Just why my father moved, at the close of the civil war, from Georgia
to Texas, is to this good hour a mystery to me. While we did not
exactly belong to the poor whites, we classed with them in poverty,
being renters; but I am inclined to think my parents were
intellectually superior to t ...
At the close of the civil war the need for a market for the
surplus cattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. There
had been numerous experiments in seeking an outlet, and there is
authority for the statement that in 1857 Texas cattle were driven
to Illinois. Eleven years later for ...
I can truthfully say that my entire life has been spent with cattle.
Even during my four years' service in the Confederate army, the
greater portion was spent with the commissary department, in charge of
its beef supplies. I was wounded early in the second year of the war
and disabled as ...
When I first found employment with Lance Lovelace, a Texas cowman, I
had not yet attained my majority, while he was over sixty. Though not
a native of Texas, "Uncle Lance" was entitled to be classed among its
pioneers, his parents having emigrated from Tennessee along with a party
of Step ...
The first herd of trail cattle to leave Dodge City, Kansas, for the
Northwest, during the summer of 1885, was owned by the veteran drover,
Don Lovell. Accidents will happen, and when about midway between the
former point and Ogalalla, Nebraska, a rather serious mishap befell
Quince Forres ...
It was an early spring. The round-up was set for the 10th of June.
The grass was well forward, while the cattle had changed their shaggy
winter coats to glossy suits of summer silk. The brands were as
readable as an alphabet.
The ease and apparent willingness with which some men revert to an
aimless life can best be accounted for by the savage or barbarian
instincts of our natures. The West has produced many types of the
vagabond,--it might be excusable to say, won them from every condition
of society. From th ...
Early in the summer of '78 we were rocking along with a herd of Laurel
Leaf cattle, going up the old Chisholm trail in the Indian Territory.
The cattle were in charge of Ike Inks as foreman, and had been sold
for delivery somewhere in the Strip.
It was a wet, bad year on the Old Western Trail. From Red River north
and all along was herd after herd waterbound by high water in the
rivers. Our outfit lay over nearly a week on the South Canadian, but
we were not alone, for there were five other herds waiting for the
river to go down. ...
There was a painting at the World's Fair at Chicago named "The Reply,"
in which the lines of two contending armies were distinctly outlined.
One of these armies had demanded the surrender of the other. The reply
was being written by a little fellow, surrounded by grim veterans
of war. He ...
In the early part of September, '91, the eastern overland express on
the Denver and Rio Grande was held up and robbed at Texas Creek. The
place is little more than a watering-station on that line, but it was
an inviting place for hold-ups.
Along in the 80's there occurred a question of possession in regard
to a brand of horses, numbering nearly two hundred head. Courts had
figured in former matters, but at this time they were not appealed to,
owing to the circumstances. This incident occurred on leased
Indian lands unprovid ...
No State in the Union was ever called upon to meet and deal with
the criminal element as was Texas. She was border territory upon her
admission to the sisterhood of States.
On the southern slope of the main tableland which divides the waters
of the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers in Texas, lies the old Spanish
land grant of "Agua Dulce," and the rancho by that name. Twice within
the space of fifteen years was an appeal to the sword taken over the
ownership of t ...
Towards the wind-up of the Cherokee Strip Cattle Association it became
hard to ride a chuck-line in winter. Some of the cattle companies
on the range, whose headquarters were far removed from the scene of
active operations, saw fit to give orders that the common custom of
feeding all come ...
He was born in a chaparral thicket, south of the Nueces River in
Texas. It was a warm night in April, with a waning moon hanging like a
hunter's horn high overhead, when the subject of this sketch drew
his first breath. Ushered into a strange world in the fulfillment of
natural laws, he l ...
An hour before daybreak one Christmas morning in the Cherokee Strip,
six hundred horses were under saddle awaiting the dawn. It was a
clear, frosty morning that bespoke an equally clear day for the wolf
rodeo. Every cow-camp within striking distance of the Walnut Grove,
on the Salt ...