horses so they could 
 get them. At Abilene, Kansas, we found a wide open town. 
 Ben Thompson and Hill Coe were running the noted Bull 
 Head saloon, and Wild Bill Hickok was city marshall. There 
 I met up with John Wesley Hardin, Buffalo Bill, Bill Thomp- 
 son, Manny Clements and Gip Clements, and we went over 
 to the gambling house. It did not take the gamblers there 
 long to relieve me of all the money I possessed. Wild Bill 
 Hickok told me that the best way to beat the game was to 
 let it alone. 1 took his advice and have been beating the 
 game ever since. Coe was later killed by Wild Bill and 
 Thompson afterward closed out the Bull Head and returned 
 to Austin. 
 
 The next year I went up the trail with the same firm, 
 Choate & Bennett. We received the cattle on the Nueces 
 River, with John Henry Choate in charge of the herd. When 
 we reached Red River at Red River Station, we had to 
 swim across. 1 was riding a 2x4 Spanish pony, and before 
 I got across I had to slip off his back and grasp him by the 
 tail to get to the other side. We had a severe storm after 
 we left Red River and a number of our men were shocked 
 by lightning. We drove our herd to Great Bend, Kansas, 
 on the Arkansas River. That is now one of the finest wheat 
 belts in the world. 
 
 The next year I went with W. G. Butler to Ogallala. My 
 oldest brother, Andy Moye, was on this trip with us and got 
 into trouble at Ogallala that caused us to leave in some- 
 what of a hurry. 
 
 1 went up the trail again the next year, and it seemed that 
 we had more storms than usual. When we reached the 
 Cimarron River in the Territory it was bankfull and we had 
 to stay there several days before we could cross. While we 
 were there two tramps came along who said they were going 
 to swim the river. We tried to talk them out of the foolish 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 415 
 
 undertaking, but they plunged in and when half v^ay across 
 they began yelling for us to come and help them out, but 
 we could not get to them and they both drowned. 
 
 On Smoky River, in the northwestern part of Kansas, my- 
 self and several other cowboys were hunting stampeded 
 beeves one day and found the corpse of a cowboy who had 
 come to his death in some manner unknown to us. We de- 
 cided to bury him there, so we dug a hole and rolled him 
 into .it, with but little burial ceremony. One of our crowd 
 was a good singer, and sang the old cowboy song that all 
 of the old boys are familiar with, which runs something like 
 this: 
 
 “Oh bury me not on the lone prairie, 
 
 Where the coyotes may howl o’er me; 
 
 And dig my grave just six by three — 
 
 But bury me not on the lone prairie. 
 
 “Yes bury nie under an evergreen tree, 
 
 Where the little birds may sing o’er me; 
 
 And dig my grave just six by three — 
 
 But bury me not on the lone prairie.” 
 
 Our hearts were sad when we left that poor unknown boy 
 out there under the sod of that lonely prairie, many miles 
 from a habitation. Some mother’s boy who went away never 
 to, return, some husband or father perhaps who went out into 
 that wild country and lost his life there. 
 
 Nearly all of my old cowboy chums of fifty years ago have 
 passed over the trail to that home beyond the grave. A few 
 are left here, sore-footed and dragging, but still full of life. 
 Among those who are still in the land of the living 1 will 
 mention one, for whom 1 have always had the highest re- 
 gard and esteem, and that is P. B. Butler, who lives at Kene- 
 dy, Texas. He was always found honest and square in all of 
 his dealings, true to his friends, and one of the best stock- 
 men in all Southwest Texas. P. B. Butler will leave behind 
 him a good name as a heritage to his posterity, and an ex- 
 ample for oncoming generations to follow. 
 
416 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 A few more of the old boys are living near me, Munroe 
 Hinton, Hiram Reynolds and Dick Smith being among 'them. 
 Tom Edwards passed away just a short time ago. When I 
 see my old comrades in town, bent with the weight of three 
 score and ten I am reminded that my time to quit the walks 
 of men is fast approaching, just a few years more at best, and 
 we will all join the silent majority. 
 
 SOME THINGS I SAW LONG AGO. 
 
 By George Gerdes. 
 
 Here are my credentials: “1 solemnly swear and affirm” 
 
 that 1 went the length of the trail — up to Dodge City, Kan- 
 sas, and frrom there to Pueblo, Colorado. “I further sol- 
 emnly swear and affirm” that 1 will tell “not” all I saw and 
 heard. Who would? It’s a long time back — to remember; 
 and if you did remember, would you care to tell; if you cared 
 to tell, would you dare to tell? And if you dared to tell 
 you’d be afraid; and if you weren’t afraid, you’d be “skeered” 
 as Helmar Jenkins Booth. 
 
 My credentials further state, that 1 was born when quite 
 young, in 1863, at a little “jumping-off-in-the-road” place 
 called Quihi, Medina County, Texas, on what was then known 
 as the old John Heyen place. We moved later to Sturm 
 (meaning “storm”) hill, where I spent most of my child- 
 hood days. 
 
 Father was a stock raiser; and, also took cattle on shares, 
 — attending to the handling and care of them on the open 
 range. My sister and 1 were sent to school in an old school 
 house nearby, on the Klappenbach ranch, to be “edjicated.” 
 
 As children we were warned and taught to be on the 
 lookout for Indians. We were told wild and weird stories of 
 massacres and how Indians would steal children and torture 
 them; and which was not a “fairy story,” but a fact. We 
 were on our way home one evening after school when we 
 saw in the distance a band of Indians coming in our direc- 
 tion. It took us but a moment to hide in a cluster of white 
 brush. The Indians passed uncomfortably close to us on 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 417 
 
 their way to some other place, as the settlement was not 
 molested that night. They confined their raids mostly to 
 stealing' of stock, such as horses and mules; however, they 
 did not hesitate in “lifting a scalp” if chance offered. Some 
 time later Indians appeared at night and made a raid on our 
 settlement, taking with them a number of horses, and hap- 
 pened to lose one of their own — a little dun pony. We took 
 up this pony and fed him so that he was soon nice and fat. 
 One evening we took him out to graze near the house, and 
 had gone back some 300 yards when we saw a bunch of 
 redskins leading away our fat little pony and we lost no 
 time in hiding. We found the cut hobble next morning 
 about ten feet from where we had left the horse, and 1 
 guess the Indians had watched us, and waited long enough 
 for us to leave and then took the animal. That very night 
 the Indians stole horses all over the settlement. They also 
 visited a place belonging to Nic Haby. He had his horses 
 and mules in a pen and was guarding them, hiding behind a 
 large live-oak tree. Early in the night he noticed his horses 
 becoming restless and directly an Indian appeared above the 
 fence and jumped into the corral among the horses. Nic 
 Haby was a good shot and the Indian found it out. The 
 following morning a neighbor of Haby’s came over to tell 
 Haby his trouble with Indians and the loss of horses he had 
 sustained, when he espied the dead Indian. He drew his 
 dirk and plunged it into the redskin’s body, exclaiming: “That 
 is the son-of-a-gun; he stole my horses.” They put a rope 
 around the Indian’s head and dragged him up on the moun- 
 tain, turning him over to the mercies of the buzzards and 
 hogs. They accorded him the same burial that the redskins 
 gave their white victims. For a long time thereafter no- 
 body would eat pork. 
 
 After I was large, or old enough to work out, I started 
 freighting, my first trip being with a two-horse wagon from 
 San Antonio to Fort Clark. There were generally from six 
 to ten wagons making the trip at the same time, partly for 
 protection and also for assistance which in the rainy season 
 was quite imperative. After a trip or two, I bought a three- 
 and-a-half-inch Studebaker wagon and hitched up six animals. 
 
418 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We freighted to Del Rio, to Eagle Pass and to Fort Clark 
 from San Antonio, Texas. We would take out merchandise 
 and bring back raw material — wool and hides, and some 
 times a load of empty beer bottles, or “dead soldiers” as 
 we called them. We had some experiences with our work 
 teams stampeding at night; and sometimes we would catch up 
 with them next day ten or twelve miles away, homeward 
 bound. In those days there were no graded roads; a wa- 
 gon-track, or a number of them would be called a road if it 
 had the name of its destination tacked to it. Sometimes a 
 road would be 100 feet wide or wider according to where 
 the ground was most solid and suitable to travel. When the 
 rainy spell set in the roads were almost impassable. Some- 
 times we hitched as many as sixteen animals to a wagon to 
 pull it out of the mud, and would move it 100 feet or so, 
 then hook on to the next one, until we had them all out of 
 the mud. I have seen the time that we were camped for 
 weeks on this side of the Frio River on account of high wa- 
 ter and impassable roads. We had an old mule that we used 
 in swimming the river when going to Uvalde for bacon and 
 meal. We had plenty of meat, such as rabbits, venison and 
 also fish. In 1881 with the coming of the Southern Pacific 
 Railroad our trade went “blooe.” I became foreman of the 
 Judge Noonan ranch southwest of Castroville, Texas, and 
 worked there until I went up the trail in 1884. 
 
 Ed Kaufman and Louis Schorp, both of them alive to this 
 day, gathered a herd of some 450 head of horses in Me- 
 dina county, Texas. With them were J. M. Saathoff, Ehme 
 Saathof, a cook by name of Ganahl Brown and myself. We 
 started from Castroville, and drove by way of Bandera, Kerr- 
 ville and over the “old trail,” crossing the Red River at the 
 old Doan store. We herded the horses the first few nights 
 and later let them graze or rest during the night to them- 
 selves. We had a very wet trip, it raining almost every day 
 while we were on the way. Feed for the horses was plenti- 
 ful and our crew fared on wild game, corn-bread and black 
 coffee. We came across our first Indians when we arrived 
 in the Indian Territory. They were very friendly, and would 
 eat tobacco and sugar “out of your hand.” These articles 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 419 
 
 were always on their mind and after their preliminary “How” 
 they would never fail to ask for them. When the meals 
 we were cooking were ready there would always be some 
 “self-invited” Indian guest or guests to fall in and help them- 
 selves and eat to their heart’s content. One day an old buck 
 rode up to me in the usual way and asked for “terback.” I 
 handed him a plug and after he gave two or three of his 
 “compadres” each a chew he took one himself and stuck the 
 balance in his pocket. 1 argued and asked him to give me 
 back my plug, but he said: “Pony boss, he be good,” and 
 rode off. 
 
 It was customary to pay a duty on horses crossing the res- 
 ervation, and our boss paid the Indians in horses, but they 
 also stole some twenty-five head from us before we got 
 away from them. We did not have very much trouble with 
 the horses, and our trip took up something like four months, 
 from Castroville, Texas, to Dodge City, Kansas. We camped 
 with our herd about six miles south of Dodge City on Mul- 
 berry creek. The first thing we did when we arrived there 
 was to go to town, get a shave and hair cut, and tighten our 
 belts by a few good strong drinks. Here I also met George 
 W. Saunders — the same George who is now the worthy pres- 
 ident of the “Old Trail Drivers’ Association.” 
 
 While here our boss, Ed Kaufman got summons that some 
 important business demanded his immediate return to Medina 
 county. He left the herd in our charge until such a time 
 when he should return, in about 30 days. After he got back 
 to the herd he sold it to Mr. Wilson, of Pueblo, Colorado; 
 where he had to deliver the horses for him. 
 
 After delivery of the horses at Pueblo, Colo., I hired to 
 Wilson, and worked for a couple of months, when I was 
 sent back to Dodge City to receive and take charge of a herd 
 of 3500 head of two-year-old stocker steers for Wilson. I 
 started the herd and the cattle would stampede every bloom- 
 ing night. Often in the morning we had to help from thirty 
 to forty of the poorer steers on their feet by a tail-hold and 
 lift. This was repeated for some eight to ten days; and we 
 could only make from five to six miles per day. We tired 
 of herding the cattle at night, so would scatter the herd over 
 
420 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 a large area of ground to give them more elbow room. This 
 worked like a charm, for as long as the cattle were not in 
 close formation they would not get excited so easily — and 
 we had no more runs. 
 
 We took the herd about sixty miles below Pueblo to the 
 Wilson ranch, branded the 3500 head, and six more herds 
 which had been delivered there amounting to another 3500 — 
 7000 head in all; besides branding, we dew-lapped every ani- 
 mal. We built our own pens and chutes to do this, and 
 hard work it was. Still, we had lots of old-time pleasure to 
 relieve the monotony. Every Saturday afternoon at two 
 o’clock we would quit work and go to a dance, start dancing 
 at 4 P. M. and dance till after sun-rise Sunday morning. We 
 had lots of refreshments, booze, beer and kindred “exhilara- 
 tors.” Sometimes a little shooting scrape would change the 
 scenery, but was of passing interest. From the Wilson ranch 
 I returned home by way of Kansas City. I remained at 
 home a short time and took up some State land in 1885, 
 fenced it — and then went west, to Brewster and Presidio' 
 counties, where I worked for Sam Harmon, of Alpine, Texas. 
 Harmon was a round-up boss and attended to the branding 
 and gathering of stock. The first work we did was out of 
 the ordinary — we tried to dig a well. We blasted through 65 
 feet of solid rock and left a “dry hole.” Later I worked for 
 F. Collins a long time. 
 
 In 1892 I left Alpine and went home to Medina county, 
 got married to Johanna Schweers and settling down five 
 miles north of Quihi — on Sturm Hill. 
 
 WHEN A BOY BOSSED A HERD. 
 
 Sketch of J. D. Jackson, Alpine, Texas. 
 
 J. D. Jackson was born January 6, 1861, on Donahoe 
 Creek in Bell county, Texas. His parents came to Texas from 
 Louisiana in 1852, and he and his brother, J. W. Jackson, 
 still own the old Jackson home in Bell county. 
 
 Joe Jackson, as he is commonly called, was in charge of 
 a herd of cattle on the trail with eight to ten men working 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 42 1 
 
 under him, at the age of eighteen. At one time he drove a 
 herd of stock cattle more than eighty miles across the staked 
 plains of West Texas without water, driving the cattle at night 
 and resting in the day time. 
 
 Several older men in the outfit thought the men and cat- 
 tle would all die, so they appealed to the second boss, L. 
 B. Wells, to “Tell that d — d boy to drive day and night.” 
 But Wells told them that “that boy” knew just how to handle 
 that herd and would get them all to water if they would 
 stay with him. When they were about six miles from the 
 Pecos River, the cattle smelled water and made a mad rush 
 for it. Jackson managed to stay in front of them, as he was 
 riding a good quarter horse. As the river was up, Jackson 
 rode in to about the center and found a sand bar and stayed 
 there to turn the cattle out, for they drank almost half of 
 the night; otherwise the cattle would have drifted down the 
 stream with the steep banks on both sides holding them in 
 and would have perished. 
 
 In 1914 Joe Jackson was elected President of the Cattle 
 Raisers’ Association of Texas; was re-elected in 1 9 1 5, and 
 many of his friends, among whom are the biggest men in 
 Texas, plead with him to allow his name to go before the 
 convention for the third term, but he refused. During his 
 administration the association grew from 2250 to 4000 mem- 
 bers, retaining most of the old members. 
 
 Aside from being a benefactor to the live stock interest, 
 Joe Jackson is reported to have done more for school chil- 
 dren than any other man in West Texas. He has been 
 president of the school board at his home town, Alpine, for 
 sixteen years and has been instrumental in building up a good 
 public school system in Texas. He began work for the Sul 
 Ross State Normal nine years ago and has been working 
 until his dream came true and it is now a large school run- 
 ning in reality. 
 
 He and his partner, S. D. Harmon, have large holdings 
 of land and cattle in Brewster county. 
 
422 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 ATE STOLEN MEAT ANYWAY. 
 
 By Jim Wilson, Alpine, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Bee county in 1861, so I am not as old as 
 some of the boys who had lots of experience up the trail in 
 the 70 ’s. I went up the trail to Kansas in 1880, leaving 
 Bee county with a herd for Millett & Lane and turned them 
 over in the Indian Territory. Dave Clair and I went with 
 Woodward & Oge, with Jim Newton as boss. Bill Han- 
 cock, a brother-in-law to Newton, was with the outfit, and 
 as he was about my age we fell in together somewhat. One 
 night Dave Clair, Bill Hancock, myself and a boy from Kan- 
 sas were on herd when a severe thunder storm came up, 
 and we drifted off with the cattle. The Kansas boy was 
 pretty badly scared during the storm and kept saying that 
 his people were all killed in a storm and he just knew we 
 were going to be killed too. Bill got excited too, and asked 
 me: “Did you ever pray?” I told him no, not in a long 
 
 time. He said “Some of us have got to pray, for the light- 
 ning is going to kill all of us.” The storm increased in fury, 
 the lightning striking near us frequently and we got sep- 
 arated: When our crowd got together again we found Bill 
 
 off his horse praying aloud. We found some stray cattle in 
 our herd, cows and calves, and Bill remarked that “one of 
 those fat calves would be good eating, if it was ours.” I 
 told him stampeded cattle in the Territory belonged to the 
 trail and we would just take one. He said: “No. Jim 
 
 Newton will fire us if we do that, and I wouldn’t eat stolen 
 meat anyway.” I did not care if we were fired, for 1 was 
 nearly starved for fresh meat, as we had not had any since 
 
 we left home, so I cut out one of those calves, ran it over 
 
 to the wagon, and the cook and I killed it. Before it quit 
 
 kicking I had the sweetbread on the fire. Before it was 
 
 skinned the sweetbread was hot. I went back to where Bill 
 was with some of it in my hand and told him to go and 
 help himself, but he said “I’ll go and get some coffee, but I 
 won’t eat any of that beef,” but he came back about day- 
 light with a chunk as big as his foot, and was eating it. 
 When I went to camp I found that he had buried the head, 
 hide and all. These stray cattle turned out to be Captain 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 423 
 
 MRS. BULAH RUST KIRKLAND 
 Daughter of C. H. Rust, 
 
 San Angelo, Texas 
 
 J. D. JACKSON 
 
 JOHN DOAK 
 
 PHIL WRIGHT 
 
424 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Lytle’s which had been lost the year before, and we turned 
 them over to his outfit. After delivering our herd I went 
 back to Mobeetie and then made two trips to Dodge City 
 that fall with the Turkey Track outfit. 
 
 Times have changed since then. All of the boys of this 
 generation are driving automobiles out to herds and after rid- 
 ing around a little back to town they go. The only way 
 you can get them out to work is to go in an automobile after 
 them, and if the job is within twenty miles of town you have 
 to take them back to see the picture show. I guess we will 
 soon have to take flying machines to get them out. 
 
 I moved to Brewster county in 1884, and have engaged in 
 the ranch and mercantile business here for many years. I 
 operated a large store in Alpine for a long time, and all I 
 knew about the business was the price of horse shoes and 
 Battle Axe tobacco. My clerks frequently accused me of 
 selling goods too high or too cheap, and said about the best 
 place for me was out among the cattle. 
 
 SPENT A HARD WINTER NEAR RED CLOUD. 
 
 By D. S. Combs, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 My experience covers a great deal of time, as I am now 
 just past my eighty-first birthday. You, perhaps, have lived 
 long enough to know that a man frequently forgets many 
 things he would like to remember and remembers many 
 things he would like to forget, but to me the memories of 
 the Old Trail days are very pleasant, principally on the ac- 
 count of my good fortune to be associated with many of the 
 pioneer cow men of Texas, who made the country famous by 
 their display of nerve and grey matter. 
 
 We did not know anything about the so-called hard times, 
 we were trained to meet conditions, overcome obstacles and 
 accomplish what we started out to do. My first experience 
 on the Trail was in 1866, when I drove a herd of cattle 
 from San Marcos, in Hays county, to New Iberia, La. Will- 
 iam Earnest owned these cattle, he put the value on them at 
 $6.00 per head, I did the work and we divided profits. I 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 425 
 
 had with me young men with the grit necessary to accom- 
 plish this undertaking. In those days we did not discuss 
 hardships; it seemed to be a pleasure to accomplish our un- 
 dertaking. We cooked our own food, slept on the ground, 
 worked in the rain in day time and at night, but all this was 
 a pleasure. Having made a real success of my first venture 
 1 was determined to tackle it again. 
 
 My next drive was in 1867. I took a herd of horses to 
 Kansas and on to Waterloo, Iowa. This time 1 had as a 
 financial partner L. W. Mitchell. The horses cost us $10.00 
 per head. We made a profit and were pleased with our re- 
 sults. In the year of 1871, 1 drove with Dock Day a herd 
 of steers from San Marcos to Red Cloud, Nebraska, where 
 we concluded to winter. This was my first bad set-back, 
 for the winter was the worst I ever saw or heard of, the 
 country froze over early in November and never thawed 
 until spring. Our cattle literally starved to death, snow cov- 
 ered the grass and the water froze so they could not drink. 
 I left there in the spring, a busted and disgusted cowman. 1 
 have never been back to that particular country and have 
 tried all these years to forget it, but the memories of that 
 dreadful experience will forever remain with me. 
 
 In 1876, I drove a herd for Ellison & Dewees. That year 
 about 40,000 head of cattle were put on the trail, known 
 as the Western Trail. This was real experience; we started 
 from San Antonio over an unknown route and where no road 
 or trail was to be followed. We were the pioneers who 
 made the first tracks that marked the Western Trail. We 
 reached Ogallala, Neb., after about three months straight 
 drive, passing through some hard country and often forced 
 to go long distances without water. Food was an object but 
 we, of course, managed to get by. In all my trail driving I 
 was fortunately never molested by bandits or thieves. I had 
 men with me that were dependable and with their assistance 
 I made what I called a success. Our meals consisted of just 
 whatever we could find that would do to eat. In 1878 I 
 took a herd from Bob Stafford’s ranch near Columbus to 
 Dakota, this time, for Ellison & Sherrell, and my experience 
 was about as is usually encountered on such drives. Then 
 
426 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 in 1879, I took an interest in a herd and drove over the 
 same ground. Was successful beyond my fondest expecta- 
 tions. The profits were not much but it was in the days 
 when a little money looked like a whole lot. 
 
 After that I bought and sold cattle in a small way in and 
 around East Texas, often shipping to West Texas and sell- 
 ing cattle to stock the western range. In 1880 I went into 
 the ranch business in Tom Green county and ranched there 
 for about two years, being associated with W. D. Kincaid. 
 In 1882 we moved to Haymond in Brewster county, where 
 we ranched until 1898. While there the firm name was 
 Combs & Kincaid Brothers, being composed of D. S. Combs, 
 W. D. Kincaid and J. M. Kincaid. We sold out to E. O. 
 Lochausen and in 1900 I bought our present ranch which is 
 located at Marathon, Brewster county, Texas, where my son, 
 Guv S. Combs, has managed the same for the Combs fam- 
 ily, all being partners in the ranch. 
 
 The greatest pleasure 1 have is in thinking of many of my 
 experiences and in meeting and remembering the cow men 
 of Texas. My association with them has always been a real 
 pleasure and when 1 have the good fortune of attending the 
 Annual Round-up, the pleasure it gives me to meet with the 
 familiar faces and shake hands with the boys is worth a great 
 deal more than it costs any of us to keep the Association alive. 
 
 EXPERIENCES OF THE TRAIL AND OTHERWISE. 
 
 By M. J. Ripps, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 There are “a great many ways of killing a dog without 
 choking him on butter,” as the old saying goes. In handling 
 cattle there are also many- different ways which may lead to 
 the same result; and, again one way, or cause, may lead to 
 many and varied results. 
 
 No doubt many of my old-time friends and cattle punchers 
 have here related their experiences handling cattle on the 
 trail in a graphic and interesting way; but as there are so 
 many “spooks and ghosts” to play Hail Columbia with cattle 
 1 shall take the liberty of adding a few of the experiences 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 427 
 
 that I was privileged, or “forced” to go through with, for 
 the benefit of the younger set of cow-boys, and our dear 
 friends, the readers. 
 
 A river changes its course in the course of time; likewise, 
 the channels of trade are changed with the passing of the 
 days, which the following trip will illustrate. 
 
 I think it was about February 10, 1876, that J. W. 
 Schelcher, Dick McRae, Manuel Cuero and I, with Louis 
 Enderle as our foreman, went into Frio county, Texas, and 
 gathered about 1000 head of cattle and brought them up to 
 the Trueheart ranch on the San Antonio river. Here we fin- 
 ished the herd by adding another 800 head. This herd was 
 the Joe Shiner property, and right here will state how these 
 cattle were bought. Cattle were always bought by the head, 
 and the price per head varied according to the age and class 
 of animal. There were no cattle sold “over the scale,” and 
 platform scales for this purpose were not even dreamed of 
 as a medium in the sale of cattle. Now, in gathering these 
 cattle on different ranches we came across cattle that had 
 strayed from other ranches, and their owner not being pres- 
 ent, we would send him word that we had one steer, a cow, 
 or a number of his cattle as the case may have been, and 
 paid him the prevailing price. This was within the law and 
 in use quite generally. Cattle that had no brand or mark 
 — well, that was not our fault. But it is remarkable the way 
 these cattle persisted in following the herd. Naturally our 
 sympathy was with them. The ranches where we gathered 
 the cattle had some very wild stock — outlaws, and to get 
 them called for strategy and cunning. These outlaw cattle 
 would generally graze to themselves and come to water at 
 night, especially if they scented danger or having seen a hu- 
 man being. There was a price on their head of $2.00 for a 
 big steer, $1.50 for a cow, and from there on down to 50 
 cents per head delivered in the herd. To accomplish this 
 we would watch around the watering places on moonlight 
 nights and rope them. This netted us more money than we 
 were able to make “by the month.” After we had roped 
 an animal we would lead or drag him into the herd, or other- 
 wise we would tie the animal down, and after we had sev- 
 
428 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 eral of them tied we would bring a bunch of cattle to where 
 we had them and turn them into the bunch and with the 
 bunch bring them into the main herd. This was great sport 
 and it was very dangerous as well. 
 
 We started the 1800 head and got as far as Goat Creek, 
 north of Kerrville without any serious trouble. We herded 
 them at night in three reliefs, and generally kept five horses 
 under saddle all night in case of emergency. One night I 
 was herding, and about midnight a bunch of wild hogs ran 
 into the herd and stampeded the cattle. We were camped 
 near a field close to a big flat, or prairie. The cattle headed 
 for a lane, with me in the lead unable to hold them. The 
 boys at camp heard the noise and came to my assistance, 
 and were able then to control them. We lost only one 
 steer which was crippled in the back. At the head of the 
 Pedernales river we killed a calf for fresh meat for the men 
 in camp. An old bull smelled the blood and started bellow- 
 ing and pawing the ground — he made a great to-do about it; 
 and it acted as a “war whoop does to the braves.” In the 
 stampede that followed some 300 head got separated from 
 the main herd and ran about a mile; we overtook them to- 
 wards morning and brought the whole herd together without 
 losing any. From there on to Fort McKavett we did not 
 have any more trouble. Here I quit the herd, as I was of- 
 fered a better proposition. 
 
 A second herd was started by Joe Shiner in 1878 with 
 Louis Enderle as foreman and the same crew as on the 
 previous trip; besides he had three or four darkies with the 
 herd. I joined them at San Antonio, bound for Kansas City. 
 We had a stampede on a creek near Kerrville, and it took us 
 half of next day to round up the 100 head that had scat- 
 tered. In Coleman county Joe Shiner sold the herd to Bill 
 Fraser and we delivered the cattle at Wichita, Kansas. 
 
 Another trip in 1898, I recall, when Manuel Lopez, Little 
 Pete Tafolla and I, and a little boy leading the pack horse, 
 went to Wetmore, Texas, and with the assistance of the 
 Classen Bros, rounded up 300 head of steers. We were to 
 meet a bunch of 600 steers en route overland from Hondo, 
 throw the two bunches together and take them to the feed 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 429 
 
 pens at Seguin, Texas, for Short & Saunders. However, 
 after I had my 300 head gathered I received word to take 
 them to Austin and deliver to John Sheehan, as he had 
 bought them. The first night we made New Braunfels, 
 Texas, but could get no pens. An old German sold us a load 
 of corn-fodder and some corn for our horses, so we herded 
 all night in the open. The second night we penned them in 
 the railroad pens at San Marcos and took them out on the 
 prairie next morning. Our cattle stampeded, running across 
 a cornfield, but being in November did not do any damage. 
 The herd reached Kyle, Texas, about noon and we stopped 
 to cook a meal. A man rode up and asked if we needed any 
 help; we were more than glad to hire him, and asked him 
 about a pen for the night at Buda, Texas. He said there was 
 only one pen, and it was engaged for the night. This made 
 us feel bad, and we were thinking of sending a man ahead to 
 arrange for some place for us to stop. Our visitor spoke 
 up and said that he had engaged the pen he spoke of, and 
 that he had been sent out by John Sheehan to meet us. That 
 afternoon a passing train stampeded our herd but we checked 
 them in a lane. We penned at Buda that night and next day 
 headed for Austin. When we got to the Colorado River we 
 found it on a rise. We were not allowed to cross the cattle 
 on the bridge, so we had to swim for it. Two of my men 
 stayed with me, and the third, a “cold-footer,” crossed on 
 the bridge. The cattle swam across all right and were de- 
 livered as ordered, without being any short. 
 
 One winter George Saunders and Ripps were feeding 1800 
 head of cattle in their pens at San Antonio, and these cattle 
 had to be guarded at night. One night a Mexican named 
 Victorian and myself were herding when the cattle broke the 
 fence for a distance of 100 yards. The cattle ran in a 
 southerly direction sweeping Victorian’s horse with them. 
 The cattle ran some five miles, with me in the lead and un- 
 able to check them. They finally broke into a pasture where 
 I was able to turn them and stayed with them until daylight 
 when relief came. The other relief man who did not 
 stampede with the cattle, did not show up until next day. 
 Twelve men came out to help me bring back the cattle and 
 
430 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 it was some job. There were seven head missing next morn- 
 ing. 
 
 In 1880 and 1881 I went on a trail of a different nature 
 by becoming a member of a surveying outfit to blaze the right 
 of way for the Southern Pacific Railway from San Antonio 
 west to the Rio Grande River. Two men joined the outfit 
 with me at San Antonio, and the crew consisted of seventeen 
 men. We surveyed as far as Uvalde, when we got orders 
 to arm ourselves and keep our eyes “peeled” for Indians. 
 This was too much for the two men who had joined with me, 
 and so they quit. We continued the survey, and were about 
 128 miles west of San Antonio when the government sent 
 twenty soldiers to us, as an escort. At the Nenecatchie Moun- 
 tains we had our first experience with the redskins. They 
 came in the night and tried to steal our mules and horses by 
 stampeding them. We had our guards, or outposts, stationed 
 some distance from camp and they exchanged shots but none 
 of our men were hurt. At San Felipe, on the Rio Grande, 
 Rangers took the place of the soldiers, and acted as our pro- 
 tectors. While we were camped at the McKenzie Crossing on 
 the Rio Grande River, the Indians made another attempt to 
 get our horses but were routed by the Rangers. From there 
 on we did not see any more Indians until we came to Eagle’s 
 Nest, on the Rio Grande. We were camped some 350 feet 
 above the level of the river bed, and were cutting out a trail 
 wide enough for a burro to pass with a cask, or small barrel 
 on either side, to transport water from the river. We had 
 stopped for the noon hour when we noticed nine Indians, 
 seven bucks and two squaws. They had evidently descended 
 to the river bottom some miles above and were wending 
 their way to a point directly in front of us, where they could 
 get to the water. They were coming in single file, some ten 
 feet apart, and were in full war paint, the Indian in the rear 
 being the guard. ‘ The eight went to water to satisfy their 
 thirst, while one stood guard. Then the guard went to drink 
 while one of the squaws stood guard, and she spied us, as we 
 could tell from her gestures. When she gave the alarm they 
 took to their horses and disappeared up the river. As we 
 were not looking for trouble we did not fire at them, but 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 43 1 
 
 doubled our guards to protect against an attack from the 
 rear. 
 
 Our next camp was at Painted Cave. One night we sent 
 our mules and horses out to grass with two guards in charge. 
 Indians crept up and tried to scare the animals. One of the 
 guards finding that something was not right, gave the alarm 
 and the fire works started. We fired some thirty or forty 
 shots, and one of the guards claimed he got an Indian. This 
 Painted Cave is worth a trip to see. It is a big opening under 
 a protruding boulder, large enough for ten men to ride into 
 on horeback at one time. Its inner walls are decorated with 
 Indian paintings of wild animals, lions, tigers, buffaloes, etc., 
 and all the sign language on the walls — some of which we 
 would not understand if they were played on a phonograph. 
 Besides this it contains the autographs of some of the pio- 
 neers carved in the rock, whose carvers have long since 
 started on the “long trail.” I was told by a friend of mine 
 the other day, who had been there lately, that he ran across 
 my name, carved there at that time — forty years ago. 
 
 I was born December 5, 1858, in the old Ripps homestead 
 in the western part of San Antonio on the property where 
 Geo. W. Saunders fed cattle for many years. 
 
 The only thing that is left to remind us of the olden days 
 is the barbecue. In preparing barbecued meats I gained 
 some proficiency, and have been, and am called on a num- 
 ber of times a year to superintend these honest-to-goodness 
 barbecues. What is there nicer than a nice slice of barbecue, 
 
 and a (if Volstead wasn’t so bad in figuring percentage) 
 
 little of 2.75 plus — 
 
 If a bunch of stockmen get together, you can rest assured 
 there is going to be a barbecue somewhere. A number of 
 times at their different conventions and gatherings I have had 
 from 1500 to 2000 pounds of meat roasting over the hot 
 coals, and I believe to their satisfaction. 
 
432 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 SKETCH OF COL. J. F. ELLISON. 
 
 By His Son, J. F. Ellison, Jr., Fort Cobb, Okla. 
 
 My father, Colonel J. F. Ellison was born in Winston 
 county, Miss., November 6, 1828, and moved to Caldwell 
 county, Texas, in 1850, settling on the San Marcos River 
 a few miles west of Prairie Lea where he lived until the 
 Civil War came on, and at the beginning of the war in 1 86 1 
 he answered his country’s call, leaving behind him an humble 
 noble Christian woman with five little children, the writer 
 being one of them. For four long years he was engaged in 
 the great struggle, returning home in 1865, like most of the 
 other true Confederate soldiers, a bankrupt, with nothing left 
 but the faithful wife and five children. With turning plow, 
 an old fashioned sweep and a yoke of oxen he went to work 
 to try and make a living for himself and those dependent 
 upon him. 
 
 I think the first cattle that were driven from Texas to 
 northern markets was in 1867. In 1869 father bought and 
 gathered about 75o head of mixed cattle, all kinds from 
 calves to grown cows, and started them up the trail. He 
 bought these cattle on credit to be paid for on his return. 1 
 accompanied him on this trip and we went to Abilene, Kan- 
 sas, crossing the Colorado at Webersville and going by way 
 of Fort Worth. We followed the old Fort Arbuckle trail 
 through the eastern part of Indian Territory, now the splendid 
 state of Oklahoma, and of which I am today a citizen. All 
 the trouble we had with the Indians was their begging for 
 something to eat. We found that if you fed them at meal 
 time you could count on them being right there the next time 
 your chuck was set out. After disposing of our cattle 
 and outfit we came back through Mississippi, where father 
 was raised, and from there to Galveston by boat from New 
 Orleans. This was my first experience on a boat and it made 
 an impression on me that I will never forget. I didn’t want 
 any breakfast next morning. 
 
 This trip proved to be a profitable one. After paying for 
 the cattle as soon as he returned home, father had $9,000 
 cash, which was a lot of money in those days. He drove 
 again in 1870, and after returning home that year Colonel 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 433 
 
 John O. Dewees, then of Atascosa county, who was an old 
 soldier comrade with father, wrote him that he would sell 
 him all the cattle on time he wanted, so the next year he 
 bought about 2,000 grown beef steers from Col. Dewees and 
 drove them in two herds. He contracted these steers, or a part 
 of them to a man named Powers to be delivered at his ranch 
 on Smokey River between Ellsworth and Abilene, Kansas, 
 at two and a half cents per pound. They weighed about a 
 thousand pounds each. This was a hard year, and but for this 
 deal he would have lost money. Soon after this father and 
 Colonel Dewees became partners in driving cattle over the 
 trail, which partnership continued until 1877, and was quite 
 satisfactory all around. 
 
 Father followed trail driving for thirteen years, the last 
 cattle he drove being in 1882. 
 
 In 1876 Ellison & Dewees and Millett and Maberry drove 
 together and they drove from South and Southwest Texas 
 fully 100,000 cattle to the northern markets, delivering some 
 of them as far north as the Black Hills in North Dakota. 
 
 Father died November 13, 1904, at his home in San Mar- 
 cos. He followed the cattle business until 1880 with great 
 success, but in that year he met with reverses which he never 
 fully overcame. He was known to all of the old trail men 
 and the hands of that time, and was held in highest esteem 
 by all with whom he came in contact. 
 
 SIXTY-EIGHT YEARS IN TEXAS. 
 
 By Pleasant Burnell Butler, Kenedy, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Scott county, Mississippi, in 1848, being 
 the eleventh child of Burnell Butler, who was born in Ken- 
 tucky in 1805, and Sarah Ann Ricks, born in North Caro- 
 lina in 1811. 
 
 In 1849 my oldest brother, Woodward, then a youth of 
 twenty years left the home in Mississippi to seek out a new 
 location for the family. He crossed the Mississippi River 
 into Louisiana, where he remained long enough to make a 
 crop, and selling out, journeyed on until he reached Karnes 
 
434 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 county, then a part of Goliad county, in 1850, where he 
 stayed on a tract of land that is now the Pleasant Butler 
 homestead, near the San Antonio River. 
 
 In September, 1852, father sold out in Scott county, Miss- 
 issippi and started to join my brother in Texas. I was at that 
 time four years old, but remember distinctly the start for 
 Texas, father and mother, twelve children, and seven negro 
 slaves, traveling in covered wagons, each drawn by two yoke 
 of oxen, mother driving a hack with a team of big horses, 
 and father riding a fine saddle horse. I recall clearly a stop 
 made near Jackson, Miss., to bid good-bye to my aunt, Mrs. 
 Porter, and how my aunt drove down the road with us in a 
 great carriage with a negro driver on a high seat in front — a 
 barouche of the real old South. 
 
 We crossed the Mississippi River at Natchez, where the 
 high red banks, down which they drove to the ferry boats 
 that carried us across the great river, made an impression on 
 my childish mind that has never been effaced. 
 
 When the family reached the spot on the wild prairie 
 lands where the town of Nordheim now stands, we camped 
 under a great live oak tree, the only tree in miles to break 
 the prairie lands about us. Father and mother drove ahead 
 in the hack to find Woodward in his camp on the San An- 
 tonio River, and to send him back to meet us as we came 
 on with the wagons. He met us the next evening, Decem- 
 ber 24, 1852, on the banks of the Eclato. 
 
 The new country, with its wide prairies, its wonderful 
 grasses and abundance of game became the home of the But- 
 ler family. I recall that my brother could go out in the 
 evening when the sun was a quarter of an hour high and 
 bring in a deer by nightfall. Turkeys also were plentiful. 
 
 In the spring of 1853 father cleared fourteen acres of brush 
 land, pushing the brush back to make a fence, and planted 
 corn. He harvested 700 bushels of corn or fifty bushels per 
 acre. Also that spring he leased a part of the Stafford & 
 Selmer tract of land and bought cattle. He gave a small 
 heifer to me, from which, up to the year 1862, I raised 
 eighteen head. But in 1863 came a great drouth and my 
 cattle diminished to one small steer. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 435 
 
 D. S. COMBS 
 
 L. B. ALLEN 
 
436 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 In November, 1863, Woodward, who had led the family 
 into the new home and blazed the trail for their future pros- 
 perity, drove to Port Lavaca to bring the winter’s supply of 
 groceries. While there he contracted yellow fever and died. 
 
 The years wore on and the great war between the North 
 and the South shook even this remote corner of the coun- 
 try. I remember seeing great wagons, drawn by twelve steers, 
 hauling cotton to Mexico, where it brought fifty cents a 
 pound. Flour was not available at $26.00 per barrel, and 
 corn in various ways became the staple diet. In 1862 my 
 brother, W. G. Butler, who had joined the army, was sent 
 home to gather a bunch of cattle for the Arkansas post. 1 
 was then a youth of fourteen and went along to the Hickok 
 pens, near Oakville, where the cattle men had assembled 
 500 head which were headed at once for Arkansas, t helped 
 to drive them as far as Pecan Springs, near the present town 
 of San Marcos, where I bade my brother good-bye and re- 
 turned home. 
 
 In 1863 came the great drouth. The Nueces and San An- 
 tonio Rivers became mere trickling threads of water with 
 here and there a small pool. The grass was soon gone and 
 no cattle survived except those that had previously drifted 
 across the Nueces River on to a range that was not so severe- 
 ly affected by the drouth. In 1864 came rains and plentiful 
 grass, and a search for drifted cattle was organized. All the 
 young able bodied men were in the army, so a party of forty- 
 five young boys and old men, headed by Uncle Billy Ricks, 
 of Oakville, went to San Diego to the ranch of Benito Lopez, 
 from which point they worked for a month rounding up cat- 
 tle and cutting out those of their own brands. Every week 
 a herd was taken across the river and headed for home and 
 in this way 500 head were put back on the ranges of Karnes 
 county where thousands had grazed before the drouth. My 
 steer was luckily among the five hundred. 
 
 In 1868 W. G. Butler, home from the war, drove a herd 
 to Abilene, Kansas, to market, and I went along as far as 
 Gonzales. This fired in me an ambition to ride the whole 
 trail and in 1870 I made my first trip through to Abilene 
 in the outfit of my brother. The trail then followed lay 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 437 
 
 along the line from Austin to Belton, Valley Mills, Cleburne 
 to Fort Worth, which at that time boasted of a livery stable, 
 a court house and a store operated by Daggett & Hatcher, 
 supply merchants on the public square, through which we 
 swung our great herd of cattle. At Fort Worth it was neces- 
 sary to take on supplies for a month, there being no big 
 stores between Fort Worth and Abilene, Kas., so at Dag- 
 gett & Hatcher’s we purchased flour, coffee, bacon, beans 
 and dried fruit, three-quarter pound of bacon and the same 
 of flour being allotted to each man for each day. 
 
 From Fort Worth the trail ran on to Gainesville, crossed 
 the Red River and from there our outfit went up Mud Creek 
 to the house of Bob Love, a Choctaw Indian from whom 
 we had to obtain passports through the Indian Territory. 1 
 remember that Love demanded 10c a head for the 500 head 
 in the herd and that after considerable business talk we com- 
 promised, Love accepting a $20.00 gold piece and in return 
 gave the necessary papers. From Love’s we traveled the 
 Chisholm trail, crossed the South Fork of the Arkansas, 
 through the Osage country into Kansas. 
 
 Along the trail the Indians showed great interest in our 
 party, particularly the chuck wagon. Hospitality had to be 
 limited, and little grass grew under our feet through this part 
 of the country. 
 
 Buffalo were very plentiful, so numerous irr fact that it 
 was necessary to ride ahead of the cattle to prevent them 
 from cutting into the herd. I killed four buffalo on this trip, 
 using only my six-shooter. I had little use for the sights on 
 a gun and shot just as true when on horseback and on the 
 dead run as when on foot. 
 
 In 1871 I started for Abilene in charge of an outfit of 
 my own and was joined at Gainesville by several other herds, 
 one belonging to Columbus Carrol, of Gonzales, in charge 
 of Jim Cox; one of Murphy of Victoria, in charge of Cap- 
 tain Lynn; and one of Clark & Woodward, in charge of 
 Judge Clark. This time we were to travel a new trail, 
 through a more open country, but where there had been 
 no previous travel. 
 
438 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 We crossed the river at Red River Station, seventy-five 
 miles above Gainesville, where an Indian named Red Blanket 
 waited to pilot us through the new country. The herds 
 traveled ahead in turn, a day at the time, the first herd 
 breaking the trail for those following. For sometime the 
 trail ran along Line Creek, which lay between the Osage 
 and Comanche nations. Red Blanket warned us that if we 
 
 got above the creek the Comanches would surely kill us. 
 
 After this there was little discussion of which side of the 
 creek made the best trail. Reaching Kansas in May, our 
 outfit made camp on the Smoky River, twenty miles from 
 Abilene where the cattle grazed until September, when they 
 were ready for market. 
 
 1 made four trips over the trail to market my steers, and 
 saw many miles of splendid country, but nowhere could I 
 see the prosperity and the future that lay in my own part 
 of Texas. So in 18Z4, when Capt. Tom Dennis bought 
 
 the 7,000 acre Jim King ranch, now known as the Wilson 
 
 ranch, I bought from him the north half of the ranch and 
 paid 10% interest on the debt until it was paid. The next 
 year 1 bought one-half interest in the Burris cattle and worked 
 them on the range. 
 
 During the years 1874, 1875 and 1876 W. G. Butler 
 and I operated on the range together. During this time 
 we sold 600 head to John Belcher, and delivered them 
 at Fort Worth. 
 
 
 In the fall of 1876, 1 sold my interest in the Wilson 
 ranch to Coleman and Stokely, also all my cattle I had on 
 the range at that time, range delivery. 
 
 In the year 1877, Coleman and Stokely delivered to me 
 2,200 head of steers, yearlings and two’s, for payment of 
 the cattle I sold them on the range. These cattle I rounded 
 up, and started up the trail, but on my arrival at Fort Worth 
 I found a buyer and sold out to him. 
 
 In 1878, I finished receiving cattle from Coleman & 
 Stokely, and bought more from Sullivan & Skidmore to make 
 out a herd of 3,500 head, and again started up the trail to 
 Dodge, Kansas, going through several storms, and enduring 
 lots of hardships, and then last but not least, could not find 
 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 439 
 
 a market for the cattle at Dodge, so I was compelled to 
 
 make the drive to Ogallala, Nebraska, where I sold out. 
 
 Arriving home in September, 1878, I began laying my 
 
 plans for another drive up the trail. In February the fol- 
 
 lowing year, 1879, I began receiving 3,500 from Jim Upton 
 and others, getting everything in readiness for the drive. I 
 started back to the prairies of Nebraska in March and it took 
 me three months to make the drive. I kept my cattle under 
 herd, between the North and South Platte Rivers, until some 
 time in August, when I sold out. 
 
 I then started my camp outfit towards good old Karnes 
 county, Texas, arriving home in September. 
 
 1 was married to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Ammons on the 
 1 4th day of February, 1871. She was the eldest daughter 
 of H. R. Ammons, who immigrated from Northern Missis- 
 sippi to Karnes county during the dark days of 1850, set- 
 tling on the beautiful San Antonio River, near the town of 
 Helena. To this happy union one son and four daughters 
 were born, all of whom are living, except my son Burnell 
 Butler, who died in 1895. My daughters all reside in 
 Kenedy, and are Mrs. J. W. Russell, Mrs. Van S. Ingram, Mrs. 
 Geo. H. Tips and Mrs. G. G. Ruhmann. I also have twelve 
 grandchildren. 
 
 MY FIRST FIVE-DOLLAR BILL. 
 
 By J. L. McCaleb, Carrizo Springs, Texas. 
 
 I went up the trail in 1868 with a herd for Mitchell & 
 Dixon of Hays county. We were holding our herd along side 
 of an old rail fence at the Red River Station crossing, wait- 
 ing for a herd to cross. 1 was in front (by the way my 
 
 place was always in front) on the left and a good place 
 
 compared to the boys further back where they had to ride 
 back and forth, as there was always a muley or a one-eyed 
 steer leaving the herd and further back especially the rear, 
 you had the lazy and sore-footed cattle to keep moving. The 
 best place around a herd while on the move, that is, if you 
 
 want to keep well posted in cuss words is the tail. At times 
 
440 
 
 THE TRIAL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the boys will not only cuss the cattle, but cuss each other 
 and everything else in sight or hearing. 
 
 Now about my first $5.00 bill. 1 saw a small piece of 
 paper in a fence corner, and as the cattle seemed quiet, I 
 got down and picked it up, simply because I was hungry for 
 something to read, if not more than one or two words. We' 
 did not have papers forwarded to us while on the trail — 
 well I read that it was good for $5.00. 1 had never seen one 
 
 before, so after crossing our herd and when we struck camp 
 for dinner 1 showed it to the boss. He said that it was sure 
 enough good money, so I rolled it up and stuck it away 
 down in the pocket of my leather leggins. Money was of 
 no value on the trail, as there was no place to spend it, but 
 I valued that $5.00 more than any $5.00 I have ever had 
 since. One day while at dinner the negro cook offered to bet 
 me a two-year-old heifer he had in the herd against my five 
 dollars that he could beat me shooting, only one shot each. 
 1 was good with a pistol but 1 knew the cook was hard to 
 beat. But I did not get nervous as the two-year-old was 
 about six to one if 1 won. One of the boys got a little 
 piece of a board, took a coal out of the camp fire, made a 
 black spot about the size of a twenty-five-cent piece, stepped 
 off fifteen steps (about 45 feet) and yelled, “All ready, shoot.” 
 I was to shoot first; I jerked my old cap and ball Navy out 
 and just about one second before 1 pulled the trigger 1 saw 
 the heads of six Indians just over a little rise in the ground 
 coming toward the camp. This excited me so that I did not 
 hit the spot, only about one-half of my bullet touched the 
 board just to the right of the target. I yelled to the negro, 
 “Shoot quick! Look at the Indians!” By that time we could 
 see them plainly on top of the rise. He fired, but never 
 touched the board. So six big Osage Indians saved me my 
 valuable find — the five-dollar bill. 
 
 We bedded our cattle for the last time near Abilene, 
 Kansas. The boss let myself and another boy go to the 
 city one day. As it had been a long time since we had seen 
 a house or a woman, they were good to look at. I wore 
 a black plush hat which had a row of small stars around 
 the rim, with buckskin strings to tie and hold on my head. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 441 
 
 We went into town, tied our ponies, and the first place we 
 visited was a saloon and dance hall. We ordered toddies 
 like we had seen older men do, and drank them down, for 
 we were dry, very dry, as it had been a long ways between 
 drinks. I quit my partner, as he had a girl to talk to, so 
 I went out and in a very short time I went into another 
 store and saloon. I got another toddy, my hat began to 
 stiffen up, but I pushed it up in front, moved my pistol to 
 where it would be handy, then sat down on a box in the 
 saloon and picked up a newspaper and thought I would read 
 a few lines, but my two toddies were at war, so I could not 
 very well understand what I read. I got up and left for more 
 sights — you have seen them in Abilene, Dodge and any other 
 place those days. I walked around for perhaps an hour. The 
 two toddies were making me feel different to what I had 
 felt for months, and I thought it was about time for another, 
 so I headed for a place across the street, where 1 could hear 
 a fiddle. It was a saloon, gambling and dance hall. Here 
 I saw an old long-haired fellow dealing monte. I went to 
 the bar and called for a toddy, and as I was drinking it a 
 girl came up and put her little hand under my chin, and 
 looked me square in the face, and said “Oh you pretty Texas 
 boy, give me a drink.” I asked her what she wanted and 
 she said anything I took, so 1 called for two toddies. My, 
 I was getting rich fast — a pretty girl and plenty of whiskey. 
 My old hat was now away back on my head. My boss had 
 given me four dollars spending money and I had my five- 
 dollar bill, so I told the girl that she could make herself 
 easy; that I was going to break the monte game, buy out 
 the saloon, and keep her to run it for me when 1 went back 
 to Texas for my other herd of cattle. Well I went to the old 
 long-haired dealer and as he was making a new layout 1 
 put my five on the first card (a king) and about the third 
 pull I won. I now had ten dollars and I thought I had better 
 go and get another toddy before I played again. As I was 
 getting rich so fast I put the two bills on a tray and won. 
 Had now twenty dollars, so I moved my hat back as far as 
 it would go and went to get a drink — another toddy, but 
 my girl was gone. I wanted to show her that I was not 
 
442 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 joking about buying out the saloon after I broke the bank. 
 After this drink things did not look so good. I went back 
 and it seemed to me that I did not care whether I broke 
 him or not. I soon lost all I had won and my old original 
 five. When I quit him my hat was becoming more settled, 
 getting down in front and I went out, found my partner and 
 left for camp. The next morning, in place of owning a 
 saloon and going back to Texas after my other herds, I 
 felt — Oh! what’s the use? You old fellows know how I felt. 
 
 The winter of 1868 was spent having a good cowboy 
 time. Wherever my horse, saddle and hat were I was there, 
 spending my trail money. When spring came on, 1 helped 
 to get together one herd, branded a lot of mavericks and 
 sleepers. But there was a little freckled face girl that 1 had 
 danced a lot with in the winter months, so I made up my 
 mind that I would stay in Texas that year, 1869. I fiddled, 
 danced and worked cattle over a territory as big as the state 
 of Maine. A ranch fifty years ago was not measured by 
 acres or miles — they were boundless. Schools and churches 
 back in the wild days were not handy and most of the ranch- 
 men and cowboys did not care. No mails, no papers, neigh- 
 bors miles apart, what could one expect from such a wild 
 life? We would civilize up a bit when we went to a dance, 
 that is, we would take off our spurs and tie a clean red 
 handkerchief around our neck. 
 
 I drove beeves from the W. B. G. Grimes pens on the 
 Leona to Matagorda Bay in the winter of 1869, then hired 
 to John Redus on the Hondo, where I finished the winter. 
 In the early spring of 1870 I helped him get together 2,000 
 of the wildest long-horns that was ever started up the -trail. 
 They were travelers when strung out, but were inclined to 
 stampede in front, the middle or rear. It did not take us 
 long to mill them if in an open country, but in timber that 
 was different. 1 took sick this side of Waco and left the 
 herd horseback for the Redus ranch on the Hondo. I punched 
 cattle, fiddled and danced some years after, getting wilder 
 all the time, until I met a curly headed girl in Atascosa coun- 
 ty, fell in love and married. It took her a long time to 
 tame me. But she did and for the last fifteen or twenty 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 443 
 
 years I do not have to be tied. Just drop the reins on the 
 ground, I’ll stay there. 
 
 SLAKED THEIR THIRST IN A DRY TOWN. 
 
 By A. D. McGehee, San Marcos, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Hays county, four miles below San Marcos, 
 October 17, 1857, and have never lived out of this county. 
 I was raised on a farm, and on December 17, 1876, I was 
 married to Miss Fannie Johnson. We raised six children to 
 be grown, three girls and three boys, and we think they 
 are all pretty good cattle, but do not know if they are much 
 improvement over the old stock. 
 
 I first went up the trail in 1868, when I was just seven- 
 teen years old, with my brother, George T. McGehee. We 
 drove from Belton to Abilene, Kansas. The trail then went 
 by the village of Dallas, crossed the Red River at Colbert’s 
 Ferry near where Denison is now located. At Abilene I 
 met several of the old Texas drivers, among them being 
 Colonel Meyers of Lockhart, Captain E. and Lonnie Millett 
 of Seguin, Doc Day, and others. After holding the cattle 
 at Abilene for about thirty days we shipped them over the 
 M. P. railroad to Springfield, Illinois, and put them in pastures 
 belonging to W. K. and Joe McCoy, who were commission 
 merchants and sold them out to farmers for feeders. I re- 
 turned home by way of New Orleans that fall, taking about 
 two weeks to make the trip. 
 
 After this for about ten years I went to school a little and 
 stayed on the farm until 1879, when I went into the cattle 
 business altogether, buying, selling and ranching. Started a 
 ranch in 1883 in Pecos county which 1 later consolidated 
 with the Toyah Land & Cattle Co., of which M. Locker of 
 Galveston was president. Associated with me in this com- 
 pany was J. M. Nance, H. Hillman, W. T. Jackman and 
 W. C. Johnson. Sold out in 1886 and I with Sam Head 
 and Bill Jackman delivered to Ike T. Pryor 3200 cattle at 
 Brady City to be driven to Wyoming. 
 
444 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 In 1885 in connection with Bill Good, H. G. Williams, 
 Bunton & Jackman, I drove 9,000 cattle from the Stafford 
 ranch in Colorado county to Trail City, Colorado. 
 
 In 1886 I again drove to Trail City, Colorado, and sold 
 out at Pueblo. From that time up to 1906 1 was engaged in 
 feeding and handling with M. A. Withers of Lockhart and 
 H. C. Storey of San Marcos. 
 
 From 1906 I was tax collector of Hays county for twelve 
 years. Since that time I have been handling a few cattle, 
 and for awhile engaged in shipping horses north. 
 
 I remember a little incident that happened on one trip. 
 I fell in with D. S. Combs and about daylight one morning 
 we unloaded at Burlington, Iowa, and started up the street 
 to get breakfast and a toddy was suggested. After going 
 up the street some distance, not knowing that Iowa was a 
 dry state at that time, we stopped on the corner of a street 
 and looked about as strangers would do, when a man stand- 
 ing on the opposite side, without asking a word, but I think 
 from Comb’s drouthy look sized us up and said: “Go back 
 two doors and go in a back room and you will find what 
 you are looking for.” We followed directions and located. 
 
 LIVED IN SAN ANTONIO AT TIME OF WOLL’S 
 INVASION. 
 
 By George W. West, Jourdanton, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Jefferson county, Texas, March 5, 1835. 
 My father, Claiborn West, was one of the signers of the 
 Declaration of Texas Independence. 1 entered the stock busi- 
 ness in 1854 in Atascosa county, and afterward went up the 
 trail twice, each time with my own cattle; endured the usual 
 hardships, but was not molested by Indians except when 
 passing through the Territory, where the Osage tribe de- 
 manded toll and I gave them a few steers. I wintered one 
 of my herds in Nebraska and fattened them on corn which 
 I bought at fifteen cents a bushel. I sold those steers for 
 $5.00 per hundred pounds, which was considered a good 
 price. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 445 
 
 I lived on the San Miguel when the Indians was very bad. 
 One night we had our saddle horses tied in the yard to keep 
 the Indians from stealing them and when I went out at day- 
 light to stake them out they were gone, but moccasin tracks 
 showed plainly who had taken them. Notwithstanding the 
 fact that I had two dogs in the yard which would have torn 
 a man to pieces, those Indians got the horses without arous- 
 ing the dogs. 
 
 In one Indian fight in which 1 was engaged I killed one 
 redskin and got his bow, arrows and shield, which 1 gave 
 to Frank Hall, a brother of Bill Hall. Frank took them 
 to Maine and gave them to his relatives. 
 
 The old timers living on the San Miguel at that time 
 were L. B. Harris, Alex, Steve and Nat Walker, Jim Lowe 
 and old man Pierce. 
 
 I went to school in San Antonio in 1845, when Woll’s 
 Mexican army came and occupied the town. 
 
 Seven years ago 1 had one of my legs amputated just above 
 the knee* and since that time I have had to occupy an in- 
 valid’s chair. My wife and I are living with our daughter, 
 Mrs. Lula West Ray, near Jourdanton, in Atascosa county. 
 
 GOT THEIR NAMES IN THE POT FOR SUPPER AND 
 
 BREAKFAST 
 
 By E. M. (Mac) Storey, Lockhart, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Lockhart, Caldwell county, Texas, Decem- 
 ber 12, 1857, was raised here and served as mayor of 
 the town for sixteen years. My first experience in handling 
 cattle began when I was nineteen years old. My father was 
 not a stockman and therefore I did not grow up from baby- 
 hood handling cattle. After my school days were over I, 
 with others, drove a mule team hauling freight from Lock- 
 hart to Austin, and down to the coast. In 1887 I started on 
 the cattle trail, first going to the Erskin pasture in Guadalupe 
 county to get the cattle for Dewees & Ellison, and gathered 
 them out of brush so thick as Green (Pap) Mills said, you 
 
446 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 could hardly stick a knife in it. Our boss was N. P. (Uncle 
 Nat.) Ellison. The hands with us, as well as I remember, 
 were W. M. Ellison, Green Mills, W. F. Fielder, E. F. Hil- 
 liard, John Patterson, Albert McQueen and Asa Jackson. 
 
 We had no serious mishap until we reached Onion Creek, 
 
 where we had a storm and stampede. We counted next 
 morning' and were out over 300 cattle in the mountains and 
 the mud, but we soon gathered them all in and moved on, 
 getting out of the brush at Burnett where, we rested a half 
 day. When we reached Red River at Red River Station 
 we had a stampede one night which was caused by a pan- 
 ther coming into camp to get some fresh beef we had on 
 a line. 
 
 In 1879 I went with William Green for Bishop & Head. 
 We gathered our herd that spring at Joe Cotulla’s ranch in 
 LaSalle county, and delivered them to Millett & Erwin on 
 their ranch in the Panhandle, after which R. G. Head sent 
 J. R. Saunders, H. F. Mohle, Billie Gray, Jim Foster and 
 myself to Dodge City, Kansas, to cut all herds that came 
 that way. We had two pack mules and seventeen horses, 
 and when we reached Pease River one of the pack mules 
 layed down and wallowed with his pack, turning it under 
 his belly, so when he got up he stampeded and scattered 
 clothes and blankets everywhere. We finally caught him, 
 gathered up our plunder, and went on and camped on a little 
 creek three miles south of the Washita River. That night 
 we had an awful rain and had to move to higher ground. We 
 devoured all of our grub here, expecting to overtake one of 
 Ellison & Dewees’ herds before this, but they had crossed 
 the Washita the day before. We started to cross while the 
 stream was on a big rise, and as soon as our loose horses 
 and pack mules struck the swimming water they turned 
 down stream. Being nearer to them I jumped my horse 
 into it and he did not try to swim a lick, so I floated him 
 out to a sandbar on the other side, and lost my saddlebags 
 and all of my clothes except those I had on. When we 
 reached the Washita it was also on a rampage and we de- 
 cided to wait until the next morning to see if the stream 
 would run down, but the next day it was higher than ever, 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 447 
 
 so we roped logs that were floating down the stream with 
 which to construct a raft. While doing so Billie Gray roped 
 a large tree top and it pulled him into the river. As he 
 could not swim, I threw him the end of my lariat, and 
 thinking he had failed to catch it I plunged into the water 
 to go to him, still holding my rope. Before I came up I 
 felt him pulling on it and when I again saw him he was 
 overhanding the rope about ten or fifteen feet from me, 
 so 1 caught a willow limb. By* that time he reached me, 
 caught me around the neck and ducked both of us. I held onto 
 the limb, and he to my neck, and we got out all right, but 
 I lost my lariat. Our craft got water soaked and we had 
 to make several trips with it, to get our bedding across. I 
 swam that river seventeen times that day without a bite to 
 eat, and had had nothing the day before. 
 
 The third day we rode all day without food and camped 
 at night in the mud. The fourth day we rode as fast as we 
 could and decided that if we did not get something to eat 
 within a very short time we would kill a horse and eat him, 
 but about one o’clock we struck fresh herd signs and then we 
 shoved our horses and pack mules to the limit. I was about 
 200 yards behind the other boys when they reached the 
 camp of one of D. R. Fant’s herds and when I got there 
 the boys were still on their horses. They informed me that 
 the boss said he had no grub to spare, as he did not have 
 enough to last him until he reached Dodge City. I remarked 
 that I would just as soon die there as further up the creek, 
 and that 1 was going to eat or get blood, and I meant 
 every word of it, for I did not intend to perish from starva- 
 tion when I could smell grub. The other boys were in the 
 same fix, so I felt sure they would stand by me. I got off 
 my horse, walked to the chuck box where I found some 
 cold corn-bread and fat bacon, and ate some of it, went 
 out to one side and vomited it up. We tried that perform- 
 ance several times before we could get the grub to stay with 
 us. The cook put our names in the pot for supper and 
 breakfast, and the boss apologized for the manner in which 
 he had refused to give us anything to eat, saying he thought 
 perhaps we were a bunch of horse thieves, as we had so 
 
448 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 many good looking horses, and was afraid to encourage us 
 to remain near for fear we would steal his horses that night. 
 We took our dinners with us the next day and caught the 
 Ellison herd at Wolf Creek. Joe Ague had charge of it. 
 We stayed with him two days, then went on to Dodge City, 
 where I remained and cut cattle three and a half months. 
 Then we threw all of the cattle we had cut, about 600 head, 
 in with one of Dewees & Ellison’s herds and went from there 
 to Ogallala, Nebraska, where the most of the herd was sold to 
 Bosler & Lawrence on the North Platte, near the mouth of 
 Blue Creek. There I was employed by them to do line 
 riding until October. We gathered a shipment of beef cattle, 
 crossed the river at Sidney Bridge and went to Ogallala, and 
 from there with them to Chicago, when I came home to 
 Texas. 
 
 In 1879 I went up with L. T. Pierce for Bishop & Head. 
 In 1880 I went with Giles Fenner for the same firm, as far 
 as Cheyenne, Wyoming. There I received a wire from Mr. 
 Head instructing me to go by train to Ogallala to take charge 
 of a range herd of 3,700 cattle. In about two months he 
 sold them and I took 125 head of horses to Buffalo Bill 
 Cody’s ranch near North Platte City, then took the train 
 back to Ogallala and from there back to my place of birth 
 and residence. 
 
 SETTLED ON THE FRONTIER OF TEXAS. 
 
 Sketch of Ed B. English, of Carrizo Springs, Texas. 
 
 Ed English, son of Captain Levi English, was born in De 
 Witt county, Texas, near Yorktown, April 7, 1852. His 
 mother was Matilda Burleson, a cousin to General Edward 
 Burleson, and also a cousin to Joe Hornsby, who lived on 
 the Colorado and figured in the frontier history of the state. 
 She was a member of the well known English family and 
 was likewise a cousin to the father of our present Postmaster 
 General, Albert Sidney Burleson. 
 
 From DeWitt county the English family moved to Bexar 
 county, remaining a short while, then went to Atascosa 
 county and settled just above the present town of Pleasan- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 449 
 
 ton, being the first white settlers, along with Uncle Sam 
 Lytle’s family, to locate on the Medina River near Von 
 Ormy. From Atascosa they moved to Frio county in i860 
 and settled on the Leona River. While they were living 
 there a band of 300 Indians made a raid in that section and 
 killed several white men, among those murdered being Len 
 Eastwood and Jim Saunders. The families got together, 
 gathered up their horses, cattle and household goods and 
 started back to Atascosa. On the road close to a place 
 known as the Brand Rock about fifty Indians threatened to 
 attack them, but when the white people showed fight the 
 savages made haste to depart. The people remained in 
 Atascosa about a year and then moved back to their homes 
 in Frio county. 
 
 At a later time the Indians made another raid in that sec- 
 tion and Captain English, with ten men overtook them near 
 where Dilley now stands. There a desperate engagement 
 took place in which three of the white men were killed and 
 six wounded. Those killed were Dan Williams, John Eng- 
 lish and Dean Oden. The only man living today who was 
 in this fight is Aulsie Franks, now residing at Pleasanton. 
 John English was the oldest brother to the subject of this 
 sketch. He also had another brother accidently killed near 
 Derby, Texas. 
 
 In 1865 Captain English moved his family to Carrizo 
 Springs. There was only one house in Dimmit county at that 
 time, and he settled three miles below this house and was the 
 founder of Carrizo Springs in 1869. 
 
 One day in July, 1866, Ed English, with his little brother, 
 was out on the range horse hunting. The two boys were 
 attacked by seven Indians, who had come upon them un- 
 awares. Ed shot one of their horses, and the Indians closed 
 in upon him, shot him in the arm and knocked his gun out 
 of his hands. An Indian made a lunge at him with a lance, 
 which pierced his pistol scabbard. He managed to pull his 
 pistol and killed the foremost Indian with it, then the other 
 Indians ran to the fallen brave and Ed and his little brother 
 made a dash for the ranch, with three Indians following, and 
 in the chase one of the Indians shot Ed in the back with 
 
450 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 an arrow. The boys outdistanced their pursuers and reached 
 home, where Captain English pulled the arrow out, and found 
 that it had a long steel spike on the end of it. Ed was 
 layed up with his wounds for nearly two months. 
 
 The next raid the Indians made was in 1870. A band of 
 about 200 swooped down on the ranch of Charles Vivian, 
 killed a Mexican and captured a Mexican boy. Before they 
 reached the Dave Adams ranch the Indians met a party of 
 five cowboys, Will Bell, Joe Tumlinson, Si Hay, John Smith 
 and a Mexican. As they were greatly out-numbered the 
 boys had to retreat. Adams was at a pen near his house 
 when the Indians came up, and having no gun with him 
 he tried to gain the brush, but was cut off and killed by the 
 savages. The alarm was spread and when some of the In- 
 dians were within a half mile of Carrizo Springs several men 
 went out and engaged them in battle, but were driven back.. 
 Other men had come in from the upper region and got around 
 the Indians to the Adams ranch and engaged the main body 
 in a desperate fight. While the Indians were killing Adams 
 a wagonload of people who were going to Carrizo Springs 
 drove upon the scene. They were Jack McCurdy, Jake Burle- 
 son, Pat McCurdy, Pleas English and Mrs. Levi English. They 
 turned the wagon and ran from the Indians with only two 
 following them, the others being engaged in the fight with 
 the cowboys. 
 
 Mr. English drove his first cattle up the trail in 1872 to 
 Wichita, Kansas. In 1873 he drove another herd to Dodge 
 City, Kansas. During those days the stockmen formed an 
 association and all worked together on the cow hunts. They 
 sold all of the unbranded yearlings, then known as mav- 
 ericks, and used the money to buy provisions for the cow 
 hunts. 
 
 When Mr. English was quite a small boy he had a great 
 desire to make money, so he took a contract to herd and 
 shear some sheep, for which he received five dollars. He put 
 that money aside to use it to go into the cattle business. One 
 day a cow hunt was stopped at his home, and they had 
 some mavericks which they were going to auction. So Ed 
 decided that was his chance to get into the business. Among 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 451 
 
 the number to be auctioned were two brown heifer yearlings, 
 and Ed went to the man in charge and asked if he would be 
 permitted to bid. The old man told him he could do so 
 and asked how much money he had. The lad proudly re- 
 plied, “five dollars,” and told him how he had obtained it. 
 About thirty men were there, but none of them would bid 
 against the ambitious boy, so he got the two yearlings for 
 four dollars. 
 
 Mr. English is one of the most prominent pioneer charac- 
 ters in the southwestern part of the state. He grew up on 
 the frontier, and was raised to the cattle business which he 
 has followed throughout his life, making his home in Dimmit 
 county ever since those early days. He has business 
 interests in San Antonio also, and has spent a great deal of 
 his time during the past few years in the Alamo City. He 
 has a fine ranch of 15,000 acres, beautifully situated on the 
 divide between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers, and 
 stocked with high grade Hereford, Durham and Red Polled 
 cattle, 
 
 During his career he has had more power of authority 
 to handle cattle than any other man in his part of the state, 
 that power extending from Brownsville to the Conchos. The 
 last settlements' he made were with Jim Lowe, Billie Slaughter, 
 Monte and Cal Woodward, Bill Ward and Lease Harris. In 
 his cow business he never learned how to block a brand or 
 run one over. He never handled a wet horse because he 
 didn’t need him in his business. He still buys and trades in 
 cattle and when he wants to buy a bunch he generally goes 
 to see George W. Saunders at the Union Stock Yards in San 
 Antonio, for he is a personal friend and deals on the square. 
 
 Mr. English has been married twice. His first wife was 
 Mrs. Margaret English, and to them were born five chil- 
 dren. In 1886 he married Mrs. Elizabeth Brock. They 
 have one daughter, Celestyne, born July 4, 1900 
 
452 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 SOME THRILLING EXPERIENCES OF AN OLD TRAILER 
 
 By L. D. Taylor, 429 Pruitt Avenue, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 In the spring of 1869, my two brothers, Dan and George 
 Taylor, with Monte Harrell rounded up a thousand long-horn 
 beeves, four to twelve years old, and started them to Kan- 
 sas. 1 had never been out of our home neighborhood before, 
 so I went along to get some experience on the trail. The 
 herd was rounded up in Gonzales county, about where the 
 town of Waelder is now located. 
 
 We swam the Trinity at Dallas, where our herd stampeded 
 and ran through the streets of the town, creating quite a 
 commotion. The damage they did cost us about two hun- 
 dred dollars. 
 
 When we reached Waco the Brazos River was level with 
 its banks, and we had to swim the herd across. It is a won- 
 derful sight to see a thousand steers swimming all at one 
 time. All you could see was the tips of their horns and the 
 ends of their noses as they went through the water. 
 
 Near Waco 1 learned some law, by taking two rails off 
 a fence for firewood with which to cook supper. Was glad 
 to get off by paying two dollars for those rails. We pro- 
 ceeded on to the Red River, which we crossed and traveled 
 several days in the friendly Indian nation. The first night 
 there we rounded up the herd, but next morning they were 
 gone, for they had been stampeded by Indians shooting 
 arrows into them, and it required several days to get them all 
 together again. The Indians resorted to that kind of a trick 
 to get pay for helping to get the cattle back again. When 
 we left this section of the Indian Territory we turned our 
 backs to civilization, for the remainder of the trip was to 
 be made through a wild, unsettled, hostile country. After 
 a few days’ travel we struck the Chisholm trail, the only 
 thoroughfare from Texas through the Indian Territory to 
 Kansas, and about this time two other herds fell in with us, 
 and not knowing the country we were going through the 
 three outfits agreed to stick together, stay and die with each 
 other if necessary. Ours was the third herd that had ever 
 
 traveled that trail. We had plenty of stampedes, and one 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 453 
 
 day we had a run just after crossing' a swollen stream. I was 
 with the chuck wagon, and was left alone, so I just kept 
 right on traveling. Late that evening, after I had turned 
 out and struck camp for the night, my brother George came 
 up and told me the herds and other wagons were ten miles 
 behind. He gave me his pistol and went back to the herd, 
 and I stayed there alone that night. The next day the herd 
 overtook me, and I felt somewhat relieved. 
 
 One night the herd was rounded up about a half mile from 
 camp, and during the night I was awakened by the shaking 
 of the earth and an awful noise, and found the whole herd 
 coming down upon us in a furious run. I was bunking with 
 Monte Harrell, and when I jumped up Harrell tried to hold 
 me, but I jerked loose and ran around to the other side of 
 the wagon. 1 soon had Mr. Harrell for company. 1 think 
 every beef must have jumped over the wagon tongue, at least 
 it seemed to me that every steer was jumping it. 
 
 From here on we had considerable trouble crossing the 
 creeks and rivers, having to float our wagons across. When 
 we reached one of these streams that was on a rise three 
 or four men would swing on behind each wagon to hold it 
 down until we got into the water, then the men would swim 
 alongside the oxen and guide them across. 
 
 After going about three hundred miles without seeing any- 
 one or knowing our exact location, we came to the old mili- 
 tary road running north. That day about noon two negro 
 soldiers came to our camp mounted on two big fine govern- 
 ment horses. They asked me for grub and I told them I 
 had none cooked, and as brother George spoke rather harsh 
 to them, they rode away, going by one of the other herds. 
 After they had passed on, two young men with one of the 
 other outfits decided to follow these negroes and take their 
 horses away from them, suspecting that they were not in 
 rightful possession of the animals. When they overtook 
 the negroes a fight ensued in which one of the boys was 
 killed. The other boy returned to us on one of the govern- 
 ment horses and told us of the affair. We went out and 
 found the body and buried it there on the trail, using axes 
 and knives to dig the grave with. 1 have forgotten the 
 
454 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 murdered boy’s name, but he was from Texas. The negroes, 
 we learned afterwards, were deserters from the army. We 
 found the other government horse grazing near where the 
 fight took place, the negroes having secured the horses be- 
 longing to these two boys and made their escape on them. 
 
 The next day I was about a mile behind the herd with the 
 chuck wagon and four Indians came up. They grunted and 
 asked for “tarbucket,” so I grabbed the tar bucket and gave 
 it to them, but they shook their heads and put their hands 
 in my pockets, took all of my tobacco, gave another grunt, 
 and went off with the tar bucket. In camp that night my 
 brother asked why I permitted them to take our tar, but I 
 replied that I was glad they did not take my scalp. 
 
 A few days later as we were traveling along we saw ahead 
 of us something that looked like a ridge of timber, but which 
 proved to be about four hundred Comanches who were com- 
 ing our way. They were on the war-path and going to bat- 
 tle with another tribe. When they came up to our herd 
 they began killing our beeves without asking permission or 
 paying any attention to us. Some of the boys of our herd went 
 out to meet them, but the boys of the other herds hid out 
 in the grass, and only one man from the other outfit came 
 to us. They killed twenty-five of our beeves, and skinned 
 them right there, eating the flesh raw and with blood run- 
 ning down their faces, reminding me of a lot of hungry dogs. 
 Here I witnessed some of the finest horsemanship I ever 
 saw. The young warriors on bareback ponies would ride 
 all over the horses’ backs, off on one side, standing up, laying 
 down, going at full speed and shooting arrows clear through 
 the beeves. We were powerless to help ourselves, for we 
 were greatly outnumbered. Every time we would try to 
 start the herd the Indians would surround the herd and hold 
 it. Finally they permitted us to move on, and we were not 
 slow in moving either. I felt greatly relieved, and they could 
 have left us sooner without my permission. These Indians 
 had “talked peace” with Uncle Sam, that is all that saved us. 
 We heard a few days afterwards that they had engaged in 
 battle with their foes after leaving us, and had been severely 
 whipped, losing about half of their warriors. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 455 
 
 In 1869 Colonel John D. Miles was appointed Indian 
 agent by President Grant and served in this capacity in Kan- 
 sas and the Indian Territory, for the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, 
 Kiowas and Comanches, which tribes frequently went on the 
 war-path in those days, making it very dangerous for the 
 trail drivers. We met Colonel Miles the next day after the 
 Indians had attacked our herd, and he made a note of the 
 number of beeves they had killed belonging to us, and said 
 he would report it to Washington, and we would receive pay 
 for all we had lost. He was traveling alone in a hack on 
 his way to some fort, and to me he looked very lonely in 
 that wild and woolly country. 
 
 When we reached the Canadian River we found it on a big 
 rise, so we decided to stop there a few days and allow our 
 herd to graze while waiting for the river to go down. While 
 we were there a man came along one day and warned us to 
 be on the lookout for Indians, saying they were liable to 
 attack us at any time. He passed on, and the next day we 
 crossed the river and after traveling about ten miles we 
 came to a pool of water where we found this man’s clothes 
 on the bank. Investigation revealed that he had been stripped 
 and dumped into the pool. 
 
 We reached the Arkansas River where we had a little trou- 
 ble getting across. There were a few houses on the Kansas 
 side, and we began to rejoice that we were once more get- 
 ting within the boundaries of civilization. Here we found a 
 store and plenty of “booze,” and some of the boys got “full.” 
 After leaving that wayside oasis we did not see another house 
 until we were within ten miles of Abilene. We had several 
 stampedes in that region. 
 
 One evening Monte Harrell said the prospects were good 
 •for a storm that night, and sure enough we had a regular 
 Kansas twister. I had prepared for it by driving a long 
 stake pin into the ground, to which I chained the wagon, 
 and making everything as safe as possible. At midnight the 
 storm was on, and within a moment everything was gone ex- 
 cept the wagon and myself. The cattle stampeded, horses 
 got loose, and oxen and all went with the herd. The storm 
 soon spent its fury and our men managed to hold the cattle 
 
456 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 until daylight and got them all back the next morning and 
 we resumed our drive to Abilene, reaching there in a few 
 days. Abilene at this time was just a small town on a rail- 
 road, consisting of three saloons, one store and two hotels. 
 Here we tarried to graze and fatten our cattle for market, and 
 as several of the hands were not needed, they were paid off 
 and allowed to return home, I being among the number. 
 
 While we were in Abilene, we found the town was full of 
 all sorts of desperate characters, and I remember one day 
 one of these bad men rode his horse into a saloon, pulled 
 his gun on the bar-tender, and all quit business. When he 
 came out several others began to shoot up the town. I was 
 not feeling well, so 1 went over to the hotel to rest, and 
 in a short time the boys of our outfit missed me, and instituted 
 a search, finding me at the hotel under a bed. 
 
 The next day we made preparations to start back to Texas, 
 and went on the train to Junction City, Kansas, to get our 
 outfit. It was the first train I ever rode on, and I thought 
 the thing was running too fast, but a brakeman told me it 
 was behind time and was trying to make up the schedule. 
 We secured our outfit, took in several men wanting to come 
 to Texas, elected a boss and started for home. The second 
 night out we camped in a little grove of timber and during 
 the night a storm struck us, another one of those Kansas 
 zephys that was calculated to blow hell off the range. 1 
 located a stump and anchored myself to it, while the boss, 
 a long-legged fellow, had secured a death grip on a sappling 
 near me. During the progress of the storm his feet were 
 constantly in my way, flying around and striking my shins and 
 knocking the bark off the stump I was hanging to for dear 
 life. 1 could hear him trying to pray, but I was so busy at 
 that particular time that I did not pay much attention to 
 what he was saying. The wind would pick us up and flop 
 our bodies against the ground with great force, but I hung 
 to that stump and got through all right. 
 
 We reached Fort Gibson on the Arkansas, and here we 
 were compelled to stay a week on account of high water. 
 The boys chipped in and bought a lot of whiskey at this place, 
 paying twelve dollars a gallon for it. I opposed buying the 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 457 
 
 whiskey because it was a serious offense to convey it into 
 the Indian Territory, but they bought it anyway, and after 
 we had started on our way again, some trouble arose among 
 the outfit. One day an Indian brought a horse and outfit 
 to our camp and I bought this outfit, paying the Indian 
 seventy-five dollars for it, so I left the bunch and pulled out 
 alone through the Indian country. I reached Red River, 
 safely, and made it through to my home without mishap, 
 reaching there with only seventy-five cents in my pocket. 
 
 In conclusion I will say that I have seen cowboys who 
 had been in the saddle for twenty-four hours without sleep 
 or anything to eat, come into camp lay down on a log and 
 go to sleep almost instantly, and sleep sound with the rain 
 pouring down, and water four inches deep all round them. 
 All of the boys who were with me on the trip mentioned 
 above are dead except one, William McBride. 1 was twenty 
 years old when I made that trip; 1 am now seventy years old. 
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD HELL IN HIS NECK. 
 
 By Ab Blocker of San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 I was born three miles south of Austin, Texas, January 
 30, 1856, and spent my boyhood days in farm and ranch 
 work. In 1876 I went to Blanco county to work for my 
 brother, John R. Blocker on his ranch, roping wild steers out 
 of the brush and mountains and moved them to the Lockhart 
 Prairie fifteen miles south of Austin. In 1877 we drove 
 these steers, 3000 head, to Wyoming Territory, and delivered 
 them to John Sparks, forty miles this side of Cheyenne. There 
 were sixteen men with this herd, but Brother John, myself, 
 an old negro named Joe Tasby, are the only ones living now. 
 We carried the herd through from Austin to Cheyenne in 
 eighty-two days. John and Bill Blocker owned them, and 
 John was the boss, Bill remaining at home. Frank Smith 
 was the cook, the best that ever went on the trail. 
 
 In the spring of 1878 we again started up the trail with 
 3000 head of wild steers for John and Bill Blocker, with John 
 Golden as boss. At Ogallala, Nebraska, John Blocker over- 
 
458 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 took us and put me in charge of his herd, and I delivered 
 them near Cheyenne to Swenson Bros. Golden took the 
 other herd to the Red Cloud Agency, and had one man killed 
 by lightning. Forty miles this side of Cheyenne, while we 
 were in camp, I had my horses caught for the night relief. 
 It began raining and the cook went to the wagon and began 
 handing out slickers to the boys. A bolt of lightning knocked 
 five of the men down and killed seven horses in camp. I 
 had just left camp for the herd when this occurred. 
 
 When we crossed Red River Golden told me one evening 
 to look out for the herd, as he and Bill Biles were going 
 back to the other side of the river. I thought they were 
 going back for whiskey, but the next morning just at daylight 
 they drove up with forty head of fine four-year-old steers. 
 He had given the old inspector some drag yearlings to cross 
 our herd. That was a pretty hard set of people there at that 
 time. Every man you saw had a pistol and winchester and 
 the children at the houses we passed were cutting teeth on 
 cartridge shells. 
 
 In 1881 I drove 3000 cattle from Williamson county to 
 the Cross S ranch twelve miles from Carrizo Springs for 
 Seeright & Carruthers. 
 
 In 1882 I drove some 3000 head from Austin to Crazy 
 Woman and Powder Rivers, Wyoming, for Stoddard, Howard 
 & Blocker, and delivered them at the Stoddard & Howard 
 ranch. After I returned from that trip I worked some 
 but not much, spending most of the time driving six yoke 
 of steers for Bill Blocker, working twenty hours out of every 
 twenty-four, hauling everything that was fed to cattle; the 
 balance of the time I spent in “acting the dude” in Austin 
 and blowing in my easy-made money. 
 
 In 1884 I drove a herd of 2500 cows and heifers from 
 'Lorn Green county to Buffalo Springs in Dalham county, for 
 John Blocker and delivered them at the XIT Ranch. Old 
 Barbecue Campbell was in charge of this ranch, which was 
 owned by a syndicate that had bought a lot of cattle down 
 in South and Southwest Texas .with which to stock it. At 
 Mobeetie 1 was turned back and had to go down across the 
 plains. My herd was the first to reach the ranch, and I got 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 459 
 
 W. B. BLOCKER 
 
 E. M. (BUD) DAGGETT 
 
 P. B. BUTLER 
 
460 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 there first by driving' at night around Joe Collins who was in 
 charge of a herd belonging to George West. Old Barbecue 
 Campbell was undecided as to selecting a brand ‘to be used 
 by the ranch syndicate, and when I suggested XIT it pleased 
 him so well he decided to use that brand, and it became 
 known all over Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico as the 
 XIT Ranch. I branded the first cow to carry the XIT brand, 
 and after delivering this herd Alex Caspares and myself went 
 to Los Animas, Colorado, where we sold our saddle horses 
 and went by train to Dodge City, Kansas, where I received a 
 message from Brother John, who was at San Antonio, in- 
 structing me to go to Camp Supply, get a horse, go back 
 the trail and stop two or three herds of his cattle, as he had 
 sold part of them and wanted me to deliver them and take 
 the balance to Deer Trail, Colorado. I went by stage to 
 Camp Supply and there met the bosses of John’s herds. They 
 had been stopped by the ranchmen on No Man’s Land, who 
 would not permit herds to pass. Several herds belonging to 
 George West and others were also there. As soon as John 
 Blocker and George West received news that their herds had 
 been held up they immediately came up there and began to 
 plan to get their cattle across that strip of country. Four- 
 teen armed men were riding fence to keep all herds from 
 passing, and refused to meet any reasonable demands. Blocker 
 and West went to Camp Supply and began wiring the authori- 
 ties at Washington, sending several messages, one message 
 alone costing them about $60.00, nearly all of the messages 
 passing through the hands of Colonel Carr who was very 
 courteous and extended every facility at his command to as- 
 sist them. Things were looking pretty “squally” and I be- 
 gan to feel creepy. A ranchman friend of John told him 
 that if he would give the word he would take his men and 
 kill all of the fellows who had stopped the herds, but John 
 told him that he thought he could beat them by law. After 
 several days’ parleying Blocker and West got a telegram 
 from Washington telling them to cut the fence and pass 
 through with their herds, and if there was further trouble 
 troops would be ordered there. When this telegram came 
 I had a herd ready to move. A lot of the boys with axes 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 461 
 
 cut the fence for a quarter of a mile, I took the lead and was 
 the first to cross the line. In just a short time all the herds 
 were on the move and as far back as you could see the 
 cattle, men, chuck wagons, horse rustlers and all were com- 
 ing, all eager to get across No Man’s Land. I took my herd 
 to Deer Trail, Colorado, this side of Denver, and delivered 
 them to a Mr. Robinson, who had bought them. Bill Blocker 
 came up and helped me count them out to Robinson, then 
 Bill went to Denver- and left me to rope and pull down those 
 cattle with a worn-out trail pony. 1 borrowed a good horse 
 from Mr. Robinson to rope on, and got him killed by a cow 
 hooking him through the head. Robinson said to me, “Now 
 you have played h — 1 with my horse, and 1 can’t loan you 
 another.” He then suggested that 1 turn the cattle out to 
 graze and let them rest, and start with them for the ranch, 
 twenty miles away, the next day, but 1 told him my wagon 
 and cook had already gone and I had instructed the cook to 
 drive until I caught up with him, therefore the cattle would 
 sleep just behind that wagon that night. He and his boss 
 walked through the pen and 1 heard Robinson say, “1 thought 
 Blocker had hell in his neck all the time,” and 1 spoke out 
 and said, “You are right; 1 have hell in my head four stories 
 high, and I don’t want you to forget it.” The next day be- 
 tween 11 and 12 o’clock I met him at his pasture gate, drove 
 the cattle and horses through, delivered the wagon to him, 
 as he had bought everything but the men, and asked him 
 where his ranch house was. He told me it was about a mile 
 away at a cottonwood mot on the creek. I called the boys 
 and struck a gallop, and when we got there 1 unsaddled my 
 horse, pulled off my leggings and six-shooter, laid my head on 
 my saddle on the shady side of the house, and said, “Now 
 boys, I am going to sleep, and the first d — d man that wakes 
 me I’ll kill him.” I slept until dark, and when I awoke Mr. 
 Robinson had a fine supper prepared for us boys. Bill Blocker 
 had sent me sufficient money to pay my men, and the next 
 day Robinson took us all to the railroad. The men all went 
 back to Texas, while Robinson and I went to Denver where 
 we found Bill Blocker at a hotel. I was wearing an old tat- 
 tered Mexican hat, my clothes were showing the effects of 
 
462 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 the trail work, and I had a mashed foot. Bill said to me, 
 “You can’t eat at this hotel dressed like that.” 1 remarked, 
 “I’ll come d — n near eating if anyone else does,” and walked 
 into the dining room with the well dressed guests. After 
 dinner Bill asked me how much money I wanted and I told 
 him about $200. He gave it to me, and I went out and got 
 a shave and bath, and dressed up in great style, then went 
 back to the hotel and Mr. Robinson did not know me. I re- 
 mained there several days, had my picture taken and gave 
 one to Robinson and told him to hang it in his ranch house 
 so that he would never forget the man that had hell in his 
 neck at Deer Trail. He thanked me and assured me that 
 he would never forget Ab Blocker. 
 
 In 1886 I went to San Antonio, got a wagon, horses and 
 hands and went below Pearsall to receive a herd of 3500 
 steers. Drove them for Blocker, Driscoll & Davis to Hugo, 
 Colorado, and turned them over to old Fine Earnest. Blocker, 
 Driscoll & Davis had 57,000 cattle and 1800 saddle horses 
 on the trail that year. After I turned over the herd at Hugo, 
 I came back with a few men and wagon to Tom Green coun- 
 ty, and gathered a herd of cattle and drove them to the 
 mouth of Devil’s River, where I delivered them to George 
 Berry and he wintered them there for John Blocker, then 
 put them into Mexico the next spring, and I went to Austin 
 where I went to work on the farm for my father and mother. 
 Here I worked like h — 1 for two years and never made a 
 cent because of the drouth. I got four cents for my cottton 
 the first year and five cents the next year, and I swore if I 
 ever planted cotton any more I would boil the seed before I 
 planted it. Mother sold the farm and I went back to the 
 saddle on the hurricane deck of a little pony. 
 
 In 1889 I drove 3700 cattle from Tom Green county to 
 Wyoming for John Blocker. He met me at Fort Laramie 
 where he sold 1000 out of this herd and I went to the 
 Belle Fourche River with the balance. When 1 got back to 
 Austin I had a fine time while my money lasted. 
 
 In 1890 I went to the Chupadero Ranch near Eagle Pass 
 and worked for my brother, John, for awhile, then went back 
 to Austin, got a wagon and four mules from Bill Blocker and 
 
Ab. Blocker and Outfit Starting on Trail to Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1893 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 463 
 
464 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 tanked for Brother John and Tom Coleman. Got so d — d 
 tired of that job Johnnie put me on that Chupadero Ranch as 
 boss. In 1891 John put me to feeding 1500 steers eight 
 miles from Eagle Pass, and I spent the winter there. 
 
 In 1892 I ran an outfit all over that lower country for 
 Blocker & Coleman, working cattle day and night. 
 
 In 1893 Brother John sent me with wagon and eighty-two 
 horses from Spofford to a ranch about seventy-five miles from 
 Colorado City, Texas, to drive a herd from there for Harris 
 Franklin to South Dakota. Mr. Franklin and his boss was 
 there and had received the cattle, but Brother John had 
 told me that I had the right to cut out all I thought would 
 not stand the trip, so I cut out some and left there with 
 2997 cattle and delivered all but fourteen head near Dead- 
 wood, South Dakota. John drove these cattle for $2.7 5 per 
 head and paid the bosses. He had never seen the herd until 
 1 reached the ranch with them, and when he looked them 
 over he said, “Well, Ab, that is the best herd I ever saw 
 come over the trail.” 1 told him the cattle were all O. K., 
 but I had lost thirty-seven of his d — d old horses, and he 
 remarked, “I did not expect you to get here with more than 
 one horse to the man.” So I felt pretty good. He sold all 
 of the horses but two to one of the hands, and I sent Link 
 Norwood, the cook, with the wagon and four mules back to 
 Eagle Pass. He drove from near Deadwood, South Dakota, 
 to Eagle Pass, Texas, in fifty-nine days. The accompanying 
 photograph was taken just before my outfit started on this 
 trip, and the mules shown therein made the entire trip, go- 
 ing and coming, with the chuck wagon. 
 
 In 1896 I married Miss Florence Baldwin, on the Rio 
 Grande River, and lived at the Chupadero Ranch until 1897, 
 when I moved to a ranch fifteen miles southeast of Cotulla, 
 and went broke there during the drouth. In 1902 I went to 
 Oklahoma and in 1903 came back to Eagle Pass, where I 
 worked for Blocker & Ford, later going back to the Chupa- 
 dero ranch where I remained until 1912, then commenced 
 working for the Cattle Raisers’ Association, and have been 
 engaged in this work ever since. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 465 
 
 MY THIRD AND LAST TRIP UP THE TRAIL IN 1886. 
 
 By R. J. Jennings, of San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 I left Frio county on the 20th of March, 1886, in com- 
 pany with eleven Pearsall boys, headed for the Pena Ranch 
 to take charge of a herd of 1100 one and two year old 
 Mexican cattle belonging to Blocker, Driscoll & Davis, which 
 were to be driven to Deer Trail, Colorado. We went by 
 rail to Laredo, and on to Hebronville, and from there out 
 to the ranch where we found Mr. Blocker waiting for us, and 
 when we had the herd ready to start he told us to go to 
 the Catarina Ranch in Dimmitt county, where I would be 
 given 1400 more. Some of the first herd were very poor, 
 and those we received at the Catarina Ranch were big, fat, 
 strong fellows, and I remarked to Mr. Blocker when I saw 
 them that I would either have to drive the poor ones to 
 death or starve the fat ones, to which he replied that I could 
 graze them. We pulled out with the herd and passed near 
 Carrizo Springs, on to Eagle Pass, and out by Spofford Junc- 
 tion, where we came into the Western trail and went up the 
 Nueces River by Kickapoo Springs. There the hard road 
 began to get harder, and we found no grass and but little 
 water, therefore I did not “graze them through,” as Mr. 
 Blocker had suggested. The first rain that fell on us was at 
 Vernon, on the Pease River. 
 
 This herd belonged to Driscoll, Blocker & Davis, who at 
 the time had about 20,000 cattle on the trail in different 
 herds. On account of the exceedingly dry weather that had 
 prevailed for a good while it was a very hard year for trail 
 men, and many of them sustained heavy losses. 
 
 When we got over the divide into Llano county, where 
 cattle rustlers were thick, I picked up a red and white pided 
 beef which had the road brand, a big D, on him. Some 
 rustler had tried to efface this D, but made a failure and left 
 the brand showing very plain. A day or two later a mountain 
 gent came to my herd, saw this steer and claimed him for 
 another party. I refused to give the steer up, and that is 
 where I made a grave mistake, for, in consequence I lost 
 about twenty-five head of cattle and seven horses, and be- 
 
466 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 sides sustained serious injury. The actions of the fellow made 
 me suspicious, and I warned my hands to look out for trouble 
 for we were in a region infested with rustlers, and there was 
 no knowing just what they would resort to. I always held 
 the herd while the first watch was getting up their night 
 horses and ate their supper. That evening 1 rode into camp 
 after being relieved, and was eating my supper when the 
 herd started to run. It was just after dusk, and as the moon 
 had not yet risen, we had no light to see what caused the 
 stampede, but I straddled my horse and went down the hill 
 in front of the frightened cattle. That was the last I re- 
 membered until about midnight. The boys missed me, and 
 supposed 1 was somewhere with a bunch of the cattle, but 
 finally they discovered me sitting on my horse in the middle 
 of the herd. Sam Oden said he called to me but I did not 
 answer, and he came to me and found me in a dazed and 
 speechless condition. He led my horse to camp and tried 
 to get me to lay down, but 1 could get no rest in that man- 
 ner. I had in some manner been painfully injured and for 
 two weeks afterward I could sleep only when 1 was leaning 
 against the end gate of the wagon. How it all happened is 
 a mystery and will probably never be known. Even to this 
 day that injury is still felt and I suffer from it. 1 do not 
 know how 1 came to be on my horse when they found me. 
 When we reached old Runnels City I was still spitting blood, 
 and Mr. Blocker insisted that 1 go back home, but 1 refused 
 and stayed with the herd. Instead of going to Deer Trail I 
 delivered the herd on the north side of the Arkansas River 
 at Coolidge, Kansas, or rather at Trail City, Colorado, there 
 being only the state line between the two towns. My outfit 
 went to a point about twenty miles north of Trail City, where 
 the firm had 3400 two-year-old steers which they had sold 
 to a man whose name I have forgotten, We cut them 
 out and took them back to the south side of the Arkansas 
 River and then up that stieam for some distance where we 
 delivered them. This man had a certified check to give me 
 in payment for these cattle. He was in a buckboard with a 
 driver, and getting out to ride with us on the herd he told 
 his driver to go on ahead for some distance. The driver 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 467 
 
 pulled out, traveled at a lively gait and got lost from us, be- 
 ing found two weeks later down at Dodge City with the 
 buckboard and everything all right. 
 
 1 left a part of my crew, some went on, while others came 
 back home. George Mudd and Frank Blair had a fist fight 
 on this trip which helped to liven up things in camp. 
 
 LISTENED TO THE CHANT OF THE NIGHT SONGS. 
 
 By I. H. Elder, Sanderson, Texas. 
 
 My first trail work was under the direction of Tom Lane, 
 in the spring of 1877, around my home at Clarksville, Texas. 
 We put up a herd that was driven to Cheyenne, Wyoming. 
 In the spring of 1878 I put up a herd which later was 
 thrown in with the famous Northup herd of 3000 head, 
 which were driven through to Parsons, Kansas, by Northup 
 and his Kansas jay-hawkers. This was the largest herd ever 
 moved from that part of the state. 
 
 In the spring of 1879 I worked with Bass Baker from 
 Red River county to Kechi Valley in Jack county, near old 
 Fort Hog Eye. About this time, boys, we were handling 
 them pretty lively. It is good to remember how all the boys 
 gathered round the camp fire and told of their experiences. 
 Many is the time I have listened to the chant of the night 
 songs as the boys went around the herd. 
 
 I followed the trail work until 1882, when I retired from 
 the trail and drove a herd for myself from Red River county 
 to the western part of Brown county, and from that date to 
 the present time I have been after the cow. I am now on 
 the Rio Grande in Terrell county. 
 
 COLONEL DILLARD R. FANT. 
 
 Sketch of One of the Most Prominent of All Trail Drivers. 
 
 Colonel Dillard R. Fant, who died in 1918, was born in 
 the Anderson district of South Carolina, July 27, 1841, his 
 parents being W. N. and Mary Fant, who were also natives 
 of that district. They moved to Texas in 1852, locating 
 
468 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 near Goliad. At the age of fourteen, the boy Dillard, began 
 freighting with ox teams between San Antonio and Goliad, 
 and at the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the Confed- 
 erate forces, enlisting in Captain Kinney’s company of the 
 Twenty-first Texas Cavalry and Carter’s Brigade, serving in 
 the Trans-Mississippi department in Texas, Louisiana, and Ar- 
 kansas. 
 
 After the Civil War ended Colonel Fant engaged in farm- 
 ing for a short time in Goliad county, but in 1886 he went 
 into the cattle business and rapidly rose to prominence be- 
 cause of the extent and importance of his operations. He 
 drove cattle to Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and other mar- 
 kets, and for a number of years he had large contracts with 
 the government to supply beef cattle to various military 
 posts and agencies, including Yankton and Standing Rock 
 agencies in Dakota, and Fort Reno and Fort Sill in the Indian 
 Territory. These contracts extended over a period of about 
 fourteen years, during which time Colonel Fant delivered 
 many thousands of cattle to the government. During a 
 period of about four years he wintered vast herds of cattle 
 on the Loup and Platte Rivers in Nebraska, but his operations 
 extended to Wyoming, where he sold a great many cattle, and 
 even as far as Idaho where he spent two winters. Colonel 
 Fant drove one of the largest bunches of cattle ever taken 
 over the trail in 1884 , numbering 42 , 000 , going in several 
 herds to Wyoming. The magnitude of this undertaking may 
 be imagined from the fact that these cattle cost him from 
 $12 to $20 per head, requiring 1200 saddle horses in mak- 
 ing the drive, and fully two hundred men were used to 
 handle the herds and supplies on the trail. 
 
 After the quarantine laws against Texas became effective, 
 Colonel Fant ceased taking his cattle to the north and con- 
 fined his operations to trips to the Indian Territory, where 
 he secured pasturage and grazing privileges for his herds. It 
 is estimated that he took fully two hundred thousand head 
 of cattle over the trail to the north during the fifteen years he 
 was engaged in the business. During all these years Colonel 
 Fant had continued in the cattle business at his home in Go- 
 liad county, and it is claimed that he was the second man to 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 469 
 
 fence a pasture in Texas, enclosing his first range in 1874, 
 when he began to improve his stock by the introduction of 
 Durhams and Herefords. He gradually extended his land hold- 
 ings, placed more pastures under fence, and located ranches 
 in Frio, Live Oak, Hidalgo and other counties, some as far 
 north as Tarrant county. He owned and operated the Santa 
 Rosa ranch in Hidalgo county, which comprised 225,000 
 acres, a pasture of sixty thousand acres in Live Oak county, 
 and altogether had holdings amounting to 700,000 acres of 
 grazing land in various parts of the state. 
 
 Colonel Fant was married at Goliad, Texas, October 15, 
 1865, to Miss Lucy A. Hodges, daughter of Colonel Jack 
 Hodges, a prominent Texan who won distinction in the Mexi- 
 can war. Eight children were born to Colonel and Mrs. 
 Fant, and some of them are today prominent in the business 
 and social life of the state. 
 
 A few years ago Colonel Fant disposed of his ranch hold- 
 ings, retired from the cattle business, and established his home 
 in San Antonio, where he resided until his death. 
 
 RELATES OF A TRIP MADE IN 1872 . 
 
 By M. L. Bolding, of Bartlett, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Mississippi and there I spent my childhood 
 and early manhood, coming to Texas in 1867 and settling in 
 Williamson county. 
 
 My first experience on the trail was in the year 1871, 
 which was followed by another trip in 1872, and concern- 
 ing the latter I shall relate. 
 
 I was a member of the crew of W. T. Avery of Hutto, 
 Texas, and after rounding up two thousand steers and with 
 all the necessary paraphernalia consisting of chuck wagon, 
 extra saddle horses and other things, we left Brushy Creek 
 for Kansas on April 15, 1872. We crossed Little River 
 west of Temple, Texas, which at that time was a prairie; the 
 Brazos at Waco, which was then a small town; the Trinity at 
 Fort Worth, which consisted of a blacksmith shop, and Red 
 River west of Sherman, which was at that time a large 
 
470 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 country town. Upon entering the Indian Nation, now the 
 state of Oklahoma, we encountered Indians, buffalos and 
 wild horses. We followed a trail known as the main west- 
 ern trail and, due to heavy rains and the cattle stampeding, 
 together with trouble with the Indians, we experienced many 
 hardships. We crossed the Arkansas River into Kansas and 
 stopped at Baxter Springs, spending one month resting and 
 fattening the cattle. From there we moved to Elsworth, lo- 
 cated on Smokey River, the extreme frontier of Kansas, from 
 which point we shipped the cattle by rail to Kansas City and 
 sold them. On the return trip I had charge of a wagon 
 and some extra saddle horses and after spending six weeks 
 on the journey I arrived home in November. 
 
 I am now seventy years of age and live at Bartlett, Texas. 
 
 PAID THREE DOLLARS FOR FIVE GALLONS OF WATER 
 
 By Sam Garner of Lockhart, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Tennessee in June 1847, and have lived in 
 Caldwell county over sixty-three years, witnessing all of the 
 wonderful changes that have occurred in that great space of 
 time. When I was sixteen years old I went into the Con- 
 federate Army and “fit, bled and died” for the great cause 
 that was lost, returning from the war to engage in cattle 
 raising and farming. 
 
 In 1869 I made my first trip up the trail with a herd be- 
 longing to Col. J. J. Myers of this county, and we went 
 through without mishap to Abilene, Kansas, where the herd 
 was delivered. While we were camped near Abilene, I wit- 
 nessed one of the most terrific cloudbursts and water spouts 
 that I ever saw. It washed away wagons and every movable 
 thing, drowning several people and' many head of stock. 
 
 When I left Abilene I went with a lot of fat cattle that 
 were shipped by rail to St. Louis, coming down through Ken- 
 tucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Louisiana. On my route home 
 I took the Morgan line from New Orleans to Galveston, and 
 there took the stage coach for Gonzales, which put me within 
 twenty miles of home. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 471 
 
 In 1870 I gathered a herd for Peck & Evans, which I 
 drove to Nebraska, and held them and other cattle until 
 winter to fatten for market. When they were fat they were 
 shipped to Chicago. While going up the trail with this herd, 
 just as we struck the Kansas-Nebraska line, two men came 
 to us one day and told us it was too late to cross the line 
 into Nebraska and we would have to remain right there and 
 consider our herd under quarantine. One of the men claimed 
 to be a sheriff and the other was his deputy. As grass and 
 water were plentiful I told Mr. Sheriff that it made no dif- 
 ference to me whether I stayed there or not, as the cattle 
 could not be shipped until they fattened, and that they would 
 fatten there as quick as any place 1 ever saw. He stayed 
 all night with us, and after he was sound asleep I had the 
 boys to quietly move the herd across the line, getting beyond 
 his authority to molest us. When he awoke and found we 
 had out-generaled him, he took the trick good naturedly, and 
 left our vicinity. 
 
 In 1871 I gathered a herd for Colonel J. J. Myers, but did 
 not drive this herd as Wash Murray and myself gathered 
 enough of our own cattle to make a herd and we went along 
 with them. We sold this herd to Colonel Myers and delivered 
 them on the Solomon River in Kansas, from where I took 
 them to Salt Lake City for him. On this trip we had a great 
 many hardships. Snow fell so deep that it covered the grass 
 and our cattle and horses could get nothing to eat. Four- 
 teen of our horses froze to death right in camp, and many of 
 our cattle died. The old wild beeves became as gentle as 
 work oxen, and we could handle them easily enough, but 
 the extreme cold caused us much suffering. Our oxen would 
 bog down in the snow just the same as if it was mud, and 
 we frequently were compelled to ram snow into their nos- 
 trils to make them get up and move. We had to walk 
 about three hundred miles through the snow, for we could 
 make no headway on horseback. We could not night herd 
 because we were afoot, and it took us six weeks to make 
 the trip, and when we arrived at the place of delivery the 
 parties who had contracted for the cattle refused to receive 
 them until the weather moderated, because they wanted to 
 
472 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 wait and see how many would die from the effects of the 
 weather. It may have been good business on their part, but 
 it gave us boys the devil to have to hold the herd still 
 longer after all we had gone through to get them there. 
 
 On one of the trips I made I recall what a “dry” time we 
 had when we got up in a region where the water was full 
 of alkali. We were all very thirsty, and came to a beautiful 
 stream of clear water. A spring was flowing out of the side 
 of a mountain, and inviting us to partake freely, but all 
 things that look good do not prove to be good. That was 
 the saltiest water I ever tasted — we could not drink it at all. 
 We had passed a spring a few miles back on the trail, and it 
 was good water, so an Irishman said if we would give, him 
 three dollars he would go back and bring us five gallons of 
 water from that good spring. Well, he got the money and 
 we got the water, and while I have drank some good liquor in 
 times gone by and thought it was the best stuff that ever 
 went down a cowboy’s neck, that five gallons of water on 
 that occasion beat any liquor I had ever swallowed. 
 
 In 1872 I gathered 600 or 700 head of my cattle and 
 put them in with Colonel Myers’ herd and Mack Stewart 
 and myself drove the herd to Salt Lake again. This trip was 
 much more pleasant than the previous one. We started 
 earlier than the year before, consequently we had none of 
 the deep snow that we had this time, and we had no trouble 
 in delivering them. Just before reaching the point of de- 
 livery, however, we passed through a very brushy section, and 
 lost some of the cattle. Fanny Hart and myself went back 
 about forty miles and found a lot of them which I sold to a 
 fellow and got his check for them. We had to hire the 
 horses we rode on this hunt, and paid three dollars per day 
 for each of them besides a dollar and a half a day for board- 
 ing our own horses while we were away. While I believe in 
 honesty under reasonable conditions, I did steal some oats 
 for my horse on this trip. We had had a very hard day’s drive 
 through a region where there was no grass and when we 
 came to a place where oats were stacked I just couldn’t keep 
 from swiping a few bundles for Old Doc. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 473 
 
 I am now seventy-three years of age, and while I have 
 had some very hard times in life, especially while on the 
 trail, still, as old as I am, I think I would have the nerve to 
 undertake to go through it all again if I knew where there 
 was a country like this was in those good old days. 
 
 SKETCH OF L. B. ALLEN. 
 
 L. B. Allen, better known among his friends as Lew Allen, 
 was born in Mississippi on February 14th, 1848, and came 
 with his father, W. W. Allen to Texas and settled at Sweet 
 Home, in Lavaca county, when he was about four years of 
 age. His father was engaged in farming and stock raising. 
 At an early age he became interested in the stock business, 
 and is rightly classified as a pioneer of the cattle business 
 in Texas. 
 
 He entered the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy 
 at a very early age and in about 1866 returned to Lavaca 
 county and from that time up to the time of his death, which 
 occurred December 2nd, 1911, he was continuously in the 
 cattle business. 
 
 In about 1873 L. B. Allen, W. J. Moore and Sam Moore 
 formed a partnership which continued until the death of Sam 
 Moore, and was continued with W. J. Moore up to the time 
 of the death of L. B. Allen. They first had their ranch in 
 Lavaca county and later moved their ranch to Uvalde and 
 Kinney counties. Mr. Allen made many trips up the trail 
 driving cattle to Dakota and Nebraska. At one time Moore 
 & Allen opened up a ranch in the Black Hills. L. B. Allen, 
 W. J. Moore, Sam Moore, J. M. Bennett, Sol West, Ike West, 
 George West and Mr. McCutcheon were all stockmen in the 
 early days in Lavaca county at Sweet Home, all of them be- 
 came large cattle owners and were successful in business. 
 
 One of the best evidences of the integrity of Mr. Allen and 
 his associates and neighbors is that they all, since their early 
 settlement at Sweet Home, have remained intimate friends. 
 
 L. B. Allen was the brother of W. W. Allen who was also 
 engaged in the stock business, also of R. B. Allen, who was 
 an attorney and also engaged in the stock business. 
 
474 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 The above early settlers of Sweet Home, Texas, were all 
 large men of stature, and also large in character, and in their 
 dealings with each other no other obligation was required in 
 any contract except their word. 
 
 HAD LESS TROUBLE WITH INDIANS THAN WITH THE 
 GRANGERS ON THE TRAIL. 
 
 By J. E. Pettus, of Goliad, Texas. 
 
 My father, John Freeman Pettus came to Texas with Aus- 
 tin’s Colony in 1822. He fought with old Ben Milam in 
 San Antonio, and was also in the Battle of San Jacinto. 1 
 was born in DeWitt county, when but few settlers lived 
 there and spent my boyhood on the frontier. When I first 
 started on the trail it was with my own cattle, my brother 
 W. A. Pettus loaning me the money to buy these cattle and 1 
 drove them to Dodge City, Kansas. 1 drove one year to 
 Ogallala, Nebraska. 
 
 In making trips up the trail I was always happy when we 
 crossed Red River for we had less trouble with the Indians 
 than with the grangers. The Indians would sometimes come 
 into camp and beg from us, demanding fat beeves, but 
 we always managed to pacify them. But the grangers dis- 
 played a degree of animosity toward the trail drivers that was 
 almost unbearable. 
 
 My father settled in Bee county in 1857, and lived there 
 for many years, moving to Goliad county in 1877. When 
 we first resided in these counties the population was small 
 and the country almost a wilderness. Today shows quite a 
 contrast, and as I look back over the intervening years I 
 can see the remarkable changes that have taken place. But 
 foremost and above all the cowman has had his full share 
 in the making of this glorious country, for he was the pio- 
 neer, the advance guard of the high state of civilization that 
 is enjoyed by the present generation. 
 
 I had three brothers, W. A. Pettus, J. M. Pettus and T. 
 G. Pettus. The two first named died several years ago, and 
 T. G. now lives at Charco, in Goliad county. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 475 
 
 DROVE CATTLE FOR DOC BURNETT. 
 
 By L. Beasley, Junction, Texas. 
 
 I was raised on a ranch in Gonzales county, Texas, and 
 moved to Kimble county and located a ranch in 1897, and 
 am still here, raising high grade cattle, goats, sheep and 
 hogs. Have been in the cattle business all of my life. I 
 drove cattle up the trail in the early eighties for Doc Bur- 
 nett, and could relate many thrilling experiences of those 
 good old times, but I guess they have been pretty well cov- 
 ered by the sketches of other old time cowboys. 
 
 I was a member of the local exemption board during the 
 war just closed and served as county commissioner of Kim- 
 ble county for four years. My ranch is located nine miles 
 south of Junction, in one of the best sections of this part 
 of the state. 
 
 MY TRIP UP THE TRAIL. 
 
 By W. F. Thompson, Pearsall, Texas. 
 
 It was in the clay hills of Mississippi, February 5th, 1863, 
 where I first sprung to light. My father, being an officer in 
 the Confederate Army, soon saw the cause was lost and in 
 1865 ran the blockade and came to Texas. Hence, Texas 
 got another missionary. In 1870 we landed in Medina coun- 
 ty, where 1 grew up among the hardships of a frontier life, 
 as there were no churches or schools to go to. In 1883 I 
 left the Lytle ranch on the Chicon creek with a herd of 
 horses and went to Kerrville where we began receiving cat- 
 tle to go up the trail. We bought the cattle between Fred- 
 ericksburg and Blanco City, and in a few days we had two 
 thousand cattle under herd. The first night we herded out 
 we had the worst stampede I ever saw. At twelve o’clock at 
 night when I went to call first relief, the cattle came right 
 into camp where the boys had the horses tied to a fence. 
 Several broke loose, dragging rails and coming into the herd. 
 I tried to cut them off from where the horses were grazing, 
 all being hobbled, but they beat me to them, soon got mixed 
 up and turned down a lane with a mad rush, cattle, myself 
 and horses. We went for some time before I could get 
 
476 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 around to one side, and then held them until daylight, when 
 I got help from the camp. We remained there several days 
 getting the cattle together, at last hitting the trail with some 
 three thousand steers and had but little trouble until we 
 
 reached the Red River at Doan’s Store. Zack Stucker, our 
 boss, had gone ahead to look for a crossing on the river, as 
 it was up very high from spring rains, and when he came 
 back he ordered me to get ready to cross at two o’clock in 
 the evening. I informed him that all the boys were drunk as 
 old man Doan had some wagon-yard whiskey, and that we 
 had better not cross as the men would have to swim, and a 
 drunken man cannot swim. I told him to move camp up the 
 river and wait until the next day, which we did, and 
 
 crossed all right. We had some trouble in the Indian Terri- 
 tory, but got through by giving the Indians some steer year- 
 lings. We came to Camp Supply where we saw a sign- 
 board, reading “The way to Camp Supply is closed — go to 
 the right.” Gus Black, Til Driscoll and J. A. Kercheville 
 were waiting for some one else to go there. My boss, Zack 
 Stucker, being a fighting man of some reputation, said that 
 a “bunch of shorthorns could not turn him back,” and we 
 went straight ahead, ignoring the signboard instructions. The 
 next day we came to the finest country I ever saw. Here we 
 struck the first range cattle that we had seen in the Terri- 
 tory. My boss came to me and told me to get another boy 
 
 and go out and butcher one of these fine calves. They 
 were sure fat and good. I told him that Mr. Lytle did not 
 hire me to steal cattle, and I would not do it. He had no 
 trouble in getting some one else, so the calf was butchered. 
 He told me to go ahead and camp the wagon and have the 
 calf ribs barbecued for dinner, which I did; but before we 
 had gotten the ribs on the fire, I saw him coming to camp and 
 he said “Hide the meat,” as there were some ten or twelve 
 “shorthorns” coming and all had double barrel shotguns, and 
 said that we would have to turn back and that they would 
 see that we did so as they had plenty of soldiers to help 
 them. My boss lost all of his fighting spirit and promised 
 to turn back, and here he certainly showed his “gall.” He 
 said to the gang of men that had just come up and ordered 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 477 
 
 him to turn back that “I would ask you to eat dinner with 
 me but we have nothing but bacon, as you watched us so 
 close that we haven’t had a chance to steal anything.” 
 
 They told him (the boss) to come to their camp and they 
 would give him a quarter of a beef, which they did, and the 
 boss of course accepted their hospitality. The stolen calf 
 was the best meat, however. 
 
 1 landed at Fort Dodge, Kansas, and I had a date to take 
 a young lady to a Fourth of July barbecue and dance. I 
 resigned my position and came home. The same lady I took 
 to the barbecue and dance, is the same one I am taking 
 around with me to the Old Trail Drivers’ reunions. 
 
 We have six children, one girl and five boys, and all the 
 boys are engaged in the stock business. I am living quietly 
 on my ranch in Frio county, where I expect to pass my re- 
 maining days. 
 
 RICHARD KING. 
 
 One of the most useful men in South Texas was Captain 
 Richard King, who died in the eighties, aged sixty years. 
 Mr. King was born in Orange county, New York, July 10, 
 1825, and came to Texas when he was twenty-two years old. 
 He first became engaged in steamboat traffic, and built up 
 quite an extensive business, becoming associated with Captain 
 M. Kennedy, Charles Stillman and James O’Donnell in the 
 operation of twenty-six steamers on the Rio Grande, the 
 firm being known as King, Kennedy & Company which con- 
 tinued until Captain King began to devote his entire time to 
 cattle raising. He began purchasing grazing land and im- 
 ported domesticated stock from Mexico in the later fifties. 
 He was the pioneer importer of graded stock, purchasing 
 Durhams from Kentucky and rams from the North. His 
 live stock holdings at one time were 100,000 cattle, 20,000 
 sheep and 10,000 horses. Thousands of longhorns owned 
 by him were driven over the trail to Kansas and the terri- 
 tories to market and the ranges. Before the Northern mar- 
 kets had opened to any extent Captain King erected render- 
 ing establishments on his ranch and shipped tallow and 
 hides to market via water. 
 
478 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Captain King interested himself in every enterprise that 
 was for the good of the Southwest. He was a builder in 
 every sense, and was interested in the construction of the 
 San Diego, Corpus Christi & Rio Grande Railroad. 
 
 At the time of his death Captain King owned outright 
 more than 500,000 acres of land. He made his wife his 
 sole legatee and executrix without bond. His son-in-law, R. 
 J. Kleburg, was placed in charge of the estate and under his 
 management the King ranch has increased to more than 
 950,000 acres, on which today graze thousands of head of 
 high grade cattle. As many as 30,000 calves have been 
 branded on this ranch in a single year. 
 
 In December, 1854, Captain King was married to Miss Hen- 
 rietta M. Chamberlain, daughter of Rev. Hiram Chamberlain 
 of Brownsville, Texas. Of this union the following children 
 were born: Robert Lee, deceased; Nettie M., who became 
 
 the wife of Brigadier General E. B. Atwood; Mrs. Ellen M. 
 Atwood, Richard King, and Mrs. R. J. Kleburg. 
 
 WORKED WITH CATTLE FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS. 
 
 By E. M. (Bud) Daggett, Fort Worth, Texas. 
 
 I was born in Shelby county, Texas, in 1850, and have re- 
 sided in this state ever since, following the cattle business all 
 of my life. If there is one class of people I love better than 
 another it is the class that dates back to my childhood days, 
 for I went into the saddle at ten years old. The first night 
 I can remember of camping out on a cow hunt was in the 
 spring of the year. We camped on the banks of a creek 
 called Deer Creek, south of Fort Worth about fifteen miles. 
 At that time the boys carried their biscuits and dried beef 
 and a little coffee in sacks tied behind their saddles, and 
 their blankets generally piled on their saddle blankets and 
 their saddles on top of that making pack horses out of the 
 boys’ saddle ponies. From that time on I have worked with 
 cattle a part of every year without missing a single year for 
 over sixty years and am still handling cattle as a commission 
 man and salesman on the stockyards, Daggett- Keen Commis- 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 479 
 
 sion Co., at Fort Worth. I could give so many different 
 statements concerning trailing and cattle driving that it would 
 take too much space. Have been with scouting parties many 
 times, day and night, in this section of the country doing- 
 such scout work against Indians and Indian raiders. Forty- 
 nine years ago in this month was the last raid the Apaches 
 and Comanches made in the vicinity about the stockyards, 
 Fort Worth, Texas, at which time they killed hundreds of 
 horses within a mile to ten miles of this location. At that 
 time 1 pulled twenty-seven arrows out of horses that they 
 had shot. As to myself I used to be a bronco buster 
 and an expert roper, not as a wild west show man but 
 roping and riding at that day and time was part of the 
 business. It was like going into battle to make charges on 
 wild bunches and capturing the whole band of wild outlaw 
 cattle if possible or else capturing a part of them without 
 ropes. The same would apply with either horses or cattle, 
 sometimes deer, antelope or wolves for a change. I have 
 played checkers across parts of our country by driving cat- 
 tle in different directions with herds. 
 
 The hardest trip I believe 1 ever made with cattle was in 
 July, 1865, when I helped move a herd of steers, ages four 
 to eight years to Shreveport, Louisiana. Seems to me they 
 stampeded pretty nearly every night from the time we left 
 the prairies directly north of Fort Worth, until we got them 
 loaded on boats for shipment to New Orleans, and will say 
 here that the net price of those cattle after the freight, feed 
 bills, commission and yardage was paid was $ 6.00 per head. 
 Our work taking the cattle through on that drive was just 
 added in the steer and made a part of the steer, to say 
 nothing of the expense for driving. From the time we ar- 
 rived at Marshall, Texas, the road from that point was lined 
 with negro soldiers dressed in blue, called Yankee negro sol- 
 diers. They kept us in the brush from there on to Shreve- 
 port, most every prominent corner in that city had a negro 
 soldier on it with a gun and a bayonet who would slightly 
 touch the people with the bayonet and tell them to move on. 
 Of course this was generally people that were not singing- 
 gospel Sam to them; those they would prod with the bay- 
 
480 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 onet; I often wondered why this great American Government 
 patrolled this beautiful American country with negroes in- 
 stead of white men, when it had more than sufficient num- 
 bers of white men who could take the place of negroes. But 
 I want it understood I am not especially a negro hater, as 
 we owned a few negroes; we raised some of those negroes 
 and those negroes helped raise us. Mr. Negro is all right in 
 his place. 
 
 I loaded out the first train of cattle that was loaded out of 
 the Fort Worth stockyards in the fall of 1876, and had the 
 first consignment of cattle on the North Side twenty-seven 
 years ago. 
 
 MADE FIRST TRIP IN 1877. 
 
 By B. D. Sherrill, Rocksprings, Texas. 
 
 In 1877 1 went up the trail with Dave Combs, who was 
 then driving for Ellison & Sherrill. We left the coast coun- 
 try with 3000 big steers and stags and delivered to Millett & 
 Ervin in the Indian Territory. This was my first trip as a 
 cow-puncher, and when we reached Red River a lot of In- 
 dians came and stayed with us all day. To me, a beardless 
 boy, those Indians in their war paint was a wonderful sight. 
 After delivering the cattle I went on to Wolf Creek, near 
 Camp Supply, remained there two months and picked up sore- 
 footed cattle and carried them to Ellison & Sherrill’s Ranch 
 on North Fork of Red River near old Fort Elliott. That 
 was the finest country I ever saw, and it was full of Indians, 
 buffalo, antelope, deer, turkey and prairie chickens by the 
 thousands. I remained in that region several years and 
 finally drifted back to Staples on the San Marcos River. 
 
 I drove a herd from Staples to the San Miguel in Frio 
 county, where we ranched a number of years, afterward going 
 back to my old stamping ground, Staples. 
 
 In 1886 I drove a herd from San Marcos to Mobeetie, 
 sold out in the late fall and came home. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to attend the old trail drivers’ meet- 
 ings and meet my old time friends, especially my old com- 
 rade Dave Combs, a cow man and gentleman in every respect. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 481 
 
 COWBOYS DRESSED UP AT END OF THE TRAIL. 
 
 By R. J. Jennings, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 On April 10th, 1876, in company with George Lyons as 
 trail boss for Ellison & Co., with 1500 cattle, and 1 as boss 
 for Crunk, Jennings & Co., with 1600 cattle, we pulled out 
 for Dodge City, Kansas. That was a good year, grass and 
 water plentiful and a good open range. We had good horses 
 and good men on that trip, our boys getting along like one 
 large family. Went by way of Austin, crossed the Trinity 
 River at Fort Worth and passed near where the union depot 
 in that city now stands. There were but a few houses in 
 Fort Worth then. We crossed Red River at Doan’s Store 
 and went up North Fork, which we crossed, and pulled on 
 to Dodge City, crossing the Cimarron and Washita Rivers 
 on the way. Indians, deer, antelope and prairie hens were 
 plentiful; there were a few buffaloes, too, but not many, but 
 the prairies were covered with the skeletons of these animals 
 which had been killed for their hides. 
 
 When we reached Dodge City we crossed to the north 
 side and remained there six weeks. These cattle were sold 
 on contract to J. F. Ellison, Sr. We delivered 500 cows and 
 had to take to Fort Sill, Indian Territory. Mr. Lyons de- 
 livered them and left me with the big herd. I was two or 
 three days getting away from where we cut the cows from 
 their yearlings; we moved like a snail climbing a slick log,' 
 so far up in daytime, slipping back at night. Gus Staples, 
 one of our boys, was a fiddler and we had music all the way. 
 Gus saw his first antelope on this trip, thought it was crip- 
 pled and tried to catch it, but the longer he ran it the faster 
 it got. Monkey John, the negro cook, spent a half a day 
 trying to drown a prairie dog out of a hole, but nothing doing. 
 
 Captain Ellison finally sent us word to cut all cows above 
 three years old and take them on towards Powder River, 
 catch up with his herd and turn them over to his boss, who he 
 said was waiting for us two days ahead. With five men I 
 pulled out, ate up all of our grub the second day at noon, 
 and were four days catching up with that herd. For two 
 days we had nothing to eat but boiled Irish potatoes without 
 
482 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 salt. We delivered the remainder of the herd as soon as ■ 
 
 I got back and checked up. I found we had about the num- 
 ber we started with and a few over which we picked up ] 
 along the trail, which of course, if no one claimed, we did j 
 not point out. 
 
 In 1881 I left Martindale, Caldwell county, with a herd J 
 of 1500 cattle and went to Travis county, where John R. 
 Blocker gave me 1500 more, making 3000 cattle belonging ] 
 to Jennings, Blocker & Co. This herd was sold to Ike T. i 
 Pryor and delivered to him on the north side of the Washita | 
 River in the Indian Territory. Rufus Fuller then took the j 
 herd to Fort Sill, while Mr. Blocker and I went to Dodge ] 
 City on horseback. I left Mr. Blocker there and came home, j 
 
 In those days I received $30 a month, furnished three J 
 horses and had money at the end of the trip. Our way | 
 
 back home was paid by those who employed us. We came 1 
 back as immigrants, all dressed up in new suit, boots and hat, I 
 the rig-out costing about $30, and when we reached home | 
 we were “somebody come” sure enough, as we were usually 3 
 absent about four months. 
 
 A TENDERFOOT FROM KENTUCKY. 
 
 By J. D. Jackson. . ] 
 
 In the summer of 1887, D. G. Knight was working as ] 
 manager for the Durants, and was also selected as round-up 
 boss of Presidio county. He had about 60 men and over 
 400 horses in the outfit. 
 
 Friends of the Durants in Kentucky had a son who was j 
 very brave and anxious for some real excitement, so they 1 
 sent him out to Mr. Knight. He was a very talkative young j 
 man, and often told us of the good times people in high so- j 
 ciety had in Kentucky and of their great dinners, costing from 
 $1.00 to $10.00 per plate. He was quite free to state that 
 he did not think we would know how to act in such high 
 society, and while we knew that this was perhaps true, we ,i 
 did not care to have him tell us that. 
 
 The boys immediately started in to show him how they j 
 did things in high cow-camp society. The first thing we did 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 483 
 
 was to slip the cinches off his saddle, so that when he tried 
 to head a steer, his horse stopped quickly, and he went off 
 with the saddle, landing on his head. He thought it was 
 purely an accident. 
 
 He wore a blue shirt. Every man in the outfit started 
 telling Indian stories, and told him that the Indians thought 
 that those who wore blue shirts were soldiers, and they 
 would hide behind rocks and pick them out from among the 
 cowboys. This scared him so that he pulled off his blue shirt 
 and wore his white, short-sleeved undershirt on top until his 
 arms were blistered by the sun. The boys then started in 
 telling him about the narrow escapes they had had from 
 “gwinders,” a very vicious animal with one short leg in front 
 and one behind, so they could circle around a mountain and 
 catch a man and tear him all to pieces. That made him 
 afraid to get out of camp after dark. 
 
 One night we camped about sixty miles south of Marfa, 
 and the boys decided it was time to put on an “Indian fight.” 
 We took it turn about telling of narrow escapes from Indian 
 raids, until bed time, and warned him to be prepared for an 
 attack any minute during the night. After we had bedded 
 down for the night, ten or twelve of the boys slipped off, 
 and tied bunches of grass on their heads and got sotol stalks 
 for lances. About 12:30 Den Knight woke the boy up and 
 told him to saddle his horse and go with him to unhobble 
 a bunch of their horses and move them closer to camp so 
 the Indians wouldn’t get them. Just as they got off their 
 horses and got busy with their work, the other boys came 
 charging up on their horses, yelling, shooting and making all 
 kinds of wild noises. Knight fell over and yelled to the boy 
 that he was killed and for him to make his escape if possible. 
 The boys thought they could catch him before he could get 
 to his horse, but they failed and he got away and rode sixty 
 miles to Marfa before 10 o’clock the next morning. He ar- 
 rived there almost exhausted and told the citizens that In- 
 dians had attacked the party and he was the only one to 
 escape. When he found out that it was all a joke on him, 
 he decided the West was a little too strenuous and went back 
 to swell society in Kentucky. 
 
484 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 A TRUE STORY OF TRAIL DAYS. 
 
 In the late ’70s, when herd after herd of Texas cattle were 
 driven north over the old Chisholm Trail, Ike Pryor’s herd was 
 a few weeks ahead of the herd driven by Bill Jackman. 
 
 It was the custom for the man following to pick up lost 
 cattle and drive them on until the herd they were lost from 
 was reached. Bill Jackman’s herd picked up a steer lost by i 
 Ike Pryor and was taking him along for Ike, with good in- 
 tentions. Red River was crossed and Bill’s herd had now 
 gone a few days drive into the Indian Nation. One afternoon 
 a band of about forty Indian warriors including their squaws, 
 rode up to Bill Jackman’s herd and the chief handed him a 
 letter, which read as follows: 
 
 “To the trail bosses: 
 
 “This man is a good Indian; I know him personally. Treat 
 him well, give him a beef and you will have no trouble in 
 driving through his country.” 
 
 (Signed) IKE T. PRYOR. 
 
 After reading the letter, Bill rode into the herd, and cut 
 out Ike’s steer for the chief. They killed the steer then and 
 there and had a big feast. Then Bill went on North with 
 his herd, in peace, thanking Ike for his good advice. 
 
 TRAVELING THE TRAIL WITH GOOD MEN WAS 
 A PLEASURE. 
 
 By J. F. (Little Jim) Ellison, Jr., Fort Cobb, Oklahoma. 
 
 My first trip over the trail was in 1868 with my father, 
 Col. J. F. Ellison, with about 1000 cattle, which at that time 
 was considered a large herd. We left the old McGhee Cross- 
 ing on the San Marcos River in Caldwell county, about 
 seven miles from the town of San Marcos, and went over the 
 old Fort Arbuckle trail to Abilene, Kansas, crossing the Trinity 
 River at Fort Worth, which at that early date was just a small 
 frontier town. Our mess wagon was drawn by two yoke of 
 oxen, and as it was our last chance to lay in supplies we 
 stocked up at Fort Worth with enough to last us to Abilene. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 485 
 
 My second trip was in 1871, over the old Chisholm trail. 
 I went over the same trail again in 1874, and in 1876 I 
 drove a herd for Ellison & Dewees, and Mac Stewart having- 
 charge of a herd for Millett & Maberry, we traveled together, 
 receiving our cattle southwest of San Antonio. We went as 
 far, if not farther west than any cattle had ever gone, cross- 
 ing the Washita about eight miles west of where Chickasha 
 is now located. This was a hard trip. We passed through 
 the Wichita Mountains at the foot of Mt. Scott, and saw lots 
 of buffalo and antelope. Our first stop was at Dodge City, 
 Kansas. We delivered part of these cattle north of Chey- 
 enne, Wyoming Territory. This year Ellison & Dewees and 
 Millett & Maberry drove together and drove about 100,000 
 cattle to the northern markets. Their cattie were strung out 
 from San Antonio almost to Dodge City. Ogallala, Nebras- 
 ka, was their distributing point. For some time that year I 
 held 7,000 head just south of Ogallala, across the Platte 
 River, my camp being near a cold spring that boiled out of 
 the ground. The water from this spring was the coldest 1 
 ever drank, so cold in fact that it would make your teeth 
 ache. They cut cattle from my herd to deliver in every 
 direction. 
 
 In 1877 I did not drive a herd but worked on the trail 
 for Ellison & Dewees wherever I was needed, and Monroe 
 Hardeman did the same. R. G. Head was our general fore- 
 man. On Washita River, near where Chickasha is now, I 
 cut from the herds of Giles Fenner, N. P. Ellison and Bill 
 Green about 2,000 one and two-year-old steers and delivered 
 them to Miller & Green of Paul’s Valley. Their foreman 
 was Tom Grant of Fort Arbuckle and he took charge of 
 the cattle. As well as I remember they paid #9.00 for the 
 yearling steers and #12.00 for the two-year-olds. These 
 were good cattle for those days, and good colors because they 
 were all colors. From there I went to Dodge City on horse- 
 back. Had good company, for 1 struck up with Charley Shi- 
 ner who was headed for the same point. I think 1 can truth- 
 fully say we were never out of sight of a herd of cattle from 
 there to Dodge City. Arriving at Dodge City I delivered the 
 proceeds of the cattle to Miller & Green and after resting up 
 
486 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 I was sent back down the trail by Col. John Dewees on some 
 business that carried me almost to the Washita. As I started 
 back to Dodge City I was again fortunate in having good 
 company and more of it, this time coming up with Green 
 Mills and Zeke Hilliard of Lockhart, and A. B. McQueen of 
 Winston county, Miss, it was a pleasure to travel with such 
 good men. 
 
 In 1880 I made my last trip over the trail, this time for 
 myself, hut in 1884 my two younger brothers, T. H. Ellison 
 and R. R. Ellison, J. T. Block and myself sent a herd from 
 Presidio county in the Big Bend country in charge of the 
 late Nat Jackman, who was a brother to W. T. Jackman. I 
 met these cattle up there and delivered them to the Durbin 
 Land & Cattle Co. on Sweetwater, about 150 miles north of 
 Cheyenne, and had to throw them all down and brand them, 
 some four or five thousand head. 
 
 I believe this winds up my trail experience. There is a 
 warm place in my heart for all of the old cowmen and trail 
 boys. The men who bought the cattle and paid me to 
 drive them are nearly all gone now; many of my comrades 
 who worked with me on the trail have also passed on, and 
 the balance of us are on the shady side of life. Like the 
 cowboy who, when asked why he had cut a certain cow 
 back, reared in his stirrups and said “She is too ancient,” we, 
 too, are getting “ancient.” Trail driving is but a memory 
 now, and will never return. When the summons comes for 
 our last trip let us be ready to go. My postoffice address is 
 Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, and I would be pleased to hear from 
 any of the old boys who would care to write to me. 
 
 HAD PLENTY OF FUN. 
 
 By Gus Black, Eagle Pass, Texas. 
 
 I have no time to write books. If I gave all of my expe- 
 rience on the trail it would fill this book and then some. From 
 1875 to 1882 I suppose I had more experience, good and 
 bad, than any one man on the trail, with Indians, buffalo, 
 horse rustlers, and cutthroats, and during that time I worked 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 487 
 
 eighteen hours out of every twenty-four. Wound up in 1882 
 without a dollar in hand, but in possession of several thou- 
 sand dollars worth of fun. I am now seventy-one years old 
 and can ride a horse just the same as of old. I have been 
 right here in Texas ever since the morning star first “riz,” 
 and when you publish your next book I hope to be a retired 
 stockman, for my time will then be my own, and I will give 
 you something good. However, since you insist, 1 will relate a 
 few incidents and you can arrange them to suit yourself. 
 
 I went up the trail the first time with Ben Duncan and 
 Jim Speed of Frio county, and the second time with Wood- 
 ward Oge of the same county. For many years 1 was boss 
 for Lytle & McDaniel and Lytle & Schreiner. 
 
 One year while on the trail we found Red River out of 
 banks at Red River Station, with fifteen or twenty herds 
 there waiting to cross. I was in charge of a herd of 3500 
 cattle and was anxious to get across. The toll man was de- 
 manding $1.25 per head for crossing cattle at that point, but 
 I was determined not to pay it, for the total amount seemed 
 too high, so of two high things I decided to choose the 
 river. While my herd was stopped on the Texas side of the 
 river, and the toll collector was absent, I swam across to 
 the other side and made arrangements with a man over there 
 to come and ferry my wagons over. Then I swam back and 
 got from two to five men from each outfit there to help me. 
 This gave me a bunch of some forty or fifty men and we 
 pushed my cattle right into the raging river and rushed them 
 across. Just as we emerged on the other side the toll man 
 appeared on the bank we had left and 1 yelled back to him: 
 “You are too slow to collect from Gus Black.” 
 
 I delivered many cattle for Lytle & Schreiner in Wyom- 
 ing and Nebraska. One year this firm sold several herds to 
 Governor Bush of Wyoming. One trip Governor Bush 
 came out to meet the herd in company with Captain Lytle, 
 and we entertained him in camp. That morning I had found 
 a couple of long horns which had slipped off the head of a 
 dead cow on the trail, and in a spirit of fun 1 fitted them 
 onto the just-sprouting horns of a dogie yearling with our 
 drags. That little old yearling was a comic sight with those 
 
488 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 great long horns on its head, and caused lots of fun for the 
 hoys. When Governor Bush was looking over the herd he 
 espied this “long-horned” yearling, and began to hurrah 
 Captain Lytle about the animal. I told the Governor that it 
 was just a yearling, but he said it was a four-year-old, and 
 would bet any amount of money on its age. I told him 1 
 would bet $200 it was a yearling. He promptly covered the 
 bet, saying he knew 1 was a hard-working man, and he hated 
 to take my money, but he wanted to prove my ignorance and 
 teach me a lesson. At the same time he said he would just 
 as soon bet me $1000, but knew 1 could not afford to lose 
 that much money. 1 told him to put it up, that I always 
 “blowed in” my money anyhow and would just as soon let 
 him win it as anybody else. So the bet was made, and then 
 I roped the dogie and took those horns off. Governor Bush 
 was dumbfounded, and the laugh was on him. When set- 
 tlement came around I told him to keep his money, as he 
 was so d — d ignorant I just wanted to teach him a lesson. 
 Then he set up the whiskey and cigars to the outfit. 
 
 On another trip, after we crossed Smokey River we en- 
 countered a colony of grangers who made it a rule to charge 
 every herd fifty dollars for permitting passage through their 
 community. I rode into the village and consulted with their 
 chief leader who informed me that the charge was made 
 to pay for inspecting herds for contagious diseases, etc. I 
 told him I had no money but would give him a draft on Cap- 
 tain Lytle, which he said would be satisfactory as Captain 
 Lytle’s check was good anywhere in the world. He asked 
 me to kindly add another ten dollars to the amount for to- 
 bacco for the villagers, which I did, and then put my herd 
 through. The first telegraph station I reached 1 wired Cap- 
 tain Lytle that I had been buncoed out of sixty dollars and 
 to refuse to pay the draft. Those fellows were skinning us 
 and I figured that turn about was fair play. 
 
 I am glad George Saunders took the lead in the organiza- 
 tion of the trail drivers of the early days, for such an asso- 
 ciation has long been needed to preserve the history of the 
 rugged noble men who made the cattle industry. I hope to 
 live to see the day when that monument suggested by Mr. 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 489 
 
 Saunders is placed on the old trail as a tribute to those who 
 have gone their way and a reminder to oncoming genera- 
 tions that we “blazed the trail” and vouchsafed unto them 
 peace, happiness and prosperity. 
 
 ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL COWMAN. 
 
 By J. B. Murrah, San Antonio, Texas. 
 
 My parents were James M. and Malinda A. Murrah. I was 
 born in Goliad county, Texas, August 24, 1856, and lived 
 there with my parents until the fall of 1865, when father 
 moved to DeWitt county and gathered a remnant of about 
 twenty-five head of cattle, all we had left out of about two 
 hundred head after the close of the four years of Civil War. 
 Father subsequently sold these few cattle for the low price 
 of three dollars per head. 
 
 In 1866 we moved to Bell county, and myself and a 
 negro helped my uncle drive two hundred head of horses 
 through on the trip. This was my first trail work. We set- 
 tled on a little farm in Bell county, where I plowed and 
 worked the farm, but all the time longing to be old enough 
 to go “up the trail” with the cowboys. When I was twenty 
 years of age I made my first trip to Austin, passing through 
 San Antonio. 1 heard of a ranger company up on the Sabinal 
 River and went there to get a job, but did not succeed in 
 getting it, so 1 went on and secured employment with an 
 uncle where I taught Mexicans how to use an American plow. 
 After three months of this work I was offered a job on the 
 trail and lost no time in accepting it. 1 drove on the trail 
 from 1882 to 1887 and knew many of the old cowmen of 
 that time. 1 knew D. H. and J. W. Snider quite well; worked 
 a great deal for Capt. Dud Snider, and think he is one of the 
 best men living. A short time ago I read a sketch of his 
 life, and while reading it I felt that the half had not been 
 told of his honesty and goodness. 
 
 I have been in the cow business ever since leaving the 
 trail, and it seems to me that I have known the “dogies” 
 almost from the beginning of time. I have ranches in Val 
 
490 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Verde and Webb counties, but my home is now in San An- 
 tonio. I am proud to be the vice president of the Old Time 
 Trail Drivers’ Association, for it is an organization of men 
 who made history. 
 
 SLUMBERED THROUGH THE SHOOTING. 
 
 By H. H. Peel, Jourdanton, Texas. 
 
 I went up the trail the first time in the spring of 1881 
 with a Crouch Brothers’ herd from Frio county, in charge of 
 George Wilcox. We had the usual experiences of driving 
 and stampeding, and at Doan’s Store on Red River a near- 
 shooting. Fortunately the bad man’s pistol hung in the scab- 
 bard and as he was well covered by several guns he had 
 to accept orders and leave. In the Territory we had, I sup- 
 pose, the usual tense moments when the short barreled hair- 
 trigger boys wanted to cut our herd for strays, and Wilcox 
 would not stand for it. We did not have trouble with this 
 outfit who wanted to cut our herd because the leader recog- 
 nized Wilcox as a friend who had once given him a horse, 
 saddle and gun to leave a section of country where he was 
 “wanted,” so he was very anxious to do something in re- 
 turn for the favor. He offered to stop the fellow we had 
 turned off at Doan’s Store, and who had threatened to follow 
 us up and “get” one of our men, our new friend saying he 
 would not have any trouble, just tell some Indians he knew 
 that a bad man and a good horse were coming anti he would 
 never get by. George refused to give him a description of 
 the man. 
 
 We arrived at Dodge City, took in the lively town, then 
 put two Crouch herds together and drove them to Ogallala 
 with Dick Crewes as boss. There I left them and went 
 East and to England. 
 
 Went again in 1885, I think, to Caldwell, Kansas, and 
 from there to Camp Supply and delivered to D. R. Fant at 
 his ranch, then took the mail hack to Kiowa, and the trip 
 and gypsum water wore me out, so I went to the hotel in 
 Kiowa, a board affair, to rest. Some Texas boys who had 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 491 
 
 had a difference with the town marshal were in the adjoin- 
 ing room, and I slept through all the shooting, though some 
 twenty shots were fired by the posse from the street and the 
 boys from the windows, the marshall being wounded. The 
 boys were still in their room when I left the next morning. 
 
 Those old days may have been a little rough at times, but 
 there was always such kindness and good feeling among the 
 boys it is a pleasure worth remembering to have been one 
 of them. 
 
 THE REAL COWBOY. 
 
 By Bulah Rust Kirkland, Phoenix, Arizona. 
 
 I wish I knew as much about cowboy life of today, as my 
 father knows of the early cowboy days in Texas. I firmly 
 believe that my love for the open range and a good cow 
 pony is inherited. Good cow punching is just as much an 
 art and just as appreciated, as it was when he was a boy. 
 Of course there is not the demand for cowboys there once 
 was because there is not the range, or the wild cattle. Just 
 the same, a ranch in New Mexico or Arizona could hardly 
 be managed without good men who thoroughly understood 
 their business. So, the real live cowboy still exists; here and 
 over in Old Mexico, especially, and of course in South 
 America. 
 
 1 am sure that nothing would please our little world better 
 than to see the old cowboys make a proposed trip to Cali- 
 fornia. Also to re-establish the old trail. 1 am especially 
 interested in that noted old trail; and would like to make the 
 trip from start to finish. For the old cowboys to make the 
 trip to California would be one of the grandest things of this 
 century, it would be history. 
 
 While I am not a man, 1 love to work with cattle; and have 
 spent a good deal of my time on the range in Southern Ari- 
 zona. There is something about the way startled cattle raise 
 their heads and look toward a horseback rider, that I enjoy. 
 For me there is real pleasure in noting their earmarks at a 
 glance; and studying out their brands. Ranch life is not so 
 
492 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 exciting as it was in the early days. For one thing, when 
 pay day comes the boys do not shoot up the town, as of 
 old. Though the rustler is still with us, we handle him strict- 
 ly within the law, but we do not love him any better than 
 they used to thirty years ago. 
 
 I believe I could walk along the streets of any town or 
 city and pick out the real cowboy, not by his clothes espe- 
 cially, but because one can nearly always notice that he has 
 a very open countenance and almost innocent eyes and mouth. 
 He is not innocent of course; but living in the open, next 
 to nature, the cleaner life is stamped on his face. His vices 
 leave no scars, or few, because old mother nature has him 
 with her most of the time. 
 
 The cowboys in this part even, are rapidly passing out, for 
 the wire fences and short horns are coming in. While in 
 Texas last summer I noticed that very few kept up the old 
 custom of good saddles, ropes, etc. Here, a good saddle, 
 rope, boots, chaps and a good “cutting” horse are still the 
 pride of any cowboy, for they are still very much needed. 
 
 In Old Mexico and along the line in Arizona, cow punching 
 goes on in earnest. We still have the big round-ups; the 
 chuck wagons, the “remuda.” Camped out for nights, the 
 boys still tell old-time yarns and sing good old songs and 
 play pranks on the tenderfoot they find in their midst. 
 
 Long live the cowboy, young and old. He is the Ameri- 
 can in my opinion. 
 
 (EDITOR’S NOTE — The above sketch was written in 
 1914, since which time Mrs. Kirkland has died. She was the 
 daughter of C. H. Rust, of San Angelo, Texas, one of the 
 active members of the Old Trail Drivers’ Association.) 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 493 
 
 INDEX TO CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 FOREWORD 3 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS (Introductory) 4 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE OLD TIME TRAIL DRIVERS’ ASS’N 6 
 
 ORIGIN AND CLOSE OF THE OLD TIME NORTHERN TRAIL, By 
 George W. Saunders, San Antonio, Texas 20 
 
 LOCATION OF THE OLD CHISHOLM TRAIL, By C. H. Rust, of 
 San Angelo, Texas 25 
 
 THE PUMPHREY BROTHERS’ EXPERIENCE ON THE TRAIL, By 
 J. B. and R. B. Pumphrey 28 
 
 DODGING INDIANS NEAR PACKSADDLE MOUNTAIN, By E. A. 
 (Berry) Robuck, Lockhart, Texas 3 2 
 
 FOUGHT INDIANS ON THE TRAIL, By Henry Ramsdale, Sabinal, 
 Texas 3 6 
 
 CYCLONES, BLIZZARDS, HIGH WATER, STAMPEDES AND IN- 
 DIANS ON THE TRAIL, By G. H. Mohle, Lockhart, Texas 3 6 
 
 MISTAKEN FOR COLE YOUNGER AND ARRESTED, By S. A. 
 Hickok, Karnes City, Texas 39 
 
 A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA, By Jeff M. White, Pleasanton, Texas 40 
 
 A THORNY EXPERIENCE, By S. B. Brite, Pleasanton, Texas 44 
 
 RAISED ON THE FRONTIER, By Walter Smith, Del Rio, Texas 45 
 
 PARENTS SETTLED IN THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, By Joseph S. 
 Cruze, Sr., San Antonio, Texas 45 
 
 SEVEN TRIPS UP THE TRAIL, By J. F. Ellison, Ft. Cobb, Okla 47 
 
 DROVE A HERD OVER THE TRAIL TO CALIFORNIA, By W. E. 
 Cureton, Meridian, Texas 4 7 
 
 COMING UP THE TRAIL IN 1882, By Jack Potter, Kenton, Okla. 50 
 
 WHEN A GIRL MASQUERADED AS A COWBOY, By Samuel Dunn 
 Houston, San Antonio, Texas 60 
 
 A TRYING TRIP ALONE THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, By Sam- 
 uel Dunn Houston, San Antonio, Texas 66 
 
 FIRST CAMPMEETING IN GRAYSON COUNTY 76 
 
 THE OLD TRAILERS, Poem by Luther A. Lawhon 79 
 
 KILLING AND CAPTURING BUFFALO IN KANSAS, by M. A. With- 
 ers, Lockhart, Texas 8l 
 
 ON THE TRAIL TO NEBRASKA, By Jeff D. Farris, Bryan, Texas. ... 89 
 
 ECHOES OF THE CATTLE TRAIL, by Jerry M. Nance, Kyle, Texas 90 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF OLD TRAIL DRIVING, By J. M. Hankins, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas .. 95 
 
494 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Page 
 
 “WILD AND WOOLLY” ON THE CHISHOLM TRAIL, By J. N. 
 Byler, Dallas, Texas 99 
 
 WITH HERDS TO COLORADO AND NEW MEXICO, By G.- W. 
 Scott, Uvalde, Texas 100 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD TRAIL DAYS, By B. A. Borroum, Del 
 Rio, Texas 102 
 
 SIXTY YEARS IN TEXAS, By William J. Bennett, Pearsall, Texas..l04 
 
 HIGH-HEELED BOOTS AND STRIPED BREECHES, By G. O. Bur- 
 row, Del Rio, Texas 106 
 
 THE GOOD OLD COWBOY DAYS, Poem by Luther A. Lawhon 107 
 
 COURAGE AND HARDIHOOD ON THE OLD TEXAS CATTLE 
 TRAIL, Sketch of Sol. West, San Antonio, Texas 110 
 
 PLAYED PRANKS ON THE TENDERFOOT, By Henry D. Steele, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 115 
 
 WHEN A MAN’S WORD WAS AS GOOD AS A GILT-EDGED NOTE, 
 
 By George N. Steen, Bryan, Texas 117 
 
 LIVED ON THE FRONTIER DURING INDIAN TIMES, By Joe F. 
 Spettel, Riomedina, Texas 118 
 
 MADE A LONG TRIP TO WYOMING, By H. D. Gruene, Goodwin, 
 Texas - 120 
 
 MY EXPERIENCE ON THE COW TRAIL, By F. M. Polk, Luling, 
 Texas 123 
 
 PUNCHING CATTLE ON THE TRAIL TO KANSAS, By W. B. Harde- 
 man, Devine, Texas 128 
 
 EXCITING EXPERIENCES ON THE FRONTIER AND ON THE 
 TRAIL, By C. W. Ackermann, San Antonio, Texas 134 
 
 OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF BY-GONE DAYS, By Louis 
 Schorp, Riomedina, Texas 141 
 
 MET QUANNAH PARKER ON THE TRAIL, By John Wells, Bart- 
 lett, Texas 143 
 
 TEXAS COWBOYS AT A CIRCUS IN MINNEAPOLIS, By S. H. 
 Wools, Alice, Texas 149 
 
 REMARKABLE CAREER OF COLONEL IKE T. PRYOR 1 53 
 
 HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF EARLY TEXANS, By L. B. Anderson, 
 Seguin, Texas 1 6 1 
 
 HIT THE TRAIL IN HIGH PLACES, By Jeff Connolly, Lockhart, 
 Texas 166 
 
 THE MEN WHO MADE THE TRAIL, By Luther A. Lawhon, San An- 
 tonio, Texas 172 
 
 A FEW THRILLING INCIDENTS IN MY EXPERIENCE ON THE 
 TRAIL, By L. B. Anderson, Seguin, Texas 
 
 180 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 495 
 
 Page 
 
 ESTABLISHED THE FIRST PACKING PLANT IN TEXAS, Sketch of 
 W. S. Hall, Comfort, Texas 1 8 5 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE OLD COW TRAIL, By C. H. Rust, San An- 
 gelo, Texas 1 87 
 
 TRAIL DRIVING TO KANSAS AND ELSEWHERE, By W. F. Cude, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 192 
 
 WHEN LIGHTNING SET THE GRASS ON FIRE, By George W. 
 Brock, Lockhart, Texas 198 
 
 “BIG COWBOY BALL” 203 
 
 DID YOU EVER DO THE SQUARE? 204 
 
 EXPERIENCES “TENDERFEET” COULD NOT SURVIVE, By G. W. 
 Mills, Lockhart, Texas 205 
 
 KILLING OF “BILLY THE KID,” By Fred E. Sutton, Oklahoma 
 
 City, Okla . 216 
 
 HIS FATHER MADE FINE BOWIE KNIVES, By John James Haynes, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 218 
 
 WILL BUILD A TEN-STORY MARBLE HOTEL, Sketch of John 
 
 Young, Alpine, Texas 223 
 
 WHEN AB. BLOCKER CLIMBED A FENCE, By G. M. Carson, Rock- 
 spring, Texas 224 
 
 THREE TIMES UP THE TRAIL, By W. E. Laughlin, Bartlett, Tex.. .225 
 
 FOUND A LOT OF SNUFF ON THE TRAIL, By J. A. Blythe, Del 
 Rio, Texas 226 
 
 EIGHT TIMES UP THE TRAIL, By A. N. Eustace, Prairie Lee, Tex. 227 
 
 A LONG TIME BETWEEN DRINKS, By Sam Neill, La Pryor, Texas 229 
 
 SCOUTING AND ROUTING IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, By J. M. 
 Custer, alias Bill Wilson 230 
 
 THE OLD TRAIL DRIVER, Short Poem by Branch Isbell, Odessa. 
 Texas 23 3 
 
 CATCHING ANTELOPE AND BUFFALO ON THE TRAIL, By A. 
 
 Huffmeyer, San Antonio, Texas 23 3 
 
 DROVE A HERD TO MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA, By W. D. H. 
 
 Saunders, San Antonio, Texas 239 
 
 TRAIL LIFE, By James Gibson, Alice, Texas 241 
 
 AN INDIAN FIGHT NEAR THE LEONA RIVER, By L. A. Franks, 
 Pleasanton, Texas ...246 
 
 JACK POTTER, THE “FIGHTING PARSON,” by John Warren 
 
 Hunted 250 
 
 SKETCH OF JOHN S. CHISUM, by James M. Waide, Slidell, Texas 258 
 
496 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Page 
 
 PREFERRED TO TAKE OLDER CATTLE UP THE TRAIL, By 
 
 Thomas Welder, Beeville, Texas 264 
 
 CORNBREAD AND CLABBER MADE A GOOD MEAL, By Joseph 
 Cotulla, Cotulla, Texas 266 
 
 A WOMAN TRAIL DRIVER, By Mrs. A. Burks, Cotulla, Texas 268 
 
 THE EXPERIENCE OF AN OLD TRAIL DRIVER, By Richard (Dick) 
 Withers, Boyes, Montana 27 7 
 
 TWICE ACROSS THE PLAINS IN FOURTEEN MONTHS, By Joe S. 
 Clark, Orange Grove, Texas 288 
 
 SKETCH OF CAPTAIN JOHN T. LYTLE . 289 
 
 SKETCH OF T. A. COLEMAN, San Antonio, Texas 294 
 
 SKETCH OF GEORGE W. EVANS, Valentine, Texas 295 
 
 SKETCH OF JOHN Z. MEANS, Fort Davis.... 296 
 
 COWBOY LIFE IN WEST TEXAS 296 
 
 DAYS GONE BY, By Hiram G, Craig, Brenham, Texas 302 
 
 SKETCH OF CHARLES SCHREINER, Kerrville, Texas 325 
 
 EARLY CATTLE DAYS IN TEXAS, By A. W. Capt, San Antonio 
 Texas 328 
 
 COST OF MOVING A HERD, By Col. Ike T. Pryor, San Antonio....3 32 
 
 LOST $21,000 ON ONE DRIVE, By John S. Kritzer, Taylor, Texas. .334 
 
 SKETCH OF MOSE WESLEY HAYS, San Antonio, Texas 33 7 
 
 THE PLATTE WAS LIKE A RIBBON, By J. W. Jackson, Bartlett, 
 Texas 338 
 
 PUT UP 500 STEERS TO SECURE #500, By E. L. Brounson, Sam- 
 ple, Texas 341 
 
 SOME INTERESTING THINGS SEEN ON THE TRAIL, By John B. 
 Conner, Yoakum, Texas 343 
 
 MADE SEVERAL TRIPS UP THE TRAIL, By N. L. Word, Alice, 
 
 Texas JL 4 3 46 
 
 PROBABLY THE OLDEST FEEDER IN TEXAS, By R. F. Sellers, 
 
 Matthis, Texas 347 
 
 SON OF A WELL KNOWN TRAIL DRIVER, By R. F. Jennings, San 
 Antonio, Texas 349 
 
 WHEN “LOUISIANA” CAME TO TEXAS, By T. M. Turner, San 
 Antonio, Texas 350 
 
 PUT UP MANY HERDS FOR D. R. FANT, By Thos. M. Hodges, 
 Junction, Texas 3 54 
 
 WHEN GEORGE SAUNDERS MADE A BLUFF “STICK,” By T. T. 
 Hawkins, Charlotte, Texas 35 5 
 
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 497 
 
 Page 
 
 THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS IS DRYING UP, By George F. 
 Hindes, Pearsall, Texas 360 
 
 TOOK TIME TO VISIT HIS SWEETHEART, By H. C. Williams, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 365 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE TRAIL, By Jasper (Bob) Lauderdale, 
 
 Pleasanton, Texas 365 
 
 FROM TEXAS TO THE OREGON LINE, By W. A. Peril, Harper, 
 Texas A 3 72 
 
 AN OLD FRONTIERSMAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCE, By Joe Chap- 
 man, Benton, Texas 3 74 
 
 PARENTS WERE AMONG EARLY COLONISTS, By Henry Fest, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 3 80 
 
 SKETCH OF PHIL WRIGHT, San Antonio, Texas 383 
 
 REFLECTIONS OF THE TRAIL, By George W. Saunders, San An- 
 tonio, Texas 384 
 
 BURIED A COWBOY IN A LONELY GRAVE ON THE PRAIRIE, 
 
 By Alfred (Babe) Moye, Kenedy, Texas 413 
 
 SOME THINGS I SAW LONG AGO, By George Gerdes, San An- 
 tonio, Texas 416 
 
 WHEN A BOY BOSSED A HERD, Sketch of J. D. Jackson, Alpine, 
 Texas 4 420 
 
 ATE STOLEN MEAT ANYWAY, By Jim Wilson, Alpine, Texas 422 
 
 SPENT A HARD WINTER NEAR RED CLOUD, By D. S. Combs, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 424 
 
 EXPERIENCES OF THE TRAIL AND OTHERWISE, By M. J. Ripps, 
 
 San Antonio, Texas 426 
 
 SKETCH OF COL. J. F. ELLISON, By J. F. Ellison, Jr., Fort 
 
 Cobb, Okla 432 
 
 SIXTY-EIGHT YEARS IN TEXAS, By Pleasant Burnell Butler, Ken- 
 edy, Texas 433 
 
 MY FIRST FIVE DOLLAR BILL, By J. L. McCaleb, Carrizo Springs, 
 Texas 439 
 
 SLAKED THEIR THIRST IN A DRY TOWN, By A. D. McGehee, San 
 Marcos, Texas 443 
 
 LIVED IN SAN ANTONIO AT TIME OF WOLDS INVASION, By 
 George W. West of Atascosa County 444 
 
 GOT THEIR NAMES IN THE POT FOR SUPPER AND BREAKFAST, 
 
 By E. M. (Mac) Storey, Lockhart, Texas 445 
 
 SETTLED ON THE FRONTIER OF TEXAS, Sketch of Ed B. Eng- 
 lish, Carrizo Springs, Texas 448 
 
498 
 
 THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF TEXAS 
 
 Page 
 
 SOME THRILLING EXPERIENCES OF AN OLD TRAILER, By L. D. 
 Taylor, San Antonio, Texas 452 
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD HELL IN HIS NECK, By Ab Blocker, San 
 Antonio, Texas 45 7 
 
 MY THIRD AND LAST TRIP UP THE TRAIL IN 1886, By R. J. 
 Jennings, San Antonio, Texas 465 
 
 LISTENED TO THE CHANT OF THE NIGHT SONGS, By I. H. 
 Elder, Sanderson, Texas 467 
 
 SKETCH OF COL. DILLARD R. FANT 467 
 
 RELATES OF A TRIP MADE IN 1872, By M. L. Bolding, Bart- 
 lett, Texas 469 
 
 PAID THREE DOLLARS FOR FIVE GALLONS OF WATER, By Sam 
 Garner, Lockhart, Texas 470 
 
 SKETCH OF LEW B. ALLEN 473 
 
 HAD LESS TROUBLE WITH INDIANS THAN GRANGERS, By J. E. 
 Pettits, Goliad, Texas *...474 
 
 DROVE CATTLE FOR DOC BURNETT, By L. Beasley, Junction, 
 
 Texas 475 
 
 MY TRIP UP THE TRAIL, By W. F. Thompson, Pearsall, Texas 475 
 
 SKETCH OF COL. RICHARD KING 477 
 
 WORKED WITH CATTLE FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS, By E. M. 
 (Bud) Daggett, Fort Worth, Texas 478 
 
 MADE FIRST TRIP IN 1877, By B. D. Sherrill, Rocksprings, Tex. 480 
 
 COWBOYS DRESSED UP AT END OF THE TRAIL, By R. J. Jen- 
 nings, San Antonio, Texas 481 
 
 A TENDERFOOT FROM KENTUCKY, By J. D. Jackson, Alpine, 
 
 Texas 482 
 
 A TRUE STORY OF TRAIL DAYS 484 
 
 TRAVELING THE TRAIL WITH GOOD MEN WAS A PLEASURE, 
 
 By J. F. Ellison, Jr., Fort Cobb, Okla 484 
 
 HAD PLENTY OF FUN, By Gus Black, Eagle Pass, Texas 486 
 
 ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL COWMAN, By J. B. Murrah, San Anto- 
 nio, Texas 489 
 
 SLUMBERED THROUGH THE SHOOTING, By H. H. Peel, Jourdan- 
 ton, Texas 490 
 
 THE REAL COWBOY, By Bulah Rust Kirkland 491