A Texas Cow Boy Part 13

After being out three days we landed in Tascosa, a little mexican town on the Canadian. There were only two americans there, Howard & Reinheart, who kept the only store in town. Their stock of goods consisted of three barrels of whisky and half a dozen boxes of soda crackers.

From there we went down the river twenty-five miles where we found a little trading point, consisting of one store and two mexican families.

The store, which was kept by a man named Pitcher, had nothing in it but whisky and tobacco. His customers were mostly transient buffalo hunters, they being mostly indians and mexicans. He also made a business of dealing in robes, furs, etc., which he shipped to Fort Lyons, Colorado, where his partner, an officer in the United States Army lived. There were three hundred Apache indians camped right across the river from "Cold Springs," as Pitcher called his ranch.

A few miles below where the little store stood Mr. Bates decided on being the center of the "L. X." range; and right there, Wheeler post-office now stands. And that same range, which was then black with buffaloes, is now stocked with seventy-five thousand fine blooded cattle, and all fenced in. So you see time makes changes, even out here in the "western wilds."

CHAPTER XVII.

AN EXCITING TRIP AFTER THIEVES.

After arriving on our newly located ranch we counted the cattle and found the herd three hundred head short.

Bill Allen, the boss, struck back to try and find their trail. He found it leading south from the "rifle pits." The cattle had stolen out of the herd without anyone finding it out; and of course finding themselves free, they having come from southern Texas, they headed south across the Plains.

Allen came back to camp and taking me and two horses apiece, struck down the river to head them off. We made our headquarters at Fort Elliott and scoured the country out for a hundred miles square.

We succeeded in getting about two hundred head of them; some had become wild and were mixed up with large herds of buffalo, while others had been taken up by ranchmen around the Fort and the brands disfigured. We got back to camp after being absent a month.

About the first of October four more herds arrived; three from Dodge and one from Grenada, Colorado, where Bates & Beals formerly had a large ranch. We then turned them all loose on the river and established "Sign"

camps around the entire range, which was about forty miles square. The camps were stationed from twenty-five to thirty miles apart. There were two men to the camp and their duty was to see that no cattle drifted outside of the line--on their "ride," which was half way to the next camp on each side, or in plainer words one man would ride south towards the camp in that direction, while his pard would go north until he met the man from the next camp, which would generally be on a hill, as near half way as possible. If any cattle had crossed over the line during the night they would leave a trail of course, and this the rider would follow up until he overtook them. He would then bring them back inside of the line; sometimes though they would come out so thick that half a dozen men couldn't keep them back, for instance, during a bad storm.

Under such circ.u.mstances he would have to do the best he could until he got a chance to send to the "home ranch" for help.

A young man by the name of John Robinson and myself were put in a Sign camp ten miles south of the river, at the foot of the Staked Plains. It was the worst camp in the whole business, for three different reasons, the first one being, cattle naturally want to drift south in the winter, and secondly, the cold storms always came from the north, and the third and most objectionable cause was, if any happened to get over the line onto the Staked plains during a bad snow storm they were considered gone, as there were no "breaks" or anything to check them for quite a distance. For instance, drifting southwest they would have nothing but a level plain to travel over for a distance of three hundred miles to the Pecos river near the old Mexico line.

John and I built a small stone house on the head of "Bonetta" Canyon and had a hog killing time all by ourselves. Hunting was our delight at first, until it became old. We always had four or five different kinds of meat in camp. Buffalo meat was way below par with us, for we could go a few hundred yards from camp any time of day and kill any number of the woolly brutes. To give you an idea how thick buffaloes were around there that fall will say, at one time when we first located our camp on the Bonetta, there was a solid string of them, from one to three miles wide, going south, which took three days and nights to cross the Canadian river. And at other times I have seen them so thick on the plains that the country would look black just as far as the eye could reach.

Late that fall we had a change in bosses. Mr. Allen went home to Corpus Christi, Texas, and a man by the name of Moore came down from Colorado and took his place.

About Christmas we had a little excitement, chasing some mexican thieves, who robbed Mr. Pitcher of everything he had in his little Jim Crow store. John and I were absent from our camp, six days on this trip.

There were nine of us in the persuing party, headed by Mr. Moore, our boss. We caught the outfit, which consisted of five men, all well armed and three women, two of them being pretty maidens, on the staked plains, headed for Mexico. It was on this trip that I swore off getting drunk, and I have stuck to it--with the exception of once and that was over the election of President Cleveland--It happened thus:

We rode into Tascosa about an hour after dark, having been in the saddle and on a hot trail all day without food or water. Supper being ordered we pa.s.sed off the time waiting, by sampling Howard and Reinheart's bug juice.

Supper was called and the boys all rushed to the table--a few sheepskins spread on the dirt floor. When about through they missed one of their crowd--a fellow about my size. On searching far and near he was found lying helplessly drunk under his horse, Whisky-peet--who was tied to a rack in front of the store. A few gla.s.ses of salty water administered by Mr. Moore brought me to my right mind. Moore then after advising me to remain until morning, not being able to endure an all night ride as he thought, called, "come on, fellers!" And mounting their tired horses they dashed off at almost full speed.

There I stood leaning against the rack not feeling able to move.

Whisky-peet was rearing and prancing in his great anxiety to follow the crowd. I finally climbed into the saddle, the pony still tied to the rack. I had sense enough left to know that I couldn't get on him if loose, in the fix I was in. Then pulling out my bowie knife I cut the rope and hugged the saddle-horn with both hands. I overtook and stayed with the crowd all night, but if ever a mortal suffered it was me. My stomach felt as though it was filled with scorpions, wild cats and lizards. I swore if G.o.d would forgive me for geting on that drunk I would never do so again. But the promise was broken, as I stated before, when I received the glorious news of Cleveland's election.

After New Year's, Moore took Jack Ryan, Vandozen and myself and went on an exploring expedition south, across the Staked plains, with a view of learning the country.

The first place we struck was Canyon Paladuro, head of Red river. The whole country over there was full of indians and mexicans. We laid over two days in one of their camps, watching them lance buffaloes. From there we went to Mulberry where we put in three or four days hunting.

When we pulled out again our pack-pony was loaded down with fat bear meat.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SEVEN WEEKS AMONG INDIANS.

On our arrival back to the ranch, Moore rigged up a scouting outfit to do nothing but drift over the Plains in search of strayed cattle.

The outfit consisted of a well-filled chuck-wagon, a number one good cook, Mr. O. M. Johnson, and three warriors, Jack Ryan, Vanduzen and myself. We had two good horses apiece, that is, all but myself, I had three counting Whisky-peet.

About the sixth day out we struck three thousand Comanche Indians and became pretty badly scared up. We had camped for the night on the plains, at the forks of Mulberry and Canyon Paladuro; a point from whence could be seen one of the roughest and most picturesque scopes of country in the west.

The next morning Jack Ryan went with the wagon to pilot it across Mulberry Canyon, while "Van" and I branched off down into Canyon Paladuro to look for cattle signs. We succeeded in finding two little knotty-headed two-year old steers with a bunch of buffalo. They were almost as wild as their woolly a.s.sociates, but we managed to get them cut out and headed in the direction the wagon had gone.

About noon, on turning a sharp curve in the canyon, we suddenly came in full view of our wagon surrounded with a couple of thousand red skins, on horse back, and others still pouring down from the hills, on the east.

It was too late to figure on what to do, for they had already seen us, only being about half a mile off. You see the two wild steers had turned the curve ahead of us and attracted the indians attention in that direction. We couldn't see anything but the white top of our wagon, on account of the solid ma.s.s of reds, hence couldn't tell whether our boys were still among the living or not. We thought of running once, but finally concluded to go up and take our medicine like little men, in case they were on the war-path. Leaving Whisky-peet, who was tied behind the wagon, kept me from running more than anything else.

On pushing our way through the ma.s.s we found the boys, winchesters in hand, telling the old chiefs where to find plenty of buffalo. There were three thousand in the band, and they had just come from Ft. Sill, Indian Territory, on a hunting expedition. They wanted to get where buffaloes were plentiful before locating winter quarters.

From that time on we were among indians all the time. The p.a.w.nee tribe was the next we came in contact with. Close to the Indian Territory line we run afoul of the whole Cheyenne tribe. They were half starved, all the buffalo having drifted south, and their ponies being too poor and weak to follow them up. We traded them out of lots of blankets, trinkets, etc. For a pint of flour or coffee they would give their whole soul--and body thrown in for good measure. We soon ran out of chuck too, having swapped it all off to the hungry devils.

We then circled around by Ft. Elliott, and up the Canadian river to the ranch, arriving there with eighteen head of our steers, after an absence of seven weeks.

We only got to remain at the ranch long enough to get a new supply of chuck, etc., and a fresh lot of horses, as Moore sent us right back to the Plains. In a south westerly direction this time.

We remained on the Plains scouting around during the rest of the winter, only making short trips to the ranch after fresh horses and grub. We experienced some tough times too, especially during severe snow storms when our only fuel, "buffalo-chips," would be covered up in the deep snow. Even after the snow melted off, for several days afterwards, we couldn't get much warmth out of the buffalo-chips, on account of them being wet.

About the first of April, Moore called us in from the Plains to go up the river to Ft. Bascom, New Mexico, on a rounding-up expedition. We were gone on that trip over a month.

On our arrival back, Moore went right to work gathering up everything on the range in the shape of cattle, so as to "close-herd" them during the summer. His idea in doing that was to keep them tame. During the winter they had become almost beyond control. The range was too large for so few cattle. And another thing buffalo being so plentiful had a tendency to making them wild.

About the first of June Moore put me in charge of an outfit, which consisted of twenty-five hundred steers, a wagon and cook, four riders, and five horses to the man or rider. He told me to drift over the Plains wherever I felt like, just so I brought the cattle in fat by the time cold weather set in.

It being an unusually wet summer the scores of basins, or "dry lakes,"

as we called them, contained an abundance of nice fresh water, therefore we would make a fresh camp every few days. The gra.s.s was also fine, being mostly buffalo-gra.s.s and nearly a foot high. If ever I enjoyed life it was that summer. No flies or mosquitoes to bother, lots of game and a palmy atmosphere.

Towards the latter part of July about ten thousand head of "through"

cattle arrived from southern Texas. To keep the "wintered" ones from catching the "Texas fever," Mr. Moore put them all on the Plains, leaving the new arrivals on the north side of the river. There was three herds besides mine. And I was put in charge of the whole outfit, that is, the four herds; although they were held separate as before, with the regular number of men, horses, etc. to each herd.

I then put one of my men in charge of the herd I had been holding, and from that time on until late in the fall I had nothing to do but ride from one herd to the other and see how they were getting along. Some times the camps would be twenty miles apart. I generally counted each bunch once a week, to be certain they were all there.

About the first of October, Moore came out and picked eight hundred of the fattest steers out of the four herds and sent them to Dodge to be shipped to Chicago. He then took everything to the river, to be turned loose onto the winter range until the next spring.

When the hardest work was over--winter camps established, etc., I secured Moore's consent to let me try and overtake the shipping steers, and accompany them to Chicago. So mounted on Whisky-peet I struck out, accompanied by one of the boys, John Farris. It was doubtful whether we would overtake the herd before being shipped, as they had already been on the road about fifteen days, long enough to have gotten there.

The night after crossing the Cimeron river we had a little indian scare.

About three o'clock that afternoon we noticed two or three hundred mounted reds, off to one side of the road, marching up a ravine in single file. Being only a mile off, John proposed to me that we go over and tackle them for something to eat. We were terribly hungry, as well as thirsty.

I agreed, so we turned and rode towards them. On discovering us they all bunched up, as though parleying. We didn't like such maneuvering, being afraid maybe they were on the war-path, so turned and continued our journey along the road, keeping a close watch behind for fear they might conclude to follow us.