c-^

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1936

THE END

¦-OF THE-

Cattle Trail

-BY-
HI, ?I, ^tU

THE END

-OF THE-

-BY-

Geo. W". MoYiiE Publishing Oo.
337 EAST THIRD STREET
LONG BEACH, CAL.

Cn^. 4-\'2

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THE MILLIONAIRE COWBOY
Jake Raines, brand and all around cow expert, on cow pony
"Cheyenne." Jake has 30 years' service to his credit and has ac
cumulated a snug fortune on wages compounded at 10 per c'ent. He
is a bachelor, believes in the old order of things, and "can't brag a
bit."

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

In presenting to the public this brief history of the Cattle
Trail, I am turning back the mystic pages of time to the Cre
ation, searching for the first recorded mention of domesticated
cattle. And through the dead and desolate ages follow man's
slow and upward progress to the end of the Cattle Trail.
Men have lived on this earth some 100,000 years, but
we know the story for only the last 7000 years. We do know,
however, a few disconnected facts alDout the vast dim stretch
of time preceding real history.
The first men were brute-like, lower and more helpless
than the lowest savages in the world today. They had not
even fire or knife, or bows and arrowy. Thousands and thou
sands of years passed uncounted, while our forefathers were
learning to take the first stumbling steps up from savagery
towards civilized life.
Five gains in particular during those slow ages are be
yond price. The use of fire, the beginning of languages, the
taming of the cow, sheep, dog and other animals. The dis
covery and cultivation of wheat, rice and other food plants,
the invention of picture writing, and the rebus stage of writ
ing. After this last invention history, which is the record of
man's life, could begin.
I am indebted to the Standard Dictionary of Facts, that
the Samaritan Pentatuch placed the Creation 4700 B. C. The
Hebrew account followed by Usher as the most generally ac
cepted standard, place it 4004 B. C. During the intervene
from the Creation to the deluge 2348 B. C, we find Jabel a son
of Jubal, owned cattle. Dates and events at the dawn of
history are involved in doubt. They are mere approxima
tions. In searching these records, I find in 3609 B. C. Jabal
was using cattle for purposes of husbandry, and was the first
to build a tent for habitation.
Of the great changes evolution is supposed to have
wrought, from monkey to man, we have no record. We are
forced to believe that God created man in his own image,
and that he created cattle for the use of man, leaving him in
his primitive state, to make his own advancement in educa
tion and intelligence.

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Following the dim trail of human upward progress from
savagery to civilization, we find amazing confirmation of the
fact that domesticated cattle was an important factor in that
advancement. We have evidence that before the dawn of
history wild cattle roamed over the barren wastes of Asia,
and were objects of chase by primitive hunters. It is natural
to infer that the animals in their adult state were slain for
food, while their young were taken and domesticated. By
confinement and contact with man, they ultimately lost their
wild instincts and these captives in time, became fully do
mesticated. As their herds increased they were driven from
place to place in search of new pasture. The people became
nomadic in character. Their flocks and herds furnishing
food, their hides supplying clothing and shelter for the rov
ing tribes. ,
David, mentioned in the Bible as a shepherd, a son of
Jesse of the tribe of Judah, was born in Bethlehem and flour
ished in the eleventh century B. C. History tells us that he
watched the flocks of his father, when Samuel was sent by
the Most High to Bethlehem to anoint him King of Israel.
It does not tell us whether the flocks were sheep, cattle or
goats, but from what we have gleaned of the past before that
time, we must believe it was a mixed herd.
Moses, that great Hebrew prophet, was born in Egypt,
1570 B. C. In pursuance of a royal command, that all male
infants of Hebrew birth should be destroyed, Moses, to escape
this fate was laid in a basket among a clump of bullrushes, on
the banks of the Nile, and there discovered by a daughter of
Pharaoh, who adopted him as her son.
When he arrived at manhood, Moses began to form plans
for the deliverance of his race from bondage, incurring by so
doing, Egpytian mistrust. He fled to Midian, where he
served as a shepherd until his 80th year. Then he is said to
have been the recipient of the Lord's command to guide the
children of Israel out of captivity into the land of Canaan.
Here again history leaves us in doubt, as to how those people
lived while traveling to the land of Canaan. We have no
knowledge of their having bacon, flour and beans to take
along to sustain life. We do know, if we can believe the
scant records of Ancient History, that they had cattle. We
can only infer that the Lord in His wisdom selected Moses

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
for his knowledge of the country and his experience as a
herder, to safely guide the children of Israel out of their bond
age into Canaan, that land of freedom. And having positive
proof that the early pursuits of the nomadic tribes inhabit
ing Asia at that time, were pastoral, we have every reason
to believe that their main sustenance and hope was their
cattle, and other domesticated animals.
I only mention these facts of Ancient History to prove
that down through the ages of human prograss, domesticated
cattle has been an important factor in the advancement ot
man to a higher civilization. There in the valley of the Nile,
the supposed cradle of man, we find our first evidence ot
man's engaging in agricultural pursuits, and using oxen for
beasts of burden. With the ever increasing numbers of his
flocks, and herds, the need of implements with which to till
the soil, and the knowledge to harness his oxen to the load,
caused man to think. By though he slowly but surely in
creased his knowledge, and as his mind expanded, we find
that the tribes that were first to have domesticated cattle and
from necessity, were the fathers of invention, became the rul
ers of the world.
Every Celtic nation for ages has raised cattle, and they
have been regarded by Barbarians and Pagan peoples as the
greatest of the divine gifts to man.
After he began to think, the natural human instinct of
bettering his condition developed faster, so he sought other
countries to conquer. Following his trail in search of con
quest we soon find him on the shores of Spain. The Spania
Hispania and Ibernia of the Greeks, known to the Romans
by the same names, is supposed to have been originally in
habited by a distinct race called Ibernians, upon whom a host
of Celts are supposed to have descended from the Pyrenees.
The Celts brought with them their flocks, and herds of
cattle. These two races formed the mixed race of Celteber-
ians. About the middle of the third century B. C, the Car
thaginian influence began to be felt in Iberia, and a consider
able tract of territory was brought under subjection to the
Carthage by Hamilcar, who founded the City of Barcelona.
About 206 B. C. the Romans had driven the Carthaginians
from the peninsula and the country became a Roman prov
ince. For three centuries, Spain was the richest province of

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
the Roman Empire.
In 711 the Moors obtained mastery of nearly the whole
of Spain. From the advent of the Moors, and during the per
iod of their domination, the independent kingdom of Leon
grew in power and extent. The Moors brought with them
the strong-hearted Arabian Pony. After centuries of domes
tication in Europe the so-called Spanish Pony and the Spanish
cattle were the first domesticated animals to invade the track
less plains of the new world.
Spain in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was
one of the most powerful countries in the world. Some of
her wisest and best educated men believed that by sailing
due west they would find land, the new El Dorado. Chris
topher Columbus after long, and very nearly hopeless per
suasion, succeeded in inducing the Queen of Spain to fit out
the expedition with him in charge, that resulted in the dis
covery of America in 1492.
What did they find there? They found very nearly a
paradise on earth, for the habitation of man. They found a
primitive people living off the country. They found abund
ance of wild fruits, wild vegetables, and wild game. They
found everything necessary to satisfy the needs of a seem
ingly happy and contented race. They found surprising con
firmation of the fact that domesticated cattle was a potent
factor in man's upward struggle to a higher standard of liv
ing. Where no wild animals existed that were easily do
mesticated. The Indians though an intelligent race, remained
savages. Recent explorations among the mounds, the last home
of a pre-historic race that inhabited the Missouri Valley, we
have evidence that in art, and science they were in advance of
the Indian tribes that came after them. Of this race we know
little. Archeologists and ethnologists believe them to have
originally come from China, by way of a chain of islands
through the South Pacific connecting Asia with the mainland
of North America, at or near Central America, or Mexico.
Late discoveries among ruins of this long lost tribe, have
found in their sculpture, their clay modelings and ornaments,
close resemblance of Chinese art, helping to bear out this
theory. Those people had no cattle. Strange as it may seem,
recent explorations of their caves have uncovered unmistak-

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
able evidence of the revolting custom of cannibalism. Scien
tists have closely linked this mysterious race with the Toltecs
of Central America and Mexico, who fleeing from famine and
the Aztecs, drifted North where they found conditions more
suitable for their existence.
For years they flourished. Why did they devour each
other in a fertile valley, where game and everything for the
needs of a primitive race was plentiful, Is it any wonder that
they perished from the face of the earth, leaving little evi
dence of their having existed, but helping thoughtful man to
realize that nature and nature's God rules the Universe. In
asmuch as only the fittest shall survive.
Following the trail of the cave dwellers and mound build
ers, came the Indians, the aborigines found by Columbus, in
habiting the boundless wastes of both North and South
America. From whence another problem for Scientists to
ponder over. One plausible theory is that they came from
Asia by way of another chain of islands connecting Asia with
North America at the southern extremity of Alaska. In evi
dence of which we still have the last link in that chain, the
Alutian group of islands, extending its outstretched arm far
out in the Pacific.
None of the aboriginal inhabitants of America had do
mesticated animals. Columbus on his second voyage in 1493,
brought the first cattle to America. He, the greatest of all
discoverers, realized the importance of domesticated cattle,
for beasts of burden, and their absolute necessity in the sus
tenance and maintenance of human life. This fact should be
indelibly inscribed on a monument to his memory. From
these and other early Spanish importations, were transplanted
on the shores of the New World, the cattle that made Texas
famous. Twenty-six years after the landing of the first cattle by
Columbus, Cortez landed at Tobasco in 1519, with the first
horses brought to America, using them for transporting his
army and equipment in conquest of the country. He ad
vanced to Mexico where he seized the Mexican king Monte
zuma, whom he subsequently put to death, and under the
superior intelligence of his followers, the kingdom of the na
tives soon crumbled, leaving Spain in control of Mexico.
The Spaniards' idea of colonization began with the

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
church. So the priest and the soldier went out together.
The soldier conquered the native, the priest Christianized
him. Next he had to be civilized, and settled in villages with
artisans to teach him the ways of civilization. There is their
three-fold plan. The Mission, the Presidio or Fort, and the
Pueblo or village.
These first few cattle brought to America were very
closely guarded. As they increased they were distributed
among the settlements, the missions and presidios through
out Mexico and Texas. It was customary for the early
Spanish settlers to keep all she stock for breeding. As con
ditions were favorable they increased rapidly. Those that
strayed far away were lost. As some of the Indian tribes
inhabiting the country were hostile, it was not safe for the
herder to go to far in search of them. These strays soon be
came wild, and there is the origin of the wild long horn cattle
that once roamed over the vast Mesquit prairies of Mexico
and Texas.
Before mounting my mustang and heading for bed
grounds of the range cattle, should I stray from the beaten
trail followed by most writers, to make brief mention of some
of the Pioneers of the range before the trail crossed the Big
Muddy, I hope it will not be amiss to give a brief review of
the early history of Texas, the birthplace of the range cattle,
and of the beautiful city of San Antonio, the home of many
of the Pioneers of the Range.
The first attempt at colonization in Texas known to his
tory, was made by La Salle, who sailed into Matagorda Bay,
and erected Fort St. Louis on the Lavaca in 1685. In 1715
the name New Philippines was given to the country, and the
Marquis de Aguayo was made Governor General. Under
his rule the Spanish settlements were rapidly multiplied.
The purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, by the
United States, left the boundary of the old Spanish posses
sions open to controversy. In the absence of any national
settlement, a series of revolutionary intrigues began with the
projected movement of Aaron Burr in 1806. In 1819 the
Sabine River was finally established as the Texas boundary.
The revolutionary spirit which made Texas a region of
turmoil, did not cease when Mexico became independent
under the leadership of Iturbide. Though several peaceable

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
and thrifty American Colonies had been planted, the dictator
Bustamante in 1830, forbade the people from the United
States from further immigration. That was the match that
set aflame the bitterness that had long existed between the
two races. The Americans determined to throw off the gall
ing yoke of Mexican rule, and in 1835 organized a provisional
government with Sam Houston Commander in Chief of the
Texas forces. Several battles were fought against the Mexi
can forces under General Santa Ana, the Tiger of Mexico.
The most noted battle of that war was at the old Mission at
San Antonio, now known as the Alamo, on March 6th, 1836.
Converted into a fort it was occupied by one hundred and
fifty Americans. Though attacked by 4,000 Mexicans under
Santa Ana, the Texans held it from February 23rd to March
6th, when Santa Ana took it by storm. All but seven of the
garrison perished. Six of these were murdered after their
surrender, one man escaping to report the battle. General
Travis lying on his cot, too sick to take an active part in the
fight, was abusing Santa Ana, when that great warrior gained
entrance to the fort. He was ordered to desist and, not com
plying with the order, he was cruelly deprived of his tongue
in the presence of the few survivors before their execution.
There fell together the intrepid Crochett, the famous
Bowie, the unconquered Travis, with one hundred and fifty
others, all martyrs to the Lone Star State.
No story of a like defense is written on a page of history.
The great battle of Thermopylae, or the famous charge of
the Marines at Chateau Thierry, will hold no higher place on
history's emblazoned pages, than the battle of the Alamo.
The atrocities of the Mexicans awakened deep sympathy
for the Texans. Remember the Alamo became a war cry in
their struggle for freedom.
The contest was practically settled with the battle of
San Jacinto, April 21, 1836, when Santa Ana was taken pris
oner. Before entering that famous battle, the commanding
officer of the Texans, knowing they were about to engage
the flower of Santa Ana's army; asked if someone would pray.
Down the line the request was passed, until it came to the
gallant young Captain Cleburn, who said, "I will pray if
every man in the command will kneel down." Every man
kneh. He prayer. These are the words of that famous

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
prayer :
"Oh Lord look down on us with tender mercy. If you
can't be on our side, don't be on the side of the 'greasers'.
Just lay low and keep still and you will see one of the
damnedest fights you ever saw in your mortal days."
Texas was admitted into the Union in 1845, the fifteenth
under the Constitution.
On Texas soil was fought the last battle of the Civil
War, ending in a Federal defeat, May 13th, 1865. Here on
May 26, 1865, General Kirby Smith surrendered the last Con
federate army undefeated.
Under a charter issued by the hand of Ferdinand III of
Spain in 1689 San Antonio was first settled by the Don. The
town was then called San Fernando and was situated on the
West bank of the beautiful San Antonio River. In 1718 the
Mission San Antonio De Valero (now called the Alamo), was
established on the Eastern side. The friars of Queretaro
held San Fernando while the Alamo was occupied by the
Franciscian monks.
In 1736 a colony was sent out by the King of Spain from
the Canary Islands, and the two were merged and given the
name of San Antonio. Born of the double ambition of Spain
to check the Frenchman's west advance, and to extend the
power of the Church in the New World, the sword, and the
crosier, the smoke of battle, the odor of incense, the stern
word of command, the peaceful monotone of prayer, com
mingled equally to bring about the growth of San Antonio.
Warrior leaders in both state and church of world-wide fame
have had their dwellings there. The city with its time-
stained and time-honored Alamo, and other missions, breath
ing forth the spirit of the Spaniards and the Moor, stands
preeminent in history and in romance in legend and in song.
Like me and women, cities have an atmosphere and an indi
viduality of their own. San Antonio is so different, and here
lies its chiefest charm.
When I left there for the trail in 1883, one could find on
every hand the crumbling evidence of the old days of Spanish
rule. You could hear the softest thrumming of the old guitar
to charm the meek-eyed senoritas at twilight hour, or the
tunefull toll of old San Fernandis bell calling all to prayers.
The clink of the spurs as the cowboys come to town from

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
the range. The march time music in the old dance hall. The
click of the poker chips, all redolent of the days long gone.
For then San Antonio was a wide-open town. It was there
the Spanish Priests and the soldiers reared the first mile
stone to mark the progress of the West. 'Twas there the red
and yellow banners of Castile were flaunted to the Southern
breeze. 'Twas there that a mere handful of Texas frontiers
men held at bay for eleven days, Santa Ana's army of four
thousand men, in one of the most daring and spectacular
wars ever waged in any land. It is there that we can still
see the Mexican in gaudy costume, and high sombrero. The
Castilian gentlemen, the booted Englishman from the ranch,
the Frenchman, Pole, Armenian, and the cowboys from the
range. It was there the cattle men did meet, for there was
built the outpost of the land. San Antonio is no outpost of
civilization, now it is a modern city of 120,000 inhabitants.
The home of many of the old time cattle men.
At the time the Pioneers, the founders of the empire of
Texas, were fighting for their liberty, Illinois and Iowa were
a great unfenced range. Missouri was the borderland of
civilization. The Mississippi was the barrier between the
settlements and the great unknown West. That great Father
of Rivers, named by the Sioux Indians Minnie Sho Sho Tonk,
meaning Big Muddy Water, was the deadline that for a few
years checked the westward march of the Pioneer. Beyond
which the Indian and the buffalo held undisputed sway.
A rugged race of pioneer soccupied the border lands of
Illinois and Iowa. Those early pioneers lived in peaceful rela
tionship with the aboriginal occupants, the Kickapoo and the
Delaware tribes. Their wealth was in their herds. A few
drove their mature four and five year old steers through to
the Atlantic seaboard to market. In the early fifties they
drove to Chicago. They were twelve or thirteen days on the
trail from the ranges in central Illinois to the slaughter houses
on the outskirts of Chicago. They grazed their beeves
through the summers, started on the drive in September, the
drive lasting to the latter part of October.
Often on reaching Chicago the drivers had to wait several
days for favorable killing weather. They used no ice those
days. The beef was hung as fast as dressed, and weighed
after cooling out, payment being made on dressed weight.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
The owner of the cattle got nothing for the hide or offal, the
packer appropriating the hide, and there was no means then
of utilizing the offal. The beef was barreled and shipped to
Europe, most of it being used by England's naval and mer
chant marine. There were a number of packers engaged in
beef barreling at Chicago, namely, the Clybourn, Thomas
Dyer, R. M. and O. S. Hough, and Chapin and Wadsworth
plants. As soon as the beef could be weighed they got their
money. Thousands of fat steers were sold for $3.50 to $4.50
per hundred pounds dressed.
The last drive from Illinois was made in 1855. The Alton
road was put in operation the previous year, and the country
was bein grapidly fenced up and they left the trail for the
rail. Three lines railroads, the Lake Shore, Michigan Central,
and Fort Wayne, reached Chicago about the same time, and
they began shipping cattle to New York, where they were not
dependent on the barrelers and got the benefit of a fresh
meat trade, and an all the year round market. For ten years
the bulk of cattle from these Middle West ranges was shipped
to New York.
In 1865 the present Union Stock Yards at Chicago were
first opened, and another revolution effected. The plow and
the cradle were driving the range cattle back. Profitable
maintenance of the beef herds on the productive lands of
the corn belt became impossible. The cattlemen of those
regions soon began to look to the vast and cheaper unsettled
grazing land's across the Big Muddy, to fill their feed lots.
The pioneers who had taken possession of Texas found num
erous herds of wild cattle scattered over the thousands of
miles of unsettled prairies. The undisputed winter range of
the buffalo were the antelope and the mustang grazed in
countless thousands, and the Comanche raided the cow camp
and fought other tribes for possession of these vast and
uncharted hunting grounds. The wild cattle found in Texas
by the early pioneer were the offspring of those that strayed
away from the early Spanish settlers that took possession of
Mexico in the sixteenth century.
For over one hundred years they had roamed the mes-
quite prairies in unmolested freedom, had increased into thou-

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
sands. There were never millions as some supposed. I re
ceived a great deal of information from some of the early pio
neers concerning these wild cattle, their habits and the method
they pursued in capturing them. An old settler by the name
of Hudson who, if I remember right, settled in Fannin County,
five or six miles North of Bonham, in 1837. I liked to hsten
to him tell about the early days in Texas, as I was very much
interested, and I asked him many questions about the wild
cattle. He said after they came in contact with man a few
times they became so wild they would not venture out of
the brush in daylight. Eastern and Central Texas was and
is yet, partly covered with a Scrubby growth of oak brush
with hackberry and pecan and other growth in the lower sec
tions. In the higher, dryer altitudes of the South and South
west, the mesquite covers the prairies. The mesquite is a
scrubby brush, native of Mexico, Texas and the Southwest.
It somewhere resembles the honey-locust, having a thorn on
it, making it difficult to ride through. It grows a bean that
cattle and other stock will live on when other feed is scarce.
These miles of brushy prairies were interspersed with strips
of open prairies covered with luxuriant grasses. There was
the ideal home of the wild ling horn. There he was found.
They would locate a bunch of wild cattle, watch them
for days — probably weeks — to find where they watered, and
the location of their grazing grounds. Then on some moonlit
night the cow-hunters mounted on their best rope ponies,
would ride noiselessly to the prairie where they expected to
find the object of their hunt. They were not successful on
every raid, though often every man in the hunt would succeed
in roping one before they reached the brush, tie them down,
until daylight, when they would bring them in and mark and
brand them. The old ones were killed for their hides, as
they would never become gentle, the calves and young stock
were herded in daytime with the gentle stock. Corralled at
night until they were gentle enough to handle on the open
prairie. Those were the days before use of the chuck wagon.
When they wanted to hunt the range to brand the calves or
round up the beeves for market, they would call in their
neighbors, and put their blankets and cooking utensils on a
pack horse. The cooking utensils usually consisted of a fry
ing pan and a coffee pot with a piece of bacon and a little corn

15

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
meal or flour. Beef was plentiful and cheap. Each man
would have from two to five horses in his mount. They
worked the range the best they could, branding the calves
and driving each man's cattle back to his range.
In those days herds of cattle and horses grazed over the
vast unfenced and unclaimed range. Each ranchman, by his
mark and brand, was enabled to identify his stock and se
cure his increase. Trained to the range and keen of eye as
they were, the old-time rancher and his cowboys would not
find every cow and calf when they worked this vast territory.
As a result there was a small percentage yearly, of unmarked
and unbranded calves. These calves being weaned from the
mother cows would be scattered over the range, the property
of whoever first found and branded them. These cattle were
called mavericks. This name had its origin in the fact that
Sam Mevrick, then an honored citizen of San Antonio, was
the owner of a large brand of cattle that ranged over South
west Texas. During the Civil War he was unable to brand
up the increase, and in consequence there was in the years
following many unbranded and unmarked cattle on the range.
This fact and the cause of it was a matter of general know
ledge throughout this section. Thereafter when the old-time
cowboy found an unmarked and unbranded yearling of two-
year-old on the range, it was supposed to at one time to have
belonged to the San Antonio citizen. Hence the term maver
ick soon became universal for an animal found on the range
unmarked and unbranded.
I am borrowing a few lines, giving in detail the method
of hunting the range in the very early days of the Texas
cattle rancher. Written by Luther A. Lawhon of San An
tonio, for the old trail drivers of Texas. There are few men
better qualified to write the true story of the pioneer Texas
cattle ranches than Mr. Lawhon. While writing from mem
ory and my own experiences on the range, and the trail, I
find that so much has been written about the great range
cattle industry of the West, by those old trail drivers, many
of whom have followed the dimming trail of the long horn
from the heyday of his wild existence to his passing from the
range. Their graphically written story of the early days of
the free range and the trail have left little to write. I can
endeavor only to give in part that which has been left unsaid.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

'.¦*¦¦

iF-.-i*,-.#..-..*:jJ^;?^?.-..^. ¦.-e . is
. ..»», *nrf* ¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦/¦ '

WAITING FOR THE BALANCE OF ROUND-UP TO COME IN.
The gather for Round-Up often covers several miles radius. The first to
arrive hold until all are in.
Drifting back to the story of Mr. Lawhon, describing the
roundup of the sixties, before the chuck wagon had been
introduced. Those old time ranchmen were content to simply
cow hunt twice a year and brand their calves and, as a rule,
those whose ranches were the nearest hunted together and
made up an outfit. Their provisions, flour, coffee and dried
beef, with the bedding, was loaded on a pack horse which
was driven with the saddle ponies. They worked the country,
branded the calves, camped at night where water was plenti
ful and grass good. There was an unwritten law recognized
by the good women of the towns as well as the country, that
whenever a party of cow hunters rode up and asked to have
bread baked, it mattered not the time of day, the request was
cheerfully complied with. Not from fear of insult in case
of refusal, for each and every cowboy was th& champion de
fender of womanhood, and would have scorned to have' uttered
a disrespectful word in her presence, but from an accommo
dating spirit, and a kindness of heart which was universally
characteristic in those frontier days. I remember many times
that cow hunters rode up to my father's house, and telling
my mother they were out of bread, asked that she kindly bake
their flour for them. Everything was at once made ready.
The sack was lifted from the pack horse and brought in. In
due time their bread wallets were once more filled with
freshly cooked biscuits, and the cowboys rode away with

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
grateful appreciation. These acts of consideration were en
tirely gratuitous, but the generous-hearted cowboys would
always leave leither a half sack of flour or a money donation
as a free will 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, and friends, but was freely extended to the
strangers within the gates. The way-worn traveler was never
turned aside. Brave, hospitable and generous, the old time
ranger believed in simple justice stripped of all technicalities
of law. Those were the kind of men that took possession of
the vast untenanted- prairies of the Southwest. When the
Indian and the buffalo still held undisputed sway. When the
plains of the West was described as a great desert, for except
to a few daring trappers the region was unknown. The
wild Indians roamed at will over this great hunting ground,
each tribe claiming considerable portions as of vested right,
waging incessant warfare against encroachments of rival
bands. When throughout this vast wilderness the regular
army acted as the advance guard of civilization, this was not
the work of weaklings, but of viril, courageous and hard-
riding troopers inured to self denial and hardship.
The trapper will always hold a place in the history of the
West. To him has been given the honor of blazing the trail
that the pioneers followed, that led to the range of the buf
falo, the home of the wild Indian in the far distant West.
While not wishing to take from him one line written to the
memory of that true type of frontier manhood, I believe I
can say without fear of contradiction that his mission was not
that of a conq^ieror; he seldom had to fight for his life. The
Red Man was not long in learning his mission among them.
They soon learned from him the value of fur and buffalo
robes by trading with them the much needed guns, ammuni
tion, and food for their skins. They looked on the trapper as
a friend instead of an invader of their domain. At times poor
Lo suffered grievous wrongs at their hands, though it was
not because they wanted to be mean, but because they did
not understand him. Not knowing his language they some
times misconstrued his good intentions, and trouble would
result. Still the Indians did not fear the hunter and trapper,

18

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
they knew he would move on.
The ever watchful eye of the savages saw in the rugged
pioneers of the cattle range, an enemy they feared. They
saw m the cowboy an invader of their lands, their homes, and
their hunting grounds. To the native Indian that was all
he possessed. His resentment knew only the law of relatia-
tion, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. So long as his
hunting grounds teemed with game, the little army could
never quite command peace.
When the cowboy and the skin hunter with his Sharps
rifle went forth to destroy his fool supply. When he saw the
millions of ^his cattle — the buffalo — fast falling before their on
slaught. When he, the nomad of the Western plains, was
striving to hold his own against the onward march of the
all conquering civilization. That he did not tamely submit,
the bleaching skeletons of the pale face from Canada to Texas
gave silent evidence.
Those were the conditions the early cattle men had to
contend with.
In the sixties and early seventies, the Cheyennes, Kiowas,
and Comanches were among the most daring horse thieves
and raiders between the Canadian and the Mexican border.
In the early seventies, Texas had more bad men as they were
called, than any other country on the globe. The very vast-
ness of the unorganized counties and the unoccupied range
stretching from the Rio Grande on the South, to the unset
tled domain of the Canadian Northwest. From the buffalo
range on the Colorado to the peaceful slumbers of the Pa
cific. No country every seen by man or imagined by God
was so saturated with peace and tragedy, or so over-run with
rustlers and bad men. They were there in all their glory,
coming from the pine-clad forests of Maine, to the moss cov
ered shores of the Everglades. He found his haven there be
fore the law came West. Some had killed his man. Others
had read dime novels of the long-haired men of the west, who
wore bowie knixes, six-shooters, and bell spurs, and whose
only vocation was robbing others. Many of them were mere
boys, who had robbed a bird's nest in the East, hungered and
thirsted for blood and badness, migrated to the Southwest
and joined the rustlers, that were running rampant in the
land of the range cattle.

19

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Despite the ravages of the rustle and the wild Indian,
the cowmen pushed steadily on. They were not driven from
some other country, they went because they wanted to go ;
because they coveted adventure, and the hazard of new for
tune. They were not afraid to take their chances against the
rustler and the bad Indian. They slowly drove the Indian
and the buffalo back. The cowboy ranger's cabin took the
place of the Indian teepee along the creeks and rivers of the
border lands.
With the passing of the fleeting years, new recruits were
being added to the ranks of the cattle men. The open spaces
were filling up, and thousands of long horn cattle and Spanish
ponies were seen grazing over the winter feeding grounds of
the buffalo, the home of the long horn.
The ever increasing number of their herds and the re
moteness of the range from the marts of civilization, made it
difficult to find a market for their beeves. I am indebted to
Mr. Ike T. Pryor, a pioneer of the trail, now a wealthy and
honored citizen of San Antonio, for the information that
from 1865 to 1875 Southwest Texas was producing a surplus
of long horn common cattle. There was no local market nor
practically no way of getting them to market at a price that
would leave the owner any money over and above the ex
pense of producing them. The cattle men began to look
North, South, East, and West for a market. About that time
four packing houses, three near Rock Port and one at Flower
Bluff, Texas, were erected. The cattle men would drive
their beeves and old cows to these packing plants, selling
them at frora three to five dollars per head. They were ren
dered out, and the tallow shipped to the candle and soap mak
ers. The hides went to the tanners, the bones and flesh were
used for fertilizing, the hoofs and horns went to the button
and comb makers of Connecticut. These products were
shipped by coast line steamers and sail boats. A great many
drove their beeves to Galveston and other Texas ports, and
shipped from there to New Orleans and Havana. Some drove
through to New Orleans. Mr. H. H. Campbell, one of the pio
neers of the range, whose range was in Ellis County, from
1865 to 1878, drove through to New Orleans, using a pack
outfit. In the meantime some of the old timers had begun
driving North, looking for an outlet and a market. This was

20

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
the beginning of th^e trail that led to the markets of the
border towns of Kansas and Missouri, and later to the ma
turing grounds of the Northwest.
Those driving North found a ready market, and the driv
ing was cheap. They could graze to the back doors of the
towns, reaching market in better condition than when they
started. The cattle men found driving to the markets of the
North more profitable than shipping or driving to New Or
leans or the Packing Plants on the coast. The packing plants
at Rock Port and at Flower Bluff, Texas, were discontinued.
From that date the droves to the North increased.
Just who was the first man to drive a herd from Texas to
Kansas is yet in doubt. A sketch of the Chisholm Trail writ
ten by Fred Sutton of Oklahoma City in the "Old Trail Driv
ers of Texas", gives John Chisholm the honor of driving the
first bunch of cows from San Antonio to Abilene, Kansas, in
1868. In -1879 I worked for old Dick Copeland on a ranch
near Bonham, Fannanin County, Texas. He was with General
Kirby Smith when the latter surrendered the last of the
Southern army on May 26, 1865. Uncle Dick, as every one
called him, told me that he drove a herd of cattle up the
trail to Abilene in 1867. The cattle belonged to Oldham and
Layton, a firm doing business in Bonham, Texas, at the
time I worked for him, in 1879. I cannot veriby that as being
the correct date, though I found Copeland honest and truth
ful with me in all his dealings. Some think Copeland was
with one of the herds belonging to John Chisholm in 1868.
I am unable to find proof of either statement.
In a recent communication with that grand old pioneer
of the cattle range, Charles Goodnight, who after a continuous
service of sixty-five years in the range cattle industry of
Texas, and still lives to tell the tale, living on his ranch at
Goodnight, Texas, says, to his knowledge there was no Chis
holm Trail. He says Joe McCoy was the first man to drive
over the Northern trail. It is evident that Mr. Goodnight
has let that part of the history of the trail so important in
the life of the range cattle industry of Texas, pass by un
recorded in his memory. There is little doubt, but what John
Chisholm was among the first to drive cattle from Texas
across the Indian Territory. He was said to have been a
half-breed Cherokee Indian cattle trader, and to have driven

21

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
a great many cattle from Texas to the Indian agencies and
government posts on the border of Kansas and the Indian
Territory. The names of John Chisholm, Joe McCoy, and
Dick Copeland will ever be identified with the pioneer path
finders that were the first to mark the trail that led to the
border towns if civilization, and later to vast unoccupied ma
turing grounds of the northwest. The trail that made it pos
sible for Texas to become the greatest cattle breeding grounds
in the world.
The part those men played in pioneering on the trail and
on the range, was of no more importance than many of the
old pioneer cattle men, mentioned in the "Old Trail Driver
of Texas". Many of whom were seeking a market to the
North before the hoof print of the first herd was erased by
time from the prairie grass along the trail, and whose names
are so closely linked with the pioneer days of the Texas cat
tle range. The foundation on which the great Empire state
was built.
The finding of a market to the North for their surplus
cattle gave to the cattle rancher renewed hope. He extended
his range on to the West. Narrowing the limits of the hunt
ing grounds of the Red Man. Before the markets at the North
were able to handle the fast increasing supply of beeves from
the Texas ranges, before the vast unknown prairies of the
North had been added to the domain of cattle ranchers, where
thousands of buffalo roamed over the unconquered hunting
grounds of the Sioux and the Pawnees, some of the fearless
pioneers were looking to the government posts and the In
dian agencies to the West, for a market. The trails that led
from the great breeding grounds of Texas to the markets at
the North, and to the West, were not surveyed or laid out
like a public highway for indefinite use. It was the result of
the pathfinders of the range, driving his beeves and old cows
to market over the trackless plains, leaving a trail that others
followed. The boss or owner would ride ahead to locate water
and the best place to cross the streams. They followed the
most practical route to a certain destination. Others in quest
of a market followed the same trail. In time the grass was
worn away, leaving a well defined trail leading tO markets
along the border, and to the unoccupied ranges of the North.
The pioneers of the cattl erange, like the Indian, gave

22

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
way to the settler. Not that he, like the Red Man, disliked
the advance of civilization. He realized that was the inevit
able result that would always follow in the wake of the path
finder, who drove the buffalo and the Indian back and made
possible the settlement of the West. As that great tide of
Anglo Saxon civilization advanced, and encroached on the
conquered domain of the cattle men, the trail and the cow
boys' cabin was moved on to the West.
The tragic story of the first attempt to drive a herd of
cattle across that great waterless plain, Llano Ecstacado,
named by the early Spanish explorers, who, looking out across
its vast stretches, could see no land mark, left behind driven
stakes to guide their return. This story has been told and
retold around the campfire on the range. The names of
Charlie Goodnight and Oliver Loving are known to every
cowpuncher in the land of cattle. These pioneers were the
first to seek the Indian Agencies of New Mexico and Colorado
as a market for their cattle.
In 1866 Goodnight and Loving started from near old Fort
Belknap on the Brazos River to Fort Sumner, New Mexico,
with two herds. The mining towns and the agencies af
forded the best opportunities to the cattlemen in those days,
but the chances of reaching them seemed almost hopeless to
the ordinary man. The country swarmed with hostile In
dians, and no one knew the conditions as to grass and water.
They were not the kind of men that turn away from danger
or feared to take a chance in any honest proposition. One
of them had been to Sumner and made a contract for the
delivery of two herds of cattle at the post in the summer of
1866. Early in March they had the cattle rounded up ready
for the start. Each outfit was composed of eight picked cow
boys, a horse wrangler and a cook. The cook drove the
chuck wagon to which was hitched six Spanish mules. In
the wagons was carried the food supply, the blankets and war
bags of the men. On each side of the wagon was lashed a
water barrel, and each man carried a canteen. Under the
wagon was the coonie, this was a rawhide stretched to the
running gear of the wagon, while green, the head and fore
legs being lashed toward the front of the wagon, the sides
to the side of the bed, the hind legs to the hind axle, lower
behind, to make it easier of access and filled with rock or

23

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
something heavy while drying made it bag down, increasing
its carrying capacity. This coonie was used for a carryall,
but its main purpose was to carry buffalo chips for fuel for
cooking. For hundreds of miles on those plains there is not
wood enough for a toothpick. Early in March they had every
thing in readiness, and made the start for the head of the
Concho. Experienced cowmen never drive or crowd their
cattle going on a long drive. The movement of the herd is
governed as near as possible to the habit of cattle running
at large on the range. They are allowed to remain on the
bed ground as long as they will, and when they begin to walk
off they are grazed in the direction they want to go. By
nine or ten o'clock they have eaten their fill, and want to go
to water. They are then let hit the trail. The pointers, a man
on each side near the lead, keep them headed in the desired
direction. The swing drivers keep them pushed in line. The
flank riders push in the flank until they are strung out for
miles like a moving bright colored ribbon, winding its way
over the grassy plains. The drag drivers bring up the rear
or drags. Thus they reached the head of the Concho by the
end of March.

I^ll"'

1

fVx

^^ ' .--^
i.-.-"
MOVING A HERD
The front end of a herd is known as the "Point" and the hind end the "Drag."
We have combined two very accurate illustrations of a moving herd full of action
24
THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
For two days they laid there to rest the cattle. While
resting on the Concho, Goodnight was out scouting to the
West to find the most practical route. They knew they must
keep very near due west across that waterless unknown
stretch. Late on the evening of the second day, after the cattle
had been well grazed and watered, the water barrels and can
teens filled, the herds were thrown on the trail headed for the
Pecos, ninety-six miles away across the dryest, least known
country on the American continent. All night they trailed
them without sleep or rest. For three nights and four days
they pushed on toward the West, resting in the heat of the
day only. They had used every drop of water they had
the evening of the second day, and none in sight. With
tongues parched and swollen by the dryness of the atmos
phere and the clouds of dust, they pushed on with that de
termined expression on every man's face so characteristic of
the pioneer cowmen, to do or die. At last on the evening of
the fourth day, the leaders raised their heads and began to
step up. Suddenly they break into a trot. A smile takes the
place of the determined look on the faces of the cowmen, they
know the cattle smell water. Every man except two rides
to the lead of the herd to hold the famished cattle back or
they would break into a mad stampede and plunge into the
water on top of each other, drowning some in their eagerness
to quench their thirst. When the leader reached the river, the
drags three or four miles back, came stringing in until they
were strung along the river, soon satisfied, in the valley of
the Pecos where grass and water was plentiful.
The outfits laid there at Horsehead Crossing for three
days to rest. Then the drive up the level valley of the Rio
Pecos begun. The cattle and horses were grazing belly deep
in the juicy mesquite grass, and everything looked good for
the safe deliverance of the herds at the post at Fort Sumner.
The most dreaded part of the trail, the Llano Estacado,
lay behind them. They were now in the Indian country, and
if they could escape the eagle eye of the Comanche, they
would get through safely. They had found some old sign,
and had hopes that the war parties had gone to the east or
north on their raid. After driving three or four days up the
Pecos without seeing any fresh sign, they concluded that

25

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Loving might safely go ahead to Fort Sunmer to make ar
rangements for the delivery of the herds.
In his outfit were two brothers, Jim and Bill Scott, who
were his most experienced and trusted men. He chose Jim
Scott for his companion, and at dark they started on the
dash to Sunmer.
Their plan was to ride by night and lie in concealment
during the day. Dawn of the third day found them riding
through a level country near the present town of Carlsbad,
New Mexico, without cover of any kind to conceal them.
They decided to push on to the hills above the mouth of
Dark Canyon. This was a mistake, for had they ridden a
mile or two to the west and dismounted before daylight
they probably would not have been discovered. The alert and
cruel Comanches had their scouts out that morning, riding
just beneath the edge of the plain. They spied the unsus
pecting Loving and Scott, riding toward them. Loving and
Jim reached the bend in the river, and just as Jim, pointing to
a low hill, a quarter of a mile to the West, remarked that it
would be a blame good place to stand off a bunch of Indians,
they were startled by the sound of thundering hoofs racing
up the valley upon them. About four hundred yards away
came a band of fifty Comanches, crouching low and plying
the quirt to urge their horses to their utmost speed. Loving
and Jim realized that their own horses were worn out and
escape by running was hopeless. They wheeled and made for
the hill that Jim had just mentioned. Their pace was slow at
best, the Indians were gaining at every jump, and had opened
fire. Before half the distance to the hill had been covered a
bullet broke Loving's thigh, and killed his mule. As the
mule pitched over he fell fortunately on the bank of a buf
falo wallow, a circular depression in the prairie, made by
buffalo wallowing in a pool after a rain. Instantly Jim sprang
to the ground, giving his bridle rein to Loving who lay help
less under his mount. In another second he was sending a
stream of lead from his rifle in the direction of the redskins.
Two Comanches fell, and the charge was temporarily checked.
As the Indians drew back out of range, Jim pulled Loving
from beneath his fallen mule, and with his neck handkerchief,
bandaged his wounded leg, after placing him in as easy a
position as possible within the shelter of the wallow, and be-

26

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
hind the fallen carcass of his mule. Jim led his own horse
to the opposite bank of the wallow, drew his bowie knife and
cut the poor beast's throat. "We are in for a fight to death
and are outnumbered twenty to one," he said to Loving. As
the horse fell Jim dropped down behind him. Loving said,
"Reckon we are alright now Jim, and can down half o' them
before they get us." Hardly were the words out of his mouth,
when the Indians began a second charge. It is a custom with
the plains Indians to ride in a circle around the intended vic
tims, more especially when they have them so greatly out
numbered. With their knee pushed under his hair rope girth
the horse's mane and bridle in the left hand, dropped down
low on the side of his horse, leaving only a hand and foot
exposed, thus on they came. In the second charge the whole
band raced round their poorly entrenched victims, firing be
neath their horses' necks at they drew nearer and nearer.
Loving and Jim wasted no lead. Lying low behind their
breastworks until the enemy were in good range they opened
fire that knocked over six horses and wounded three Indians.
The fire was too hot for the Comanches, and they again with
drew. Twice again that day the Indians tried the same tactics
with no better result. Late in the afternoon they resorted to
a direct charge, hoping to ride over the white men, and shoot
them down. Up they came at a dead run, five or six abreast,
the front rank firing as they advanced, but the fire from the
buffalo wallow was so deadly that the savage column broke
and retreated. Night came, Jim and Loving ate the few bis
cuits they had and some raw bacon. Their thirst was so great
that it was agreed they must have water at any cost. They
knew the Indians were unlikely to attempt another attack be
fore dawn, so decided to try to reach the river about midnight.
The stream was only about fifteen hundred yards away, but
was a terrible journey for Loving, compelled to crawl noise
lessly to avoid alarming the enemy. Jim could give him little
assistance, so he followed him slowly dragging his shattered
leg without a murmur. They reached the river safely, and
satisfied their burning thirst. It was now necessary to find
new cover. For long distances the banks of the Pecos are
nearly perpendicular, and from ten to twenty feet high. The
current is swift and cuts deep holes into the banks. Crawling
the margin of the stream, Jim found a recess wide enough to

27

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
hold them and deep enough to afford good shelter from fire
from the opposite shore. The bank, slightly overhanging, rose
for twenty feet above them. The Comanches could only at
tack from the other side of the river, which was about thirty
yards wide there and afforded no shelter for the enemy.
At dawn the Indians silently crept in on the abandoned
intrenchment, sprang inside with upraised weapons, only to
find it deserted. The trail left by Loving's dragging leg was
plain and they followed it to the river where, coming unex
pectedly in range of the new defense, two if their number
were killed.
Throughout the day the Indians tried every device of
their savage cunning to dislodge Loving and his brave com
panion. They threw burning brush and red hot embers down
on them, but without avail. With all their savage resources
exhausted the Indians surrounded the spot, resolved to starve
the white men out.
Loving was fast losing strength from the loss of blood,
and they had no food but a little raw bacon. It was agreed
that Jim should try to reach Goodnight, sixty miles back
down the trail, and bring aid. This was a forlorn hope, but
the only one. Jim was reluctant to leave, but Loving urged
it as their one chance.
As soon as it was dark, Jim removed all but his under
clothes, hung his boots around his neck, slid softly into the
river and floated and swam down stream for more than a
quarter of a mile, then crept out on the bank. On the way
down the river he had lost his boots, still he struck out
bravely for the trail through cactus and over stones. He
traveled all night, rested a few hours in the morning, resumed
his efforts in the afternoon and continued well on through the
second night. Near morning, famished and worn out, with
feet bleeding, Jim lay down in the grass and sagebrush a few
hundred yards from the trail, and went to sleep. The two
outfits were camped a mile farther down the trail. At dawn
they broke camp and both passed Jim without seeing him.
Then a lucky thing happened. Two or three horses had
strayed away from the horse wrangler, and Jim's brother
Bill was left behind to hunt them. Circling for their trail he
came upon a man apparently dead. It was his brother Jim.
Coffee and a little food revived him so that he could mount

28

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Bill's horse and overtake the outfits. Goodnight ordered six
men to change horses to the best they had in the remuda, and
started to his partner's rehef, without delay.
Loving had a close call the day after Jim left. The Co
manches crossed the river, and raced up and down the banks,
firing beneath their horses necks. It was a miracle how Lov
ing escaped being hit. Lying low and watching his chance he
returned such a destructive fire that the Comanches were
forced to retire. The afternoon passed without further attack.
The Reds had given up the siege as too dear a bargain. When
night came Loving grew alarmed. Jim might be taken and
killed. He must escape through the Indians and try to reach
the trail at the crossing in the big bend, four miles north.
Here the trail outfits might reach him in time.
Early in the night he dragged himself painfully up the
bluff and reached the plain. He probably would have been
safe had he lain down by the trail, but supposing the Co
manches still about, he set out for the big bend. Starving,
weak from loss of blood, his shattered thigh compelling him
to crawl, words cannot describe the horror of this journey.
But with that idomitable courage he won. Late the next aft
ernoon he reached the crossing, then swooned. Ever since
this spot, which is about half a mile below the town of Carls
bad, has been known as Loving's Bend.
At dusk that evening a large party of Mexican freighters
pitched their camp nearby. While some of the men were un
harnessing the teams, others went to get wood. In the dark
ness one Mexican thought he saw a big mesquite root, seized
it and gave a tug. It was Loving's leg. Food and stimulants
soon revived the wounded cowboy.
The next day brought Goodnight and his men. Good
night hired a party of the Mexicans to take one of their car-
retas, and convey Loving through to Fort Sunmer. After a
forced march of nine days, mostly by night, they reached the
post. Although Loving was holding up well the heat and
lack of proper care was telling badly on his wound, and it
was apparent that nothing but amputation of the leg would
save him.
The doctor of the post was out with a scouting party and
only a hospital steward was available for the operation. Good
night was afraid to trust the case to this man's inexperience.

29

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
To him the only thing to do was to send a rider through to
Las Vegas, the nearest point where a surgeon could be found.
The distance was one hundred and thirty miles, and the road
was infested with hostile Navajos. Goodnight could find no
one at the fort bold enough to take the chances. He raised
his offer to one thousand dollars, but no one responded. He
would have willingly gone himself, but felt that he must see
that their contract was fulfilled. At last the man for the job
appeared. He was Scott Moore, a contractor, who furnished
wood and hay to the post.
"Charlie," he said to Goodnight, "why in the world didn't
you send for me before. I've got a young Kentucky saddle
mare here that is the fastest thing on the Pecos.' I'll be in
Vegas by sun-up tomorrow morning and I'll be back here
sometime tomorrow night with a doctor. Pay, pay, be
damned." At nightfall Scott started and half an hour after sunrise
he rode into the plaza of Las Vegas and routed the doctor
out of bed. The doctor was no coward, but it took all of
Scott's eloquence to induce him to consent to a daylight
journey to Sumner, for he knew its dangers; for scarcely a
week passed without word of some massacre. But Scott was
a man who usually got what he went after, and before seven
o'clock he and the doctor were on their way back to the post.
About noon they approached the head of the arroyo de los
Enteros down which the trail descended to the lower levels
of the Pecos Valley.
Enteros Canyon is about three miles long, rarely more
than two hundred yards wide, its sides are rocky, precipicous,
and heavily timbered. The wagon trail which wound through
it was exposed at every point to perfect ambuscade. It was
the most dreaded stretch of the Vegas Sumner road. Just be
fore reaching the head of the canyon the road wound around
a high butte. As they turned the hill and came upon the head
of the canyon the doctor, seizing Scott's arm, cried, "Good
God! Scott! Look there!" On both sides, to the right and
left, stood fifty or sixty Navajo ponies bridled and saddled
and dripping wet with sweat. Apparently it was an ambush
laid for them, and they were already surrounded. Overcome
with terror, the doctor cried, "Turn, Scott, for heaven's sake."
"Doc, you are wrong, dead wrong," replied Scott, calmly.

30

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
"We're as safe as if we were at the fort. If they were laying
for us we'd be dead now. No, they are after bigger game
They've sighted a big freight outfit coming up from the
Pecos, and are laying for that. We can slide through without
seeing a buck or hearing a shot. We'll go right on down
Enteros, old boy."
Down they went into what seemed the very jaws of death
but Scott was right, the Navajos were laying for other and
bigger game. They got safely through the canyon and two
miles out on the plain met a train of eight freight teams
traveling toward Vegas. They gave the freighters warning,
but It was no use. The leaders of the party thought them
selves strong enough to repel any attack, and drove on into
the canyon. None of them came out.
Before midnight Scott and the doctor reached Sumner.
Scott Moore had covered two hundred and sixty miles in less
than thirty hours and had kept his word. But, poor Oliver
Loving died from the shock of the operation. Now Scott
Moore is dead and gone, but the story of his heroic ride and
the game fight poor Loving made for his life, still lives.
Charlie Goodnight and Oliver Loving were the first of
the Texas pioneer cattle men to seek the Indian Agencies,
and forts, of the West, and North, as a market for their cattle.'
They were the vanguard that marked the way across that
great unknown plain — the Llano Estakado. These intrepid
cowmen were the first to brave the dangers of the unknown
Red Man's country, and mark the trail to the outposts of the
West. The story of the Goodnight trail which led the way
across that great arid barrier that lay between the free ranges
of Texas and the Eldorado of the West, where the savage Co
manche made his last brave stand against the encroachment
of the white man. The trail that opened the way that others
followed to the ranges farther to the West. The trail that is
stained with the blood of one of its pathfinders, and immortal
ized by the heroic deeds of its survivors, in their vain attempt
to save the life of their fallen partner, will hold a page in his
tory to the last generation.
Just after the Civil War, or about 1867, the unoccupied
free ranges of Texas was beginning to attract the attention of
its hardier pioneers to the possibilities of the range cattle in
dustry. As the ranges filled up, they began to work together.

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5* ' ^

- '^

cow OUTFIT SCATTERING TO MAKE ROUND-UP
The Foreman sends little groups in various directions to cover a rounding
radius; these in turn scatter out, making a complete circle, and drive to some
regular round-up ground which is usually near the center. Round-up territory
is not defined by fences, but a large pasture is worked by successive round-ups
until covered.
The cattlemen soon realized that they could not work the
vast ranges separately, that they must co-operate to be suc
cessful. The general spring roundup was the natural result.
Early every spring they would hold their roundup. The
Southern part of the range, where the grass grew earlier,
holding their roundup a few weeks ahead of the north. For
the benefit of the uninitiated, I will give a brief outline of
the system of working the range. The date being set for the
holding of the general spring roundup and a foreman ap
pointed, on the date set for the beginning, they would meet
at a given point. For example, the northern spring roundup
would meet at the head of Powder River in Wyoming. Each
outfit through whose range they were going to work would
be represented with a full crew of men, a grub wagon, range
foreman, a horse wrangler, to drive the remuda, or saddle
horses, and as many men as they needed, to handle the cattle.
Outfits at a distance, would be represented with one man or
more, governed by the number of cattle they had on the
range. These representatives would pack their bedding on a
pack horse and drive it with their mount of saddle ponies, to
the nearest ranch going to be represented with a wagon on
the roundup. They would throw their blankets on the chuck

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
wagon, put their saddle horses in with the other' remuda and
would work with them the same as one of their own men
They would hold all cattle belonging at a distance, brand the
calves, put them in the day herd to be driven along until
the roundup was over, standing guard at night in reliefs.
Each man would have seven or eight horses in his mount,
more if he wanted them. The cook drove the chuck wagon^
usually four mules or horses. The horse wrangler would
drive the remuda along with the wagon, looking out for the
best place to cross the streams, hunting a good roundup
ground, and getting wood for the cook. When the roundup
was over, the men from the outside would throw their cattle
in with someone going their way, and drive the cattle back to
their own range. The roundup, commencing on the head of
Powder River, would work down the river, working all the
tributaries to their mouth, then down the Yellowstone, to the
mouth of the Little Missouri, up the Little Missouri, to the
mouth of Little Beaver, up Beaver to its head, where we
would meet the roundup that worked the head of the Little
Missouri, giving them the cattle we were holding for that end
of the range, and getting those they were holding for us.
The foreman would divide the men, selecting someone fa
miliar with the range to be worked, to take half of the men,
and work the west side, while he, or some other, who knew
well the immediate range, would work the east side. At
early dawn they would start out; the man leading the circle
would ride to the head of the creeks running into the river
every few miles, dropping off a man, or two, to ride down
some branch, or canyon, where there was likely to be water,
or to find cattle. The men going to the extreme outside
would often cover fifty or sixty miles before reaching the
roundup grounds, which would be at some known place, five
to eight miles below the starting point. Everything would
be driven into the roundup grounds. When the boys re
turned from off the circle, those who wished could change
horses, to their cut horse (a horse trained to cut cattle out
from one herd to another, or the cutout). These horses are
never ridden on a long ride, they are the pets of the outfit,
some of the most intelligent and best trained horses in the
world. It would astonish anyone who never saw a trained
cow-horse work in a herd, to see their quick action and the dis-

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
play of human intelligence. The cattle brought in by the
riders of the circle are bunched and the fun of cutting out the
cows and calves begins. They are cut out to themselves.
Often there are no corrals near; the calves had to be
roped and branded on the open prairie. Two or three
boys would hold the bunch together while the ropers would
ride in, rope the calves and drag them near the fire, where
some would mark them, others brand them. The irons were
heated in the fire made of buffalo chips. Two good ropers
would keep a dozen more men busy marking, and branding.
The early spring calves that are strong and hard to
handle are most always roped by the hind legs, the young
ones by the neck, or the most convenient way. When a large,
wiry calf is roped by the neck one of the men on the ground
doing the wrestling, would grab in the rope, by the neck
with his left hand, and give him a slap on the flank with his
right. When the calf jumps, he gives it a quick jerk in the
flank, flopping Tt flat on its side; the jar will stun it for a
moment, then the rope is released from its neck. The man at
the head will put one knee on its neck, the other at its shoul
der, while the other man will grab its hind legs ; sitting flat
on the ground he will put one foot a little above the hock of
the lower leg, pushing the leg forward as far as he can,
then he grabs the other leg, pulling it straight back with all
his weight. The calf is helpless ; all it can do is wiggle its
tail and bawl. In a twinkling it is all over, the calf is turned
loose to find its mother, a little the worse for wearing the
brand and ear mark of its owner. The calves are all branded
and turned loose, and the roundup worked. All those they
wish to hold are cut out into the day herd. The ones be
longing on the immediate range are given a send-off up
stream, or down in the opposite direction from the one the
roundup is working, so that they will not get them in the
roundup next day. Thus the whole plains country was
worked twice each year. The general spring roundup for the
branding of the calves and throwing those that had strayed
too far away, back on their own range, and the fall or beef
roundup. The whole country was thoroughly worked, from
the Rio Grande to the western and northern limits of the
range. All mavricks were branded, for the man on whose
range they were found. Any unmarked or unbranded year-

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
ling, or even older animals found still following a cow was
branded the same as the cow, provided the owner was known
to have a legal brand on the range. The general roundup is
the most important part of the cowboy's work. Branding
the calves, gathering the beeves, and at the same time keep
ing a watchful eye on the rustlers.
Some of the large ranges, privately owned in Texas, were
divided into divisions, each division having a range boss,
and men enough to properly handle the cattle. In the late
sixties, before the stock yards of Chicago had reached the
limits of their present capacity, the flattering reports from
the mining towns of the far west tempted some of the daring
pioneers, to brave the hazardous undertaking of driving their
beeves through that little known country, the territories of
New Mexico and Arizona, to the mining towns in the land
of the Setting Sun.
Desperate bands of border outlaws were robbing and
killing along the Rio Grande Grande in Texas and the South
west. In 1869, Mr. H. H. Campbell started from Central Texas
with a bunch of beef cattle for the mining towns of Cali
fornia. The trail led through a wild country, overrun with
rustlers and wild Indians. A common practice of the border
rustlers those days was to kill the drivers of the herd and
run the cattle across the line into Mexico, or wait until the
cattle had been disposed of, and then kill the boss and rob
him of the proceeds. Keeping under cover as much as pos
sible, Mr. Campbell escaped the most desperate outlaws, as
well as the eagle eyes of the Navajos, and delivered the herd
in California. He had several thrilling escapes on his return,
his only companion being a negro boy. Knowing the habits
of the Indian tribes infesting the country they traveled by
night and hid in daylight when in hostile Indian country.
It was customary with some, in those six-shooter days
on the border, to carry their pistol on the left hip, with the
butt or handle toward the front, making it necessary to reach
across in front of the stomach to draw the weapon. Mr.
Campbell had always practiced carrying his in the more handy
position — on the right hip. This practice saved his life in a
mixup with rustlers on the return trip. It was a case of the
quickest on the draw. Mr. Campbell beat him to it. The
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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
reader can surmise the rest. Campbell lived to bring the
proceeds from that cattle sale back to the owners, and all the
way on horseback; across a wild and lawless country, in
fested with roving bands of Indians and the most desperate
gangs of cut-throats on the border. Some of the outlaws
in Texas and the Southwest, in those days, did not think any
more of killing a man than a good man would of shooting a
sheep-killing dog. Thousands of head of cattle were
stolen and driven across the Rio Grande into Mexico, and
never recovered. Often good men were shot down without
cause or mercy. It was with these conditions that the pio
neers of the cattle range had to contend with. Eternal vigil
ance was the price the cowboy had to pay for his very exist
ence. He faced those conditions, the savages and the rustlers,
without falter and without fear. Through the constant use
of the six-shooter the cowboy ranger became the most expert
handler of that symbol of the western frontier, prob
ably than any other in the world. He did not fear the out
law or the Red Man, but they feared him ; they would not
attack him with an even show.
Just after the Civil War, or in the early seventies, Texas
and the Southwest territories were seeming helpless in the
clutches of a lawless element. The rustlers and murderous
bands of Comanches in their daily raids, run off whole herds
of cattle and horses, often committing brutal and unprovoked
murder. The Indian raids were becoming more frequent and their
outrages on the border settlements more brutal and unbear
able. They seemed to think they had the few rangers guard
ing the frontier beaten and the United States troops bull
dozed. From time to time they had been rounded up and
taken back to the reservation unpunished, and they seemed
to take it as a joke , The settlers had often informed the
Government of the situation and threatened to take the tam
ing of the Comanches in their own hands.
The spi-ing of 1874 found the Indians growing more des
perate. The Government at last realized that these blood
thirsty savages had to be taught a lesson. General Mc
kenzie was sent down there to use his own judgment in
dealing with them. After viewing the situation at close
range, General McKenzie concluded that the only good In-

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
dians were dead ones, and resolved to set an example, a
warning to Others. Arriving in the Indian country, the troops
did not have long to wait. The scouts reported the Indians
out on a raid, stealing and murdering. The anxious troopers
took the trail of the savage renegades and after a forced
march of eighty or a hundred miles they located the roving
band. Surrounding them they gave battle. None escaped.
They made good Indians ouf df the Comanches on that — their
last raid — capturing a few old squaws, papooses, old bucks,
and 2500 ponies. These were taken to Camp Supply, Indian
Territory, where 2000 or more of the ponies were shot. A
few were given to the nesters across the line in Texas, with
'strict caution not to let them get back into the hands of the
Indians. During this war on the renegade bands of the border,
1874 and 1875, the Frontier battalion of Texas Rangers had
orders not to take any Comanche prisoners. The State of
Texas and the United States Government were determined to
stop their outrages.
On one of their scouting trips. Company B Texas Rang
ers run onto a small band of Comanches. In the skirmish
with them, they killed everyone except one young squaw.
They did not have the heart to shoot her, so they took her
to camp at Blanco Canyon. They had to keep close watch
of her day and night. One of the boys, whose duty it was
to do the cooking while the cook was away for supplies,
thought he would learn the wild, untutored child of nature
to cook. On this day he was exxplaining by signs and Span
ish, the best he could, that when the -beans were soft she
should put in the bacon. While the ranger was away for a
moment, the dark eyes maiden found a cake of lye soap and
put that and the bacon in the pot of beans. She seemed
pleased with the knowledge that she had helped in the cook
ing of the meal for the white chief. The ranger cook was the
first to taste the beans. Taking a spoonful he swallowed
some, before he realized the horrid taste. He suddenly com
menced to vomit, thinking he had been poisoned with some
Indian concoction. It was sometime before they found out
what the trouble was. The boys never let up teasing the
boy cook for teaching the wild maid of the plains to cook the
way of the pale-face.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
They did not have long to remain in camp. Victoria's
bands of Indians were killing and stealing along the border of
Western Texas at that time. The captain informed the boys
that they would soon get out on the scout, and must obey
orders. They realized that meant death to the captive. The
Rangers were brave and fearless, yet they possessed a heart
as tender as the tenderest angels of mercy. They dreaded the
task of executing the untamed child of the plains. They real
ized that if she had had the benefit of an education and the
proper training she would have made a fine specimen of
young womanhood. They thought she had a sprinkling of
white blood in her veins, that made it doubly hard for the
rangers to carry out what they felt was a shameful duty.
They were determined to make the task as light as possible,
so they tossed up, heads or tails, to see who would shoot her.
The job fell to a young ranger, whose parents had been
cruelly murdered by the Comanches, whom they called
Crook, because he walked crooked on his boots. Ever since
the murder of his father and mother he had longed for re
venge. He was too manly though to wish to take it out on
the now helpless maiden. These boys had fought the wild
Indian and the desperate border outlaws, and had never
known defeat, yet they were not the hardened, heartless kind
that could look the helpless in the eye and shoot them down.
They felt that the execution of the captive was part of a duty
they had pledged themselves to perform. They decided to
let Fates ride the pack pony to water and make it easy for
Crook to do the rest..
They called her "Fates" after the three sisters, daughters
of night in Greek Mythology, whom Jupiter permitted to de
cide the duration of mortal life.
The sun was siking behind the low hills in the west ;
it was time to take the saddle ponies to water. The water
hole was down the canyon about a half mile. The trail led
along a perpendicular wall rising twenty or thirty feet above
the bed of the canyon, and just as the sun cast its last sweet
rays over the silent prairie, the lariat was loosened from the
neck of the pack pony and it was explained to Fates that she
should ride it to water. She sprang on the back of the pony
with the agility of a panther. She was in her element horse
back; down the trail she flew like the winged phantoms of

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
old, followed by Crook. As she was riding near the edge
of the precipice a shot rang out, echoed down the canyon and
across the distant plains. Fates tumbled from the pony a
good Indian. Victoria band of Comanches were afterwards
captured. That campaign of General McKenzie and the Texas
Rangers was the most effective war ever waged against a
tribe of Indians in America. The remnant Comanches have
ever since been good Indians. The only sad part of that war
was the execution of the Indian maiden of Blanco Canyon.
The subjugation of the Comanches did not clear the
border cattle range of renegade Indians and rustlers. The
rustlers were growing bolder and their depredations more
frequent. Before passing the subject of Indian depredations
and savage outlawry imposed on the settlers along the
border, fearing some may think poor lo had been abused, I
will mention one other incident that happened in Western
Kansas, then on the fringe of civilization. Just after the
costly wars with the Sioux in Minnesota, in 1863-1866, the
government decided to remove them from the state. The
reservation in Minnesota was broken up and the band re
moved to a reservation in Dakota and Pine Ridge, Nebraska.
Occupying the reservation at Pine Ridge were a tribe
called the Northern Cheyennes, who were nothing more than
a Sioux. The tribes at Pine Ridge, as well as those in Dakota,
soon manifested uneasiness, and roving bands were scattered
over the country, robbing and committing other depreda
tions on the settlers. Subsequently some of the band was re
moved to a reservation in the Indian Territory. They were
never satisfied there, and from time to time had broken away
and wandered back North, plundering the settlements on
their way. The country a little west of where Earned, Kan
sas, now stands, began to settle up, having children enough
in the settlement to pay to hire a teacher. A schoolhouse
was built, and the school was taught by a young lady teacher
from the East. In the meantime the Cheyennes had been
taken back to the Indian Territory by the United States
Troops unpunished, as the Government always dealt leniently
with the Indians. In the spring of 1875, the Cheyennes broke
through the guard line, and before the troops at Camp Supply
were aware of it, had crossed the line into Kansas. They
followed the cattle trail. At times they veered East to the

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
line of scattering settlements, to stead provisions or anything
of use to them. On one of those raids to the East of the trail
they passed the schoolhouse, and seeing the unprotected and
helpless condition of the school teacher, they took her from
the presence of the terrified children, and some of the bucks
committed an outrage, too horrible to mention. A few hours
after the Indians had passed on a cowpuncher chanced by
following their trail, to ascertain if any depredations had been
committed. Learning what had happened to the young and
helpless girl, the red blood began to tingle in his manly
veins. If anything will make a real cowpuncher fight it is
the abuse of a woman. _ _,
This young cowboy was not long in organizing- a com
pany of cowpunchers and they started on the trail of the
Indians, determined to teach them a lesson. There were
only a lew Winchester rifles in the outfit, but all had Colt
.45 six-shooters and a belt full of cartridges, and could use
them with deadly effect. The troops at Camp Supply had
taken the trail and were following close on the heels of the
cowmen. The cowboy rangers having good mounts were not
long in rounding up the Red devils. The Rangers had planned
to ride right into them and shoot them down. After the first
skirmish with the stragglers of the band the Indians, seeing
who was after them, surrendered.
The scouts and trailers, the advance guards of the troops,
came up at that time and the Indians were turned over to
them to be taken back to the reservation. Some time after
wards they were taken back to Pine Ridge Agency.
,1 learned afterwards that the poor school teacher took the
first train from the nearest station for the East, remarking
that she had seen enough of the Indians.
From that date to the present, the Northern tribes of
Indians have had more respect for the cowboys. In those
days thousands of buffalo and antelope still roames over the
plains, lying between the border line of civilization and the
Rocky Mountains. This vast, unknown land of romance
and adventure furnished the richest free grass range in the
West. The cattle naturally followed the trail of the buf
falo. When the vacant spaces were well taken up in Texas,
the cattle rancher slowly moved his herds to the North, nar
rowing the limits of the buffalo range — the hunting grounds

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
of the Indians. Coming into closer contact with the Indians,
the cattle men endeavored to live on friendly terms with the
wandering nomad of the plains. The leniency with which
the ranger always dealt with him was often misconstrued by
the ignorant savages, who made little effort to "savy" (under
stand) the white man. Their unreasonable demands and un
called for abuses of the Pioneers of the trail was the cause
of their being pushed back beyond the confines of civilization.
In the late seventies the Indian Territory, the home of
the five civilized tribes, was a beautiful country. Its rolling,
grassy prairies, untouched excxept by the passing trail herds
and the few cattle ranchers that secured the right from some
of the Indian Chiefs to graze their herds there. The Indians
made no effort to stock the range or till the soil where on
every hand was seen the unbounded display of lavish Nature,
where the flowing streams were marked by the winding green
ribbons of willows and cottonwoods and at intervals a little
cabin surrounded by a ramshackle fence of poles, the sem
blance of a corral, this was the home of one of the Native
Sons of America, who as yet had not learned to make use of
his wonderful inheritance.
Passing through Pauls Valley, Indian Territory, in the
spring of 1879, I thought it the most beautiful country I had
yet discovered. Hundreds of acres of waving corn in that
fertile valley of the Washita, was a beautiful sight to see.
Then even in that wonderfully fertile country farms were
few, the Indians were not agriculturists.
The rioneer, John Paul, emigrated from the pine forests
of North Carolina in the early fifties, married a Chicksaw
squaw and took possession of the beautiful valley that bears
his name. He made good use of his friendly relationship with
the Indians in securing their willing cooperation in planting
and cultivating the valley to corn. A few years previous
the ranchers in Northern Texas had, owing to draught, made
a complete failure in crops, and were forced to haul corn
from Pauls Valley, paying two dollars a bushel for the
privilege. Being in a position to take advantage of the op
portunity made Paul a small fortune.
Miller and Green, the Pioneer Merchants, had the only
store in the valley ; they also dealt in cattle. The great herds
of buffalo that had a few years before roamed over these

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
grassy prairies were nearing extinction, and the Mustang
herds were being thinned out and driven farther West. Hun
dreds of miles of these grass-covered prairies — the finest cattle
range in the West — was then untouched except by the ante
lope and the scattered bands of Mustangs. Only a small por
tion of that vast range was being used by cattle men. A few
outfits had made satisfactory arrangements with the Indians
to graze their herds there, among them being the Day
Brothers, the R-S and Colonel Mabry of the O circle outfit,
and a few other cattle men who were temporarily located
in the Territory at the time.
The M., K. & T. built the first Railroad into Kansas in
the sixties. The Junction City Division was built during that
period from Parsons to Junction City, near which is old Fort
Riley, one of the early military posts of the West and the
Geographical center of the United States.
It was the intention of the builders of the Katy to push
the road on to Texas, but they would have to cross the Indian
Territory. The government at the time was very reluctant to
admit Railroads into the Territory. It was finally agreed that
one Railroad, the first at the border, should be permitted to
cross — The Katy was the Victor.
The Secretary of the Interior, Cox, reported to the Presi
dent that the road had reached the Northern boundary of the
Indian Territory in the valley of the Neosho river on the 6th
day of June, 1870. The Secretary of the Interior recommended
that this Railroad be granted the right to build through the
Territory. President Grant approved the recommendation on
June 20th, 1870. The work of extending the track was pushed
on. Just fifty-two years ago the first Railroad touched the
soil of the unsettled country inhabited only by Indians and a
few cowboys, where the Buffalo and herds of wild horses
roamed over the plains, and Antelope and smaller game was
plentiful. The Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad was
a close second to the Katy, and was nearing the boundary near
the little hamlet of Baxter Springs, Kansas, where it halted
for several years. The coming of the Railroad to these border
towns of Kansas opened up better markets for the Texas
cattle men. The trail herds to the North increased. For sev
eral years Abilene was the end of the trail. The end of the
war between the States was five years past. That war had

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
meant horrors untold to Missouri and Kansas.
The border Raiders in the scuffling between Northern
and Southern partisans, between guerrillas, jayhawkers, red-
leggers and border ruffians of all classes and affiliations. The
more peaceable folk were knocked down, their homes burned,
their farms devastated and even their kinspeople killed, out
raged and maimed before their eyes. Quantrell's guerillas
who swept the land like a pestilence had been merged into the
outlaw James gang, which for sixteen years took its living
from the public at the point of a six shooter. They had been
schooled with the Youngers and Jayhawkers and was said to
have been with Quantrill at the sacking and burning of Law
rence, Kansas, in 1863. Then there was no established seats
of government in the Territory and the Indian Nations had
long been the rendezvous for some of the lowest, filthfest
bands of outlaws in the West. Working in North West Texas,
New Meico and the Indian Nations. Herds of cattle and
horses were driven off in broad open daylight and they got
away with them. Sam Bass and gang stole several hundred
head of cattle in one herd, drove them over the trail to Custer
City, Montana, disposed of them. On their way back to
Texas robbed a Union Pacific train, and boldly rode back into
Texas to spend their stolen gold. Billy, the kid, one of the
most dangerous outlaws that ever harassed the border, stole
one thousand or fifteen hundred LX cattle, drove them over
the Goodnight trail to New Mexico and disposed of them to
Old Chisholm, owner of the lightning rod brand. The kid
was the hired gun man of Chisholm during the famous Lincoln
County War. This war originated between the sheep men
and the cattle men. It seems the cattle men had the right to
the range by priority, the sheep men were determined to
graze their sheep over the ranges of the cattle men, and as
cattl will not graze where sheep are kept for any length of
time, the war resulted. Chisholm with his gang of rustlers
carried it to war. The first man the kid killed at the request
of Chisholm was a Black Smith, whom the kid had nothing
against but Chisholm had some little trouble with and wanted
him out of the way. I, the writer, never was personally ac
quainted with Chisholm, I was working in Montana at the
time the Lincoln County War was raging. I received this
information from boys that were working on the range in

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Colorado and New Mexico at the time, came to Montana over
the trail fresh from the scenes of the war. These boys were
of the real old cowboy stock that stood for right all the time.
They said Chisholm was a bad actor. He died, I beheve, with
a loathsome disease at Hot Springs, Arkansaw, a few years
afterwards. The kid was said to have been a little weak
minded, for that reason, he was feared. He would not wait
for a cause to murder, he murdered without a cause. He was
killed at the Maxwell ranch, New Mexico, by Pat. Garrett,
then sheriff of Lincoln County. The kid was a friend to the
Maxwells or some of the boys at the ranch. It was -planned
or made known to Garrett that Billy would stay there at the
ranch on a certain night and would sleep with one of the boys.
After dark Garrett, with two deputies, went to the ranch.
They found that the kid had not arrived. The deputies lay
down flat on the ground a little away from the trail that led
into the house, Garrett went in and got in bed with the boy
the kid was to sleep with, after everything was still and quiet
the boy outlaw came. He saw through the dim starlight some
unusual object lying on the ground near the trail. He en
tered the cabin quickly and as he approached the bed in the
darkness asked in the language of the Mexican of the man in
bed, what is that out there on the ground? As he was then
near the bed that gave Garrett his chance to locate him. He
raised his six-shooter and fired, the bullet pierced the heart of
the hunted kid outlaw, he dropped dead in his tracks. Thus
ended the wild life of the most dreaded kid outlaw that ever
terrorized the border lands of the West. Prior to that Sam
Bass and gang, encouraged by the success of their daring ex
ploits with their loot, rode back into Texas.
In the fight with Rangers on Indian Creek, Arkansaw
Johnson, the most desperate of the gang, was killed. Sam
Bass was afterwards killed at Round Rock, Texas. Six out
of eight comprising the gang was killed. Jackson and Under
wood made their escape. The James boys and the Youngers,
the terror of Missouri and Kansas, was still at large in the
land. Their names was synonymous of every thing bad and
have been made the heroes of more dime novels than all the
rest of the bad men of the old Frontier. The Range cattle
men were not in hiding during these stirring times in the
range country. They were seeking and planning every day

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
how to rid the country of that great menace to the range
stock industry and a hindrance to progress and peaceful set
tlement of the West. The Rustler; horse stealing was of
every day occurrence. They could drive horses seventy-five
or a hundred miles in a single night, thereby reducing the
chances of arrest, while cattle were slow moving and where
the raid was detected in time could be more easily overtaken
and recovered. In February, 1877, at Graham, Young County,
Texas, the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas was organized
for the mutual protection of the cattle men. Then and there
was sounded the death knell to the Rustler and the border
outlaws that for a time seemed to have the country at their
mercy. In the late seventies Northern Texas was a hot bed
of cattle rustlers, horse thieves and bad men from every
where. The Counties bordering on Red River, the dividing
line between Texas and the Indian Nations, was the haunted
grounds of these outlaws. Then there was no white settle
ments in the Indian Territory and officers of the law were few
and far between. These fugitives would sell or give the In
dians whiskey and stolen ponies, thereby securing their
friendship and protection. At one time thousands of horses
grazed over the unfenced ranges of these Northern Counties
and were constantly preyed upon by the lawless bands of
renegades whose haven was the Indian Nation. They would
run their stolen stock across the nation to Ar'kansaw of Mis
souri, dispose of it and come for more. The name of Smith
Lipscomb, sheriff, and his brave deputy, Tom Ragsdale, of
Fannin County, Texas, struck terror to the rustlers. They
captured or killed more bad men than all the rest of the
officers of the law in Northern Texas in those days. The
notorious Johnson gang that had terrorized the ranchers for
several years were trailed across the Indian Territory to Mis
souri to their rendezvous. The gang consisted of three boys,
grown men, and the Old man. The Old man and two of the
boys were killed, the other boy wounded, died in Bonham
jail from his wounds. Jim Ragsdale, Tom's brother, one of
the deputies, was killed in that fight. The names of Lipscomb
and Tom Ragsdale should by right be immortalized on the
pages of Texas history for the part they played and the sac
rifices they made in helping to rid Northern Texas, especially
Fannin County, of the lawless element. They made the triail

45

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
of the rustlers scarce in Fannin County. They made the bud
ding crop of young, would-be rustlers, see that it was safest
to be honest, and that the bravest, most fearless men in the
world were men who believed in right and justice and would
if necessary spill their last drop of blood in defense of those
principles so characteristic of pioneers of the cattle range.
The Cattle Raisers' Association was born of long suf
fering and the late seventies or about 1879 found them leagued
with the officers of the law and all the best element in the
land in one determined body to rid the country of that men
ace, the rustler. The cattle and horse thieves had become so
bold that no man's stock was safe on the free open range.
They resorted to every trick known to the rustler. They
would run a cow in the bog, leave her there to die and brand
the calf in their own brand. Often where a brand was dim
they would brand over it, add another letter, and claim the
animal. The range was full of sleepers. A sleeper was a
yearling or cow or any animal wearing a brand that none of
the cowboys knew or anyone would own. But every cowboy
on the range that was at all familiar with the brands knew it
was a sleeper. Someone starting a brand that did not own a
cow on the range. When it become too hot for them in a
certain locality they would run their stolen stock oved to an
other part of the range where they had friends that had a
brand started, dispose of them, counter brand them and put
their brand on them and everything was O. K.
There were a few outfits in Texas that employed that kind
of men. The Millett outfit and Old Chisholm of New Mexico
were said to be of that class of men. By 1882 the Cattle
Men's Association was thoroughly organized and effective
from the Rio Grande to the Northern limits of the range, with
headquarters for the different localities at San Antonio, Fort
Worth, Denver, Cheyenne and Helena, Montana. Every com
pany and individual brand belonging to the association was
recorded by the recorder, on which side the ear mark, location
of the range and Post Office address.
A brand book was issued giving every legal brand on the
range, ear mark, range names of the owners, Post Office ad
dress. These brand books were placed in the hands of every
round-up foreman. Some outfits supplied every man on their
range with one, making it easy to find the owner of strays.

46

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
An inspector paid by the association was stationed at all
stopping places enroute to market, where the cattle were un
loaded for feed and water, at at the various stock yards at all
the great central markets. Every one of these inspectors car
ried the brand book. On finding a stray among a train load
of cattle each inspector through whose station it passed would
make a note of it, keeping a record of it, and referring to the
brand book, would find the owner. They would then in
form the inspector at their destination at the stock yard to
which they were consigned. He would also keep a record of
it and request the Commission Merchant to send check for
said stray to its rightful owner, giving name and address.
Inspectors were stationed at various places along the trail
that led from the great breeding grounds of Texas to the ma
turing grounds of the North West. All herds passing over
the trail were closely inspected, strays not having the road
brand of the owners of the herd were cut out and left on the
range to drift back to its range or to be caught in the round-up.
The association established a fund for paying rewards for the
arrest and conviction of cattle and horse thieves, with the
willing co-operation of the cattle men, with the officers of the
law. The army of honest cowpunchers, aided by the inspec
tors, sounded the death knell to the rustler. That terror of
the border was doomed. He could see his sun was setting.
He had to change his occupation or seek other fields to ex
ploit. While the Younger and James gang were never much
on cattle and horse stealing as long as they were at large, it
encouraged others of that cult to take the trail of the rustler.
The Younger and James gang were split up and demoralized
at Northfield, Minnesota. In that, their last drama, the actors
were Jess and Frank James, Cole, Jim and Bob Younger, Bill
Chadwell, Charlie Pitts and Clell Miller. All the Youngers
were wounded but got to their horses and escaped to the
brush. Miller and Chadwell were killed in the fight at the
Bank in Northfield. The James boys made their escape. A
few days later the other outlaws were captured and Pitts
killed. The Youngers were tried, pleaded guilty of murder
and were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Stillwater
penitentiary. Here in 1889 Bob Younger died of consump
tion, Cole and Jim having been model prisoners, were par
doned in 1901. Soon after, Jim committed suicide. Cole died

47

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
within the last few years.
The James boys remained in hiding for some time after
the Northfield affair. Three years later turned up in Mis
souri at their old game, confining their depredations princi
pally to train holdups. So bold did they become that a re
ward of thirty thousand dollars was offered for their capture
dead or alive. Bob Ford, a cousin of theirs, entered into a
compact with Governor Crittenden of Missouri, to rid the
country of Jess James. He won the confidence of the latter
and on April 3, 1882, shot and killed Jess while he stood
imirmed on a chair dusting a picture, with his back to Ford.
Ford was convicted of murder but was pardoned by the Gov
ernor the day following his sentence to be hanged. He was
afterwards shot and killed in Creed, Colorado.' Frank James,
the last of the outlaw gang, surrendered to Governor Critten
den in October, 1882. As no one was found who could iden-
itfy him, he was given his freedom. In 1885 he married a
daughter of a respected Missouri farmer and led an exemplary,
life thereafter. Frank died of apoplexy at his farm near
Excelsior Springs, Missouri, Feb. 18, 1915. Thus passed out
the most notorious gang of outlaws that ever haunted the
West. The breaking up of the James and Younger gangs, the
killing of Jess James in 1882, found the old enmity that had
so long smoldered beneath the surface in Kansas fast disap
pearing and Kansas was beginning to show signs of the ear
mark of civilization.
The beneficial results from the Cattle Men's Association'
was soon manifest. The days when two men could claim the
same brand, one with flying W on the jaw or one on the right
side of the animal the other on the left side. Those old days
of haphazard branding has long since passed. Each and every
man's brand is registered and he has the right to put it on
any part of the animal he chooses. No one has a right to use
a brand that is registered in the name of another. That law
among the cattlemen, now made a law by many of the west
ern states, did away with a great deal of confusion and mis
understanding.

48

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
THE PIONEERS OF MONTANA
FORTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
The great migration over the cattle trail to the maturing
grounds of the North was just beginning. The Territories
of Wyoming, Montana and Dakota was a veritable wilder
ness. The rich grasses of mountains valleys, plains and
mesas furnished abundant pasture for thousands of Buffalo,
Elk( Antelope and Rocky Mountain Sheep. And was the
home of Grey Wolf, Bear and Mountain Lion. The story of
the early days of the pioneer cattlemen of Montana, filled with
all the thrills daring romance and adventure of the Path
finders, there is none more conspicuous than that of Conrad
Kohrs, whose early venture in the cattle business was given
me by Captain Harmon at the time, 1884 owner of the 22
brand of cattle range on the head of little Beaver Creek,
Montana. The Captain was an old Missouri River Steam
Boat Captain that ran up the river, carrying supplies to Fort
Benton and other outposts when Fort Benton and Assinna-
boine were the Government outposts of the Northwest. He
would load with supplies for Fort Buford, Benton and other
trading camps along the rived. Would load on his return
trip with Buffalo robes and other skins secured from the In
dians. In 1879 or '80 the Captain disposed of his river boat,
married a half breed Sioux Indian and settled on a branch of
Little Beaver in the beautiful Lodge Pole Pine Country of
Montana. This story, he said, came direct from that Old Pioneer.
Mr. Kohrs himself, who said the Deed Lodge Valley was the
cradle of the live stock industry of Montana, when I first saw
it a beautiful stretch of bunch grass country. The grass
waved like a huge field of grain. The occupants of the valley
were mostly French Canadians, with a few Americans. The
number of cattle in the valley at the time of 1867 were be
tween three and four thousand head. John Grant, a quad
roon Indian, had twelve or fifteen hundred head. Louis De
Mar, Leon Queral, Dave Contway, John Decheneau, R. Demp-
sey and Granville Stewart, John Paul and Fred Burr each had
two hundred head, some a few more. Tom La Vate and a few
other Mexicans were the owners of probably two hundred and

49

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
fifty head each. These men were the pioneer cattle ranchers
of Montana. The first cattle in the Territory were located on Beaver
head about one hundred miles from the present seat of Deer
Lodge. Brought in during the Mormon War, 1857-1859.
About that time Capt. Grant moved to Old Hell Gate, about
five miles below the present site of Missoula. There were
also many cattle in the Bitter Root Valley, owned mainly by
French Canadians and half breeds. These cattle had come
from Oregon and showed an infusion of the old Spanish stock.
In relating the early adventures of that old pioneer, Conrad
Kohrs, of that romantic period, who with three other boys
hired to a man named Sickler, who was just starting to Cali
fornia with a bunch of horses over the overland trail. The
outfit left Davenport April 8, 1862, over muddy roads to
Omaha, then to Grand Island, Nebraska, reaching the North
Platte we found the feed good. Western migration was heavy
that spring, congesting travel at the Green Big Sandy and
Little Sandy Rivers, causing considerable delay in crossing.
We reached Salt Lake in June with the horses in excellent
condition. There I had a disagreemtn with Sickler and quit
his outfiit to join one from Denver, headed for the new min
ing camps at Elk City and Florence, Idaho, where a stampede
was then in progress. We encountered many obstacles. The
Ferry Cable at Snake River had broken, but we got across
that stream and endeavored to cross the mountains by way of
Lemhi. This proved impossible, many emigrant wagons were
wrecked in the effort. Finally John Jacobs, an old moun
taineer, piloted us by way of the Deer Lodge Valley and the
Old Military road to Elk City and Florence. Arriving in the
Deer Lodge Valley we found gold had been discovered on
Gold Creek, but the prospect proved less alluring than ex
pected. The trip had been long and our money was gone,
provisions could not be obtained at any price, and the camps
were crowded with prospectors. For a time we subsisted on
trout. Finally I met. a Henry Crawford, who wanted to start
a butcher shop in East Bannock on Grasshopper Creek. He
offered me twenty-five dollars a month and board. After liv
ing on an enforced fish diet several weeks, this looked good.
Crawford and I went to what is now Deer Lodge and pur
chased some cattle from Tom La Vate and he gave me the

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
task of driving them through to Bannock afoot, as he had no
horses. Being young and full of ginger I assented. LaVate
started me on the road but my little herd got mixed with other
cattle on the trail and but for the assistance from a Doctor
Glick, who left me in charge of his saddle bags while he cut
out my cattle, I might have lost them. I had nothing to eat
but a little pemmicon and dared not stop over night for fear
of losing the cattle so I made but one stop until reaching
Bannock, a distance of 120 miles.
For a whi.le I worked for Crawford at Bannock but he
was quarrelsome and became involved in an altercation with
a man named Plummer, who was afterwards leader of an
outlaw gang. Crawford splintered Plummer's arm in a six-
shooter duel and had to flee the country at night to escape
vengeance at. the hands of other highwaymen. Having no
money I was unable to continue business. My first experience
on my own account was the purchase of some poor work
cattle that came from Minnesota with the Dumphy and Bently
outfit. I bought them on time, drove them to Deer Lodge,
trading for fat steers when opportunity afforded. I suc
ceeded in making a little on them. When a man from Cali
fornia brought to Deer Lodge twenty-five fine steers, with the
assistance of the miners, I secured gold dust enough to buy
the outfit and sent them to Grasshopper Creek to graze, in
charge of a man named McDonald. Three days later I re
ceived word that the Indians had cleaned up the entire valley
of cattle and horses. That again left me without a cent and
in debt. Once more I went to the miners and with their
assistance bought more cattle at Deer Lodge. On these I
made some money in the butcher business. Meanwhile the
miners scattered to other camps, leaving me unable to col
lect bills and continue business. I moved to Virginia City
and engaged in the butcher business with a George Gunn of
Colorado. We started a shop in a brush shanty with only a
butcher's bench and some meat hooks. Our business fast
expanded. In 1864 they had considerable trouble with cat
tle thieves and highwaymen who actually dominated the
country at that time, though the years of 1863 and '64 were
prosperous. Cattle were fat and yielded large quantities of
tallow. We butchered during the day and made candles at
night. 51

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
The roads to the mining towns were poor and easily
blockaded those days. The miners being short on candles,
we received as high as fifty cents per pound for them. By the
close of 1864 Mr. Kohrs was out of debt and had sufficient
capital to purchase about three hundred head of poor work
cattle, which were offered at auction by immigrants on Sun
day in Virginia City. These were sent to Deer Lodge Valley.
He was able to buy many small herds of cattle and supply
other buyers. In 1864 snow fell early, shutting off supplies
from Salt Lake City. That winter Helena and other mining
camps were opened and beef became very scarce.
Mr. Kohrs borrowed some money and scoured the coun
try for cattle. By spring had cleaned up about twnety-five
thousand dollars. The following year continued this policy,
practically controlling the trade of the mining camps. Finally
bought out the interests of his partner, paying him with a
seventeen thousand five hundred dollar bar of gold. In Aug
ust, 1866, he bought out a man by the name of Grant of Deer
Lodge, whose herd consisted of about three hundred and
sixty-five head at the time. This was Mr. Kohrs' first adven
ture in the breeding business. The winter of 1866-67 was
long and hard in the Deer Lodge Valley. In the fall of 1867
Mr. Kohrs went to Denver, formed a partnership with Joe
Bell and Capt. Roberts to handle Texas cattle. The Railroad
was then operated as far as Cheyenne. By 1871 the Deer
Lodge Valley had become so crowded that Kohrs moved his
herd into the Sun River Country. They were mostly she
stock and this venture marked the first invasion of the North
ern Indian Country by cattlemen. In 1870-71 Dan Floweree
brought the first Texas cattle into the Sun River Country.
About the same time Sam Hall and a man named Mathews
brought in some Texas cattle. Before the invasion of Texas
cattle the Montana stock was mainly the progeny of stock
picked up from immigrants migrating to the West over that
great California and Oregon trail, over which passed the
greatest migration in history for so great a distance as this,
over two thousand miles' stretch of unknown country from the
Missouri River to the Pacific coast.
The rapid expansion and filling up of the open spaces of
the Southern ranges, made the Southern ranchmen realize
that they must seek an outlet for their steer cattle. Texas was

52

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
producing more cattle than they could carry through to profit
able maturity. By driving their yearling steers to the free
ranges of the North, they were enabled to keep she stock to
the full capacity of the range. A yearling steer put on the
Northern range, doubled or trebled, wintered at four years
old, would weigh 200 pounds rriore than a Texas raised four
years old, and would bring from 1 to 21/2 cents per pound
more on the Chicago market. The nutritious bunch and Buf
falo grasses of Montana, Wyoming and Dakota ranges put
on more fat, thereby producing a better class of beef than the
depleted ranges of Texas could produce. Offering another
inducement to the Southern cattlemen for driving their year
ling steers to what was then in 1879 fast becoming the great
maturing grounds of the north. In 1879 the great drive was
started to the open ranges of Wyoming and Montana, and
thousands of Texas cattle were driven to the Tongue and
Powder River country. Then the stars of Wyoming, Mon
tana and Dakota had never been added to our flag. They
were yet Territories, and their vast unoccupied domain was
free government land. The first to take possession held his
range under that old unwritten law among the pioneers of
the range. Each one recognized the rights of the other. Th^
boundary of their ranges would be marked by some creek,
river or butte. That was all that was necessary. They could
hold it until the homesteader came. Often one company range
would comprise a territory three or four hundred miles long
by two hundred or more miles wide. Some of the range men
that were first to locate on the northern ranges were among
the pioneers that helped to drive the red man and buffalo
from the plains of the Southwest. Just before the ranges of
the Northwest began to attract the attention of the Southern
rancher, when the Placer Mines of California were on the
wane, and the great stampede had drifted on to the Fraser
River country in British Columbia. Recoiling, the stampede
worked back along the old Oregon trail and the rich plater
fields of Alder Gulch and Virginia City, Montana, were dis
covered. These mining towns opened up the first market in
the northwest to attract the attention of that rugged pioneer
that came West with the bull teams and settled in the fertile
valleys, and kept a few cattle to supply the increasing de
mand of the mining towns, when a four-year-old steer would

53

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
bring $100, and a common cow $75. The names of some of
those pioneers have been previously mentioned in this nar
rative. The rolling grassy, prairies of the eastern half of Mon
tana and the western half of Dakota, lying just outside of the
mineral region, the last hunting grounds^ of the Sioux, Chey
enne and Crow Indians, where the last of the great buffalo
herd grazed, and the mournful howl of theLobo wolf is still
heard. There in the land by the end of the trail.
Many of the pioneer cattlemen of eastern Montana, west
ern Dakota, and Wyoming were the old pioneers of the Texas
range. Driving their young cattle to these maturing grounds.
Those old trail drivers were the men that put Dodge City and
Cheyenne on the map. After locating their ranges- and estab
lishing their ranch, the trail herds pushed on north.. In. those
days there was no mining in Wyoming and Cheyenne . was
soon known as the range cattle metropolis of the West. To
the Easterner the name Cheyenne suggested long-haired cow
boys wearing wooly pants, six-shooters, bell spurs and bowie
knives. The Wyoming Stock Growers' Association's headquarters
was at Cheyenne and every business belonging to a typical
town of the border cow lands flourished.
UP THE TRAIL IN 1883
In March, 1883, I left San Antonio with Till Driscoll for
Lytle's pasture on the Rio Hondo. The outfit consisted of
myself, Henry Jones, ,Bige O'Neal, Jim Keeuj and Tom
Cronan, a negro cook and Till Driscoll, the boss. We were
to round up the horses in the pasture, and break them in for
the trail. We camped about ten days in the pasture getting
our mounts ready. Till made several trips to Pearsall, while
we were camped there. One night he came back with a knot
on his cranium. Someone had hit him over the head with the
butt end of a billiard cue. He swore about that all the way
up the trail. We had lots of' fun breaking horses. The pas
ture was covered with mesquite brush, and was the home of
many droves of Avahna or Musk hogs, foxes, and deer, and
every morning we could hear the gobble of that grand old
bird in the distant forest.

54

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
The ranchers had been notified of our coming as Mr.
Lytle had contracted for the cattle for Schreiner and Lytle.
Most of them had the cattle rounded up already to put the
road brand, S. L., on them. We were to gather through
Medina, Kerr, Llano, Sansaba, and Brown counties. These
counties are covered with brush, mostly mesquite, with
patches of prairie, an ideal home for the wild long horn. The
first bunch we received, about three hundred head in Medina
County. Zack Tucker came to the outfit that evening to help
us out of the brush with the first bunch. Most of them were
milk pen yeiarlings, the most difficult animals in the shape
of cattle to handle, more especially in the brush. Tucker
brought with him a couple of bull eye lanterns to light the
doggies to bed. That night we found a beautiful little strip
of prairie to bed on, the brush close up all around. Tucker
loaned Till one of his jack lanterns. The nights were a little
cool that early in the spring, and Zack had on an old army
overcoat, and kept his light hid under the coat. It was a
rather dark, starlit night and every thing quiet, looked good
for the first night. About ten o'clock Tucker pulled his light
on the dogies, and I believe yet, that every one of them rose
up at the same time, and each took a different course for the
brush. I turned them, and as they swung round they met
Tucker with his flashlight, and we pointed them straight for
the brush. They split in two, and about half of them made
for the brush in the other direction. Driscoll and the other
boys were with the drag end, and I and Tucker with the
leaders. After they once got in the brush I knew all we could
do was to follow them by the sound or noise. I rode about
a hundred yards in the brush, stopped and sat perfectly still
on my pony, and listened. I could hear the dogies, trailing
through the brush, but not a sound could I hear from Tucker.
I followed the bawling yearlings about two miles until we
came out on a patch of open prairie, there I rounded them up.
I gave them a lively ginning, for awhile, then bunched them
close up and rode away from them, to let them spread out.
I kept riding around them, and after a little while they laid
down. I had about a hundred head next morning. Driscoll
thought it best to let the bunch they were with go and get
them in daylight at the corral, where we received them. By
the time we got back to the ranch the natives had them

55

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
rounded up and in the corral. And right there was the first
time I ever saw a cowgirl in action. One of the rancher's
daughters mounted on a good cow pony, had helped to round
up the cattle, and get them into the corral. We separated
most of them with the road brand on them. There were some
following the mother cow yet, and they were a little hard to
separate from the cow. The girl took down her rieta and
went after them. She dragged them from the corral, faster
than three men could turn them loose. We recovered all the
lost yearlings, and hit the trail for Llano. That night they
were restless, but we did not lose any of them. We received
several head from Tom Moore in Llano, J. R. P. brand, and

MAKING HIM "PULL LEATHER."
A cowboy hates to have to grab the saddle horn to stay on, but
often has to do so. and help of that sort is called "Pulling Leather"

56

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
some from Peteus Brothers. Driscoll hired three men there,
Ben and Dick Stubbs, and Wild Bill, we called the other man.
Till hired Jack Seruyse from Coleman; Dock Lorance from
Cleburn, and Mose Howard, making twelve men in the out
fit, counting the boss.
When we reached Brady, out of the brush, Till let Wild
Bill go, and placed me with the remuda. Mr. Lytle met us at
Brady, and gave Driscoll his instructions to pull for Dodge
City. Driscoll would not allow any of the boys to have a
six-shooter, though he carried one himself. We did not like
that very well, but agreed to it, and left our guns behind. Just
after passing Brady, Driscoll said to us, "Now, boys, we are
headed for Dodge, and I want every step these dogies take
to be straight north. We crossed Red River at Doan's store.
Zack Tucker was about three days' drive behind us with an
other S. L. herd, and Gus Black, behind him with a herd. We
threw the horses in ahead of the cattle and the dogies fol
lowed. We crossed without any trouble. Everything went
all right, until we reached Elk Creek. We had made camp
on a slight rolling prairie where the grass was fine. We could
see a dark cloud rising in the southwest. The herd was graz
ing toward camp a half mile away. The sun was just setting
and the relief, myself and Till was eating supper, when it be
gan to hail. I saw the horses start to run and I made a break
for the chuck wagon to get my slicker, that I had foolishly
. left on the wagon, grabbed the first one I saw, gave it a pull,
and ripped it up the back to the collar. As there was no time
for argument, I slipped it on, mounted my pony and made a
dash for the horses. By that time it was hailing and raining
in torrents, the hail would average as large as quails' eggs,
and bounce off a fellow's head like rubber balls, and the light-"
ning was flashing in every direction. I overtook the horses
and managed to hold them from running. There was the
hardest storm I ever was in. It poured down in sheets until
two o'clock in the morning. The first thing I knew the cattle
were right behind me, horses and dogies all together. We
drifted about two miles from camp, cattle and horses were
bogged down all over the prairie. My pony bogged down
with me a dozen times, or more, and both boots were full of
water, as my slicker was split up the back. When it got day
light, some of us started back to get those that were unable

57

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
to get out of the bog. We lost two dogies, the Indians had
them out of the bog, and going on a run with them. Driscoll
said, "Let the sons of barley corn go." We lay there for half
a day to let the country dry a little, as it was soft going for
the chuck wagon. We grazed them about eight or ten miles
that day, and camped. Next day we had a visit from that
pox-marked Chief and his band of Kiowas. We called him
Sitting Owl. He wanted some of the biggest two-year-olds
we had, for driving across his country. Driscoll offered him
one yearling that was a little lame, but he would not have that,
he wanted two, two-year-olds, the leaders of the herd. He
rode close up to Driscoll and made a grab for his six-shooter.
Driscoll got a hold of it first and the buck pulled his old army
gun on him, shoved a cartridge in, that looked about six inches
long, pointed his seige gun at Till full cocked. He saw his
bluff didn't work and agreed to compromise for two dogies.
Driscoll gave him two small dogies and they went away in a
rather bad mood. Next day the same Indians overtook us.
"Sitting Owl" acted like a bad Indian and it was a good thing
that the boys did not have their artillery with them. Dris
coll gave them a yearling. Just then "Sitting Owl" put both
hands over his eyes and looking back on the trail pointed to
some object in the distance. His "Braves" huddled closer to
gether and gazed for a moment at the moving object. Then
a short "pow-wow." They had discovered new game.
Tucker's herd was showing up as it crossed the high spots on
the rolling prairie. The spring of the year when the herds
were crossing the Indian Nations on their long trail to the
North, was to the Kiowas their cherished harvest. They could
not afford to miss a single deal so they left us to exploit the
"herd in the rear. They raised "hell" with Tucker's outfit. I
think they got away with four or five dogies, shot the only
cow he had down in the herd and hit one of the boys over the
head with a quirt. Tucker denied to Driscoll that they got
any money from him. It is a known fact that they did get
money from a great many of the trail Bosses that year. They
ran a big bluff over some of them and robbed them of all the
cash they had. That was the last time I ever saw the pox-
marked chief. He was killed in 1885 by one of the Rodger
Boys coming up the trail with a bunch of horses. There was
never much trouble with the Indians in the Indian Territory

58

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
afterwards. The Indian Territory was then exclusively an Indian
country. The vast rolling prairies covered with luxuriant
grasses, with flowing streams of water fringed with a bushy
growth of timber along the creeks. The only timber in the
Territory except the Cross Timbers, a strip of timber com
mencing at the eastern line bordering Arkansas and extending
very near half way across the Territory in a straight line
from east to west, averaging about ten miles wide. Narrow
ing down to a few miles wide at the extreme west end. The
trail crossed them near the western extremity. That strange
strip of timber extending for over one hundred miles across
a priarie country looked like it might have been planted by
man. Just at the northern outskirts of the timbers I was in
the lead with the remuda, when I flushed a flock of wild tur
keys. I had often heard that a man horse back could run
down a wild turkey on the open prairie, and as some of the
flock flew out on the prairie straight away from the timber I
resolved to try the experiment. Keeping far enough behind
them that they would not fly, at the same time keeping them
running. After a chase of about one mile I noticed their
wings began to drop down. Urging my pony, on drawing
nearer to them they attempted to fly but could only fly a few
yards at best. Then I singled out the largest gobbler. After
running him about 200 yards his wings began to drag. I
jumped off my pony and picked him up. The next day we
had a turkey dinner.
After we crossed and left behind us the storm-swept
lands of the Kiowas, the herd grazed on north in peace until
we crossed the line into the late battle grounds of the Jay
hawkers. Driscoll would never encouragfe crowding the cat
tle off the bed grounds. He would let them remain as long
as they would on the grounds and get up and graze off at their
will. The result was we had few sore-footed cattle. By the
time we reached the Northern line of Kansas that was the
best trained herd it has ever been my good fortune to see.
We had about forty head of big two-year-olds and they led
the herd from Texas to the end of the trail. They were as
good as a trained mule in an eight-mule team under a jerk
line. They would get up and graze off the bed grounds, the
pointers seeing that they always started in the right direction

59

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

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60

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
and by the time the cook washed the tinware and was ready
to pull out and would overtake them, they had their fill of
grass and would hit the trail behind the wagon. I am like
Old Mart, the nigger cook, who said, "I believe dem ar cattle
would follow dis her' chuck wagon to de Nor' Pole or de Souf
Pole, either."
Kansas was a dry, level plain as far as the eye could see.
The green prairie seemed to mount to the sky. The short
Buffalo grass of the plains furnished nutritious grazing for
the passing trail herds.
Where a few years ago countless thousands of Buffaloes
grazed over these vast stretches of unwatered plains where
a bunch of Antelope in the distant mirage looked as tall as
the tallest pine. Where the advancing line of the pioneer
home-steader was just beginning to reach the land of the
cattle trail. Where the thousands of Buffalo that roamed over
the plains for centuries had tramped it so hard that the rich
soil would not retain the moisture and the advance guard of
the home-steader was foredoomed to failure. Where the
squatter settled on or near the cattle trail to exact pay from
the Boss of the trail herds. In the land where they never
failed to charge the cattle men for driving over their newly
acquired landed possessions. These Jayhawkers were worse
than the Indians in the Indian Nations.
One beautiful morning just as Old Sol was taking his
first morning peep at the silvered landscape over the Eastern
horizon the leaders had grazed over a slight raise in the
prairie, when suddenly we heard the barking of dogs and the
cattle came running back over the little incline. We were
eating breakfast, but every man was on his horse in a minute.
Just as we reached the crest of the hill we met an animal that
I had often heard of, but was convinced then and there that I
had never before seen, a full-fledged, regular old-timer, dyed
in the wool, blue-bellied Jayhawker. He was running after
the cattle, waving his hat and sicking the dogs, sic, sic, sic.
Driscoll rode up to him and said, "What the 'hell' are you do
ing? Call them dogs back or I will kill them." "You killed
my dogs, damn you sons of bitches. I fought you sons of
bitches during the war and I will fight you again. You keep
vour damn cattle off my corn patch." Driscoll said, "Look
here, old man, you modify your language a little. We don't

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
call men by that name where we came from unless we want
to fight." "I call you by your right names, you sons of
bitches." Driscoll rode up to him and cracked him about
three jerks over the head with his quirt. The old man
scratched his head and hollowed to his little boy, who was
standing off about twenty-five yards taking it all in. "Johnnie
run down in the corn patch and bring me that Spencer rifle."
The boy was gone about ten minutes, came back with a little
single-barrelled shotgun and handed it to the old man. Dris
coll said, "Keep the muzzle of that down, please." "Oh, I
am not going to shoot you with this gun." "Johnnie, why
didn't you bring me the Spencer?" he said to the boy. "I am
going to Buffalo and have this herd stopped until you pay
me for the damage you have done." "How much damage
have I done you altogether," said Till, "for hitting you over
the head and the damage to your corn?" "Well, it's worth
twenty-five dollars," said the old renegade. Driscoll gave him
twenty-five dollars and said "I will give you twenty-five more
if you will let me give you what you need." "No-i'm-dam-
fidoo." While the "word war" was amusing, between the
boss and that old Jayhawkr, I have ever since felt a deeper,
more kindly feeling toward the younger boys. If he was a
fair specimen of the men they had to deal with, God help
them. I don't wonder at their taking to the road. We were
then on the Solomon or Shawnee Creek ; some dry creek.
From there we had lightning and electrical storms plenty. A
few miles south of Dodge Mr. Lytle met us. In the buggy
with him was Major Towers of the Tower's and Gudgell out
fit. Their range then was in Colorado and the strip on
Beaver and the Cimarron River. The Major and Captain
Lytle both said Driscoll's herd was in splendid condition. The
two herds of Driscoll and Tucker were sold to Major Towers
to be delivered on Little Missouri River, near the mouth of the
Little Beaver Creek, Montana. There at Dodge three of the
boys quit; Bige O'Neil, Tom Cronan and Mose Howa'rd.
Howard quit to accept a position with Dick Head as ranch
Boss in New Mexico. Mose was an old trail driver and a good
all-round man. From Dodge on Till had only six men with
the herd. Some of these wanted to quit, having had enough
of the electric storms. Driscoll mentioned the fact to Captain
Lytle, who said raise their wages. We were getting thirty-

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
five dollar per month thus far. From Dodge he raised it to
forty dollars. Dock Lorance and Henry Jones were on the
point, the Stubbs boys on the flank or swing, and Jim Keen
and Jack Seruyse punching up the drag. I with the remuda,
Mart, the negro cook, and Driscoll, composed the full crew.

, REMUDA IN ROPE CORRAL.
Dodge City for twelve or fifteen years had been the dis
tributing point where Rangers from the West and the feeders
from the East would meet the trail herds from Texas for the
purpose of buying cattle to re-stock their depleted ranges and
their empty feed lots. Since the days when Abilene was the
end of the trail, where Wild Bill Hickock's name was first
flashed on the screen of the Western horizon as the double-
geared lightning operator of that symbol of the Old West,, the
Six-shooter. Dodge City had proudly worn the crown known
from the moss-covered banks of the Swanee River, to the
forest-clad shores of the Columbia, and from the cactus-
strewn deserts of Mexico to the blizzard-stricken shores of
the Saskatchewan, as the wildest, wooliest little town of the
wild and wooly West. Where the whirr of the roulette wheel
was heard in the dim liamplight and red liquor was free to
all who had the price. Where many a noble cowboy full of
tarantular juice died with his boots on. That was Dodge.
The cook had gone in to have the tire set on the wagon
wheels before hitting the trail for the Little Muddy. We held
the cattle on the south side of the river until the middle of the

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
forenoon as Driscoll said he wanted them to drink for they
would not get any more water until late next day. About ten
o'clock they began to want to go to water. They let them
drift slowly to the river. We threw the horses in ahead and
the dogies followed. By the time the drags reached the river
the leaders rushed back towards the south side that threw
them into a mill. In a few places the river was swimming
for the dogies, and they seemed to become more and^ more
frightened for a while. By riding in among the circling' mass
we eventually got them quiet and had little trouble in getting
them strung out for the north side of the river. There was a
level mesa up the river west of the crossing where the banks
looked perpendicular, with no chance for the cattle to get
down to the river. We moved them up on the mesa and
Driscoll sent the other boys to Dodge to get dinner, as Mart
had not returned with the chuck wagon.. Till said, "I and
you can hold them unitl the boys get back." I drove the re
muda off about a half-mile to the north, where the grass was
good, and when I returned to the herd Till had let some of
the dogies string out down the bank to the river and was rid
ing to me red hot. He said, "I don't want these damned dogies
to get back to the river. Some of them will cross and there
is another herd on the south side." "All right," I said "we
will not let them get back to the river." We soon found that
there were trails where they could get down all along the
banks. By the time we would get one bunch back on the
table land another one would be coming down. They were
soon strung along the bank for a mile. They seemed to be
starving for water. Right there I did the hardest half day's
work I have ever done on the back of a cow pony. Till puffed
and sweat like a porpoise out of water. I killed the hest pony
I had in my string. Black Pete. He never was any more good.
We were riding and fighting with spurs and quit when we
heard some one hollow from the bank above us. "Hey there,
don't you know your cattle are in my cane patch?" I looked
up and saw a red-headed man on a mule with a blind bridle on.
Driscoll heard him and retorted, "To hell with your cane
patch. I will make it all right with you if you will help us
get these dogies back on the mesa." His partner came up at
that time, riding a mule bare back. They sailed at those
dogies and we son had them back on the mesa and far enough

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
back that one man could hold them. Driscoll was all in and
mad as a bull hornet. I expected to see him kill the nigger
when he came back. He thought the nigger was in Dodge
drinking beer when he could have come out and the boys
would not have had to go in to dinner. When the boys ar
rived about dusk we had them on the bed grounds and every
thing serene. I or Driscoll handn't had anything to eat since
early morning and Till was still hot under the collar. The
coon made camp after dark and Driscoll gave him' a real old-
time cussing. Mart swore he came as soon as the wagon was
fixed. After we had something to eat we felt better, though
the cattle were rollickly all night, for only a few drank when
we crossed the Arkansas. Next morning the two squatters
were at camp early, and Driscoll gave them each five dollars
and they seemed satisfied, and we departed in peace for the
South Platte.
Everything went well until we landed in the valley of
the Platte. I believe they saw us coming for there was more
mosquitoes than I had ever seen in one herd before. The
cattle and horses stamped and milled all night. We built
smudges out of Buffalo chips around our bed. Driscoll pur
chased a few supplies at Ogallala and we pulled for the North
Platte. When we struck that stream we found grass some
better than it was on the South Platte and not so many mos
quitoes. We camped the first night just below the old cross
ing. One of Col. Maberry's outfits was camped up the river
about a mile, and one of his men came down and said they
had just killed a big fat calf and if someone would come up
they would give us a quarter. I volunteered to go get it. I
was riding a pony I called Old Lightning. He was about
half broke and a real Spanish pony, would kick a chew of
tobacco out of your mouth, strike and do everything mean.
When I arrived at the camp I found them camped close
on the bank of the river where there was a perpendicular bank
fifteen or twenty feet down to the water. I had bought me a
new slicker at Dodge and I was never without it tied on my
saddle after my experience in the storm on Elk Creek. I
handed the slicker to one of the boys to put around the quar
ter of beef, in the meantime I had taken down my lasso rope,
a Manila rope about 40 feet long, and as is customary when
riding a wild horse, one end was tied around the pony's neck.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
When the man started to hand me the beef. Lightning
wheeled and ran. I managed to get him back near the place
where the beef lay and took my bandana and blindfolded him.
His tail was pointing north towards the river when the boy
approached me with the beef the second time. He commenced
to run backwards and some of the boys hollowed, "Look out,"
and I lit off on the bank just in time. Old Lightning went
coslouce flat of his back in about eight feet of water. If you
have read Peck's Bad Boy, and remember the picture where
the boys were giving the old man the first degree in the lodge.
He was down on his all-fours with the Bock beer sign on his
rear, blind folded. They told him to repeat after them the
words, "Bring forth your royal bumper and let him bump."
Just then they turned in the Billy Goat. He saw the goat sign
and gave him a biff that jarred the blind off one eye. When
Old Lightning came up he reminded me of that picture. He
had one eye out and puffed and spouted water like a real sea
horse. I still held the end of the rope, had to lead him down
the river two hundred yards, before I found a place where he
could get up the bank. He was trembling like an aspen leaf.
I mounted him, rode him back to the camp, pulled down the
blind and Lightning stood perfectly still. The boy laid the
beef up in front of me and I took it to camp. Old Lightning
was a fool always, but that baptism broke him from running
back. Col. Maberry had a ranch at that time on the Niobrara,
the outfit was just off the roundup. It was not safe to at
tempt to cross the river here with the chuck wagon. Driscoll
said we would have to drive seventy-five miles west up the
river and cross the wagon on the Sidney Bridge. On the way
up the river the trail led around a rocky bluff right over the
river. At one point where the trail passed between two rocks
it was so narrow that only one cow or horse could pass at
one time, making it necessary to string the cattle out for miles.
The wagon trail went around eight or ten miles further. I
took the lead with the horses. Henry Jones rode in the lead
of the herd, and they strung out single file following. I wish
I had a photo of the herd passing around that rocky ledge,
strung for miles along the bluff. That was a beautiful sight
long to be remembered. We had a little pot-bellied dogie in
the herd that was the drag yearling all the way from Llano
County, Texas. The boys called him Baby Mine. The last

66

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
one had passed through the narrow place and was rounding a
narrow point from where the trail gradually descended to the
level plain. When one of the larger dogies hooked Baby Mine,
and threw him off the trail. It was a steep incline of solid
rock where he left the trail, for twenty or thirty feet, then a
straight drop of at least forty. feet to the water. The drag
driver saw him go over the precipice and said, "Good bye,
Baby." They never expected to see him again. A few miles
up the river near the crossing we found the wagon camped.
This was a splendid place to water and good grass. We had
been there three days making the drive up the river. The
bridge was two or three miles above this crossing. Here I
learned something about the North Platte River. It is about
half a mile wide at the crossing and near the center of the
stream is a deep channel that was swimming at the time, and
running like the mill tails ofL  . From camp we could see
some wild geese on an island near the north bank of the river.
We thought it two old ones with their young brood very near
grown, but not quite able to fly. I and Ben Stubbs thought
we would get the young ones and have a goose dinner next
day. We stripped off and waded in until we came to the
channel. Stubbs plunged into it first and drifted down stream
fifty or more yards before he was able to get out of it. I was
in doubt about being able to swim it as I am not a strong
swimmer. Stubbs landed on a rocky ledge that showed above
the water on the north side of the channel for one hundred
yards. He took the precaution to go to the east end of that
Island, where the channel passed. I plunged in when I struck
the swift current. It struck me and sent me down stream like
a feather. When I passed the point of the little Island I
threw up my arms and Ben caught me by one hand and pulled
me out. I believed then, and beheve now, if Ben Stubbs had
not been standing on the point of that sand bar I would have
drowned right there. Coming back I swam over-handed, the
crawling stroke, and managed to get across safely. We did
not get any geese. The young ones could not fly, but they
could out-swim us in the swift current. Next morning the
boys found Baby Mine, the high-diving yearling, in his old
place in the drag of the herd, having come into the herd some
time during the night. That was one of the most remarkable
happenings, from Texas to the end of the trail. Driscoll had

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
lost one of his boys here in the North Platte by drowning in
1881 on the trial to the head of Powder River. When crossing
the river next day he would not let any of the boys ride in
below the cattle. He took that position himself. We crossed
without mishap and drifted on North. We were now out of
the level plain country. The country being a rolling prairie,
with buttes and table lands covered with bunch and other
nutritious grasses. Just north of the Niobrara we saw our
first Buffalo, one lone bull running, going North, quite a dis
tance away. Some of the boys had never seen one before.
From here on North we saw hundreds of carcasses lying
where they had been shot down, stripped of their hide except
a little frontlet on the head. In silent evidence of the wasteful
hide hunter. The meat was left to be devoured by wolves that
were plentiful in the Buffalo country. They, hke the wild
Indian, took their living off the Buffalo herds before the white
man's cattle invaded the hunting grounds of the Redman.
From some of the high mesas we could see the snow-capped
summit of Pike's Peak, looming up in the distant South West.
For ages it has stood like a sentinel watching over the hunt
ing grounds of all the tribes of the plains. From its lofty
eminence the Great Chiefs a few short years ago could stand
and watch the passing of his herds in countless thousands, or
view with pride the young braves in their chase of the mon
arch of the plains.

BUFFALO ON THE HEAD OF THE LITTLE MUDDY
We were now nearing the divide from where the water
runs North into the Yellowstone, thence into the Big Muddy,
changing its course, it turns back South and empties into the
great Father of Rivers, to at last be lost in the briny deep in
the Gulf of Mexico. Crossing the divide we got our first
glimpse of the Black Hills. We could plainly see the dark
outline far to the East. They are covered with a heavy growth
of spruce and pine, giving them a dark appearance at a dis
tance, hence the name Black Hills. The boys changed their
night song to the song of the Black Hills.

68

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
"Quit my occupation selling Wright's patent pills.
Gone rusthng for gold in the wooly Black Hills,
Young man let me tell you, stay if you will,
Far from that City in the Wooly Black Hills,
For old Sitting Bull and old Cheyenne Bill,
Will raise up your scalp in the worry Black Hill.
Young man take this warning and stay if you can.
Far from that City well known as Cheyenne,
For old Sitting Bull and old Wallopeean. are priseing up
hell 'round the town of Cheyenne."
We had crossed the Belle Fourche near the Wyoming
line and were heading for the head of the Little Missouri.
The Little Muddy heads in what is now Crook County,
Wyoming. Then Wyoming was a territory. The counties
were not organized. There is a pine ridge lying between the
branches of the river. On the east side of the river is a little
basin that drains the surrounding country, and forms the
main branch of the Little Missouri. Here there is no sem
blance of a river, just a dry wash in the earth's surface. The
country drains to the North, flowing into one channel forms
the river. The trail led across the pine ridge and down the
East branch. We were nearing the pine ridge. I was half a
mile in the lead of the chuck wagon, with the remuda. The
cattle were trailing a mile back when I met Driscoll. He
said, "Throw the horses off to one side, let them graze." I
saw a few head of Buffalo in the timber, among them a cow
and calf. Tell the boys to let the cattle scatter through the
timber and keep still, I think I can get a shot at the Buffalo
calf. There was a thin growth of pine timber on the ridge
and very little underbrush. Could ride through it without dif
ficulty. Driscoll had a cut-off forty-five six-shoter, the best
pistol made for rough usage. The cattle scattered through
the timber like trained decoys, could not have done better.
Driscoll crouched low on his horse, rode in among the dogies,
saw the cow standing under a pine tree, the calf under her
neck. Having the wind in his favor he approached within
twenty paces of them and fired at the calf and killed the cow.
The other Buffalo ran into the little basin east of the ridge.
I and Jim Keen after them, believing we could rope the calf.
We found about thirty head of Buffalo down the draw a few
hundred yards below the ridge. The country was covered

69

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
with sage brush and full of holes and wash-outs. We had to
abandon the chase. We took part of the hump of the cow, she
was not in very good condition for beef. That was the only
Buffalo meat we had on the trip. Two days' drive down the
river we came to the Hash Knife Ranch. Col. Simpson es
tablished this ranch in 1880, and was driving his yearlings and
two-year-olds from his Texas Pecos River Ranch to the bunch
grass range of the Little Missouri. For two hundred miles
North the country was open, not a ranch or settlement. The
Hash Knife was the only ranch South' of the old Fort Keogh
Trail then, 1883. Though Major Towers had men building
his ranch house and branding corrals at or near the mouth of
Little Beaver that empties into the Little Missouri, seventy-
five miles north of the Hash Knife ranch. The second night
after passing the Hash Knife ranch we camped at the mouth
of Box Elder in a fine grass country where water was plen
tiful. While the Buffalo was on the verge of extinction, ante
lope were still plentiful on the range. Ever since we crossed
the Red River into the Indian Territory we saw small bands
of Antelope scattered over the prairies. The farther North
we came the more plentiful we found them. Here in the land
by the end of the trail we were seldom out of sight of them.
in the daylight. We were nearing our destination. In Sep
tember, 1883, we arrived at the Corral on Little Beaver with
the first herd of cattle ever delivered on the Northern range
of Towers and Gudgell. Major Towers pronounced them in
the best condition of any trail herd he had ever seen delivered
anywhere on the Northern range from Texas. We had trailed
across two-thirds of the great State of Texas, crossed from
South to North, the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and
the corner of Dakota and Wyoming and half way across the
Territory of Montana. We left Texas with a few head over
three thousand and Driscoll could account for every one he
had lost but one. The drag drivers could account for that one.
It was always out to one side. They let it drop out one day
expecting it to follow. As it did not come on, Jim Keen went
back after it. We just crossed a high table land with only a
few places at the Old Buffalo trails, where we could descend
to the level of the prairie. Keen was running that dogie, quirt
ing it at every jump, and ran it off the bluff and broke its neck.
That was the only one Driscoll could not account for. They

70

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
had grazed over the prairies of seven states, including terri
tories, from Southern Texas to the maturing grounds at the
end of the trail for nearly two thousand miles of unsettled
plain and prairie without seeing a fence or a farm with the
exception of the few cane patches the squatters planted along
the trail in Kansas for the purpose of collecting toll from the
trail herds. We found Fred La Breche and Bill Underwood,
two Buffalo hunters. Major Towers employed in the early
spring to build the ranch house and the branding corrals.
They were still working on the corral which was unfinished
and the house undaubed. They also built a ranch for the
Three-Seven outfit, 777 , 20 miles below the mouth of Beaver
on the "Little Missouri." The 777 and the Ox occupied the
same range and worked together. Tucker got in about three
days behind us. Major Towers was there to receive the
herds. As soon as everything was settled for their deliverance
Driscoll, Tucker, Henry Jones and the two Stubbs boys pulled
out for the Northern Pacific Railroad, at Keith, now Mingus-
ville, and boarded the train for Texas. The boys that remained
on the ranch had to help finish the corral, the chutes — the
most important part was unfinished — and it was necessary to
put the range brand on the dogies as soon as possible. Turn
them loose, let them become located before snow fell, as it
is not good judgment to handle cattle on the Northern ranges
after cold weather comes. In the meantime Henry Boice ar
rived with two thousand head of 777 cattle, all steer stock,
two's and three's, closely followed by George Towers with
twenty-five hundred head of mixed stock cows, one's, two's
and three's — ox cattle from their range in Colorado. These
two herds had the range brand on them, Ox and 777, and were
turned loose on the west side of the Little Missouri, on Bull
Run Creek. The boys put to cutting cedar posts to finish the
corrol. They would cut a day, relieve the boys on herd, would
cut, that way they all took a hand in the cutting of posts.
First, I was sent to Keith with the wagon after supplies.
Then Fountain Brothers had a small store there, keeping a
few hunters' supplies and dealjng in Buffalo robes. They
had about twenty-five hundred hides piled up there for ship
ment. When I delivered my order they sized me up to see if
I was sane or a wandering maniac. That was their first order
from a big cattle outfit, and it proved an eye opener for them.
When I ordered one dozen cases of tomatoes, and the same
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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
amount of other canned goods, one thousand pounds of flour,
two hundred pounds of bacon, and other things in proportion,
they hked to fell dead. I had to wait until they filled the
order from Glendive. When I returned with the supplies I
went to cutting cedar with the boys. It will not strain the
imagination to guess what kind of a hand a "cowboy" will
make cutting posts, one that never had but little training
with an ax and ha'd for th^ past seven months been constantly
in the saddle very nearly night and day. We went at the task
willingly, determined to complete the job as soon as possible.
At the head of some of the couhes or draws running into the
river we found a scrub growth of cedar and ash. There is
where we were cutting. The location of the cedar was about
three miles from the corral. The second day cutting I was
riding a pony I called "Wild Cat," a chunk of a Spanish pony
I had ridden frora Texas here, to the ranch at the end of the
trail. The floor of the draw we were cutting in was about
thirty feet wide, here, with a luxuriant growth of blue stem
grass and scattered sage brush. The banks were steep. We
could get in and out only where the Buffalo trails crossed. I
staked "Wild Cat" to a large sage brush a little below, and
in plain sight of where we were cutting. The other boys
staked their ponies just around a bend in the coolie. We were
quietly working, when all of a sudden I heard a roar like a
herd stampede, and looking down the draw saw "Wild Cat"
climbing the steep bank, sage brush and all and three buffalo
bulls right after him. Dock Lorance was the first to speak.
He said what in "hell?" Has "hell" broke loose in the "Bad
Lands?" I said I suppose "Wild Cat" thought so. To the
North was a level table land or mesa, at least three miles
across to the brakes. When I got out where I could see, there
was not a Buffalo in sight. "Wild Cat" was standing per
fectly still half way across the mesa. I went on afoot, walked
up to him, untied the sage brush from the end of the rope.
Up to now he had not moved. Suddenly he seemed to wake
out of a trance, took a view of the land and in the horse lan
guage said, "where did those devils go," One the way back
to the coolie I met five Sioux Indians. Then I realized what
had caused the blind stampede of the buffaloes. They tum
bled over the embankment very near on top of "Wild Cat."
Man or horse, that would not move quickly when some wild

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and woodly beasts suddenly and without warning, tumbled
over a bluff on them would not be worth mentioning. We
were about two weeks cutting posts and completing the cor
ral. Then the branding of the herds commenced. During
the time we were camped there at the corral a bunch of about
fifty Sioux Indians were camped about one mile above the
corral on Little Beaver. They were out on a hunt.
We were now in the heart of the Buffalo range, where
the Northern herds made their last stand against the onslaught
of the hide hunter. While on herd one day I saw the Indians
crawling on a bunch of twenty-five or thirty buffaloes. From
a high butte I watched them surround them. They crawled
up within twenty-five yards of the buffaloes, others of the
Indians were scattered in a wide circle on their ponies. Buf
falo these days were getting wild. They seemed to realize that
they were doomed, that their race was run. The Indians used
all their cunning to get in position to kill this remnant of the
Northern herd. When they were in position to commence
the attack, they killed half of the bunch before the frightened
animals knew which way to run. When they made their mad
dash to get away they ran North West towards the head of
Sandstone Creek, and ran into a hollow circle formed by the
Indians, to trap them. When they took their toll, there were
only a few head left. We often went to the Indian camp to
see them drying the meat and fleshing the hides. They cut
the meat in strips and hung it on a line to dry. The squaws
would stretch a hide on the ground by driving stakes all
around the outer edge, keep stretching it until they had it as
tight as a drum head. Then the squaws would get down on
their knees with their scrapers, some of them made of bone,
and get every bit of flesh off the hide. Then it was ready to
tan. They used the brain of the animal and constant rub
bing, never giving it a chance to get hard, until it was thor
oughly tanned, the most perfect tan in the world. This was
the last killing of buffaloes of any consequence by the Indians,
or any one in the United States. They were gone forever. A
few stragglers of the great herd were killed after that in dif
ferent sections of the country.

7Z

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
THE BAD LANDS
The Ox Ranch, at the mouth of Little Beaver, is at the
Southern edge of the Bad Lands, of the Little Missouri. The
wonder lands of the North West at the end of the trail. I
heven't words to describe that magic land lying there in sub
lime and grotesque grandeur. Keeping locked within its
smoldering bosom, the secrets of the past. The great changes
wrought by the ever-present hand of evolution. Ages beyond
the computation of man, passed, unrecorded since great for
ests covered this land of mystery. Where roamed the mas-
tadon and other giants of the animal kingdom, long before
the age of man on earth. In evidence of which we have the
bones, part of the skeletons of those ancient animals, together
with numerous specimens of petrified wood, and perfect pet
rified stumps, now standing on the high Mesas surrounded by
the Bad Lands, the smouldering ashes of extinct lignite fields.
These lignite beds are still burning. The first time I ever saw
the smoke issuing from a crack in the ground, I thought the
world on fire. Millions of acres, covering hundreds of miles of
territory comprising these vast lignite beds were burning long
before the trail of the "pale face" crossed the Mississippi, and
are still smoldering. The lignite coal burning from beneath,
leaving a vacuum that is naturally filled by the caving in of
the surface, thus forming the "Bad Lands." Hundreds of
miles of the coal beds have long since burned out and are
covered with rich grass in the arroyos and little valleys, and
on the mesas, that are scattered throughout the Bad Lands ;
the winter range of the thousands of cattle that were turned
loose without other shelter or feed, at the mercy of the bliz
zards. Before the range was over-stocked the cattle would
go through an ordinary winter with comparatively small loss.
Those brakes affording shelter against the storm. When the
"2 S. L." herds were branded with the Ox range brand, one
herd was turned loose &n the head of Big Beaver, the other,
on the Little Missouri, just above the Old Keogh trail, where
there was a line camp, and I, Jim Keen, and Dock Lorance
were staitoned there to ride a line to keep them from drifting
South and East, on the Sioux Reservation. One morning I
rode out on the west side to see how they were doing. The
Bad Lands here are about ten miles wide, five miles on each

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
side of the river. I had gotten out of the Bad Lands in the
direction of Big Beaver, and rode up on a butte to take a view
of the country. I saw two emigrant wagons going west on
the Keogh trail. Following close behind the wagons was what
looked from the distance to be one hundred head of cattle. I
was sure it was some of the "S. L." dogies. When I overtook
them it proved to be some of the Driscoll herd, with their
tails over their backs and their heads bobbing, seemingly
perfectly satisfied hitting the trail once more behind a wagon.
They kept us busy that fall trying to locate them. They
would graze for a while in the morning, then hit the first trail
they saw. One evening I was just returning off my line on
the east side of the river, when I saw quite a bunch of cattle
running into a bend of the river, about one mile above camp,
and bawling like they do when they smell fresh blood. There
was a trail that led around the head of a little draw where
there was a burning mine and on to a Mesa, where I could
ride up and look down in the bend where the cattle were so
excited. There were four or five grey wolves attacking a
yearling. I had seen hundreds of wolves, but that was the
first time I had ever witnessed their attack on a live animal,
and I took advantage of the opportunity to watch their method
of killing an animal. Some of them would go in front of the
yearling, snapping and snarling to attract its attention, and
frighten it while one would grab it by the hind leg just above
the hock. I only watched them a moment — that moment cost
the yearling its life. The tendons in its hind legs were cut,
it was ham-strung there before my eyes, in a few minutes
rendering it perfectly helpless. By this time the other cattle
had run away and I took a shot at the wolves with my six-
shooter. Being down hill and fifty yards away I missed, and
they disappeared through the sage brush. I rode down to
where the yearling lay and the tendons in both hind legs were
cut slick and clean. I killed it and poisoned its carcass. That
was one of our specific instructions that every man rnust
carry a bottle of stdychninne and poison everything we killed
and left on the prairie. I had often heard that these lobo
wolves would tackle and kill the largest Buffalo bull when
driven to it by hunger. After I witnessed that daylight at
tack on those yearlings, I never again doubted that they would

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
not attack the largest animal that ever roataed the plains, and
get away with it. One morning after a hard rain I was on my
line on the east side and ran on to a trail of fifty or seventy-
five head of cattle going East in the direction of the Sioux
Res.ervation. They had gone on either the evening before or
early in the morning. I followed their trail for twenty miles,
before I overtook them on the head of the Cannon Ball River,
near the line of the reservation. I rounded them up and
headed them for the Little Missouri. By the time I reached
the edge of the Bad Lands, it was dark. I gave them a send-
off down a canyon toward the river and started for .camp.
After feeling my way into the heart of the Bad ands, I con
cluded it would be folish to attempt to get through until day
light, as these herds of Towers and Gudgell were the first
turned loose in that section of the country. Cattle trails were
comparatively few those days in the Bad Lands. The main
buffalo trails leading into water or crossing the river, were
the only trails then, penetrating these mysterious lands of
the Yellowstone, and the Little Missouri. It was difficult to
find a way through them in daylight, and a hopeless under
taking in the night. A cloud settled over the Bad Lands and
enveloped the country in pitch darkness. I led my horse
around, feeling my way until I found a sage brush to tie him
to, unsaddled him, took the saddle blanket and my slicker and
lay down. I was prepared for big game. When in Keith, now
Wibaux, Montana, I bought me a Colt's forty-five six-shooter,
and a forty-five seventy-five Winchester, and had them with
me. I was riding "Brown Jug," the best horse I had in my
mount. Pie wound run onto a Buffalo or anything. There
was only one animal he was afraid of in daylight, that was an
Indian. That night he seemed uneasy, he wanted to be near
me. I had laid there about one hour when I felt something
like drops of rain in my face. Lighting a match I saw it was
snowing. I could not sleep, got up, and sat down on my
saddle with the blanket and slicker over me. That night it
snowed about one inch, the 9th of October, 1883. I was sit
ting there half asleep in the middle of the night, when I heard
a crash off to the right. In the stillness of the dark it sounded
nearby. My horse, standing at my back, nudged me with his
nose to see if I was still there. The remainder of the night
passed quietly. I dozed for a few minutes at a time. As soon

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
as it was light enough to see I saddled "Brown Jug" and
started for camp. Just over a little hogback rise in the ground
and not over fifty yards from where I had spent the night, I
saw the smoke of a burning mine. I rode up on the hogback
ridge to get a better view of it. Standing there near where
the smoke was issuing from the ground, to my surprise, was
the largest buffalo bull I ever saw. I backed my horse out of
sight, dismounted and with my Winchester, walked up on the
ridge. When I reached the summit he turned a broad side
and I sent a slug from my Winchester. He did not drop at the
instant, but started to run. I gave him another shot, when he
stumbled over dead. Both shots had pentrated his heart. I
went on to camp, got some breakfast and I and Jim Keen,
with an extra pack horse, went back, skinned it and took the
hind quarters and the hide to camp. As there were only three
of us in that line camp, we had buffalo meat half the winter.
That was a comparatively mild winter. I don't believe the
loss was over two per cent and half of that was caused by the
depredations of the Lobo wolves.
Mr. Lytle and Schreiner paid thirteen dollars for yearlings
in Texas, the spring of 1883, for the two herds sold at Ogallala,
to Major Towers, of Towers and Gudgell, delivered at their
corral on Little Beaver, Montana. He received eighteen or
twenty dollars for two-year-olds, I have forgotten which.
Major Towers informed me that the tops of those herds, after
being doubled and trebled, wintered in Montana, averaged him
a little above seventy dollars per head, on the Chicago market.
It was that difference in the cost of yearlings in Texas and
the price obtainable for the same steer on the market, for a
four-year-old after having been grazed three years on the free
grass ranges, at the end of the trail. That offered the induce
ment to brave men to run the risk in the old days on the range
before anyone thought of feeding or shelter, when thousands
of cattle were turned loose on the Northern ranges, to make
their living and find some natural shelter against the vigors
of the Northern winters.
THE PIONEER OUTFIT IN MONTANA
FORTY YEARS AGO
Conspicuous among those were the early occupants of the

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Deer Lodge Valley. The rugged pioneers that settled there in
the early sixties. The names of Conrad Kohrs, Grandville,
and James Stewart, John Grant and others already mentioned
are the pathfinders, who blazed the trails to the hunting
grounds of the Blackfoot and the Crow Indians. The "R"
Quarter Circle of Rumsey Brothers, J. L. Truscott, foreman ;
the Ranch of the pioneer Eaton Brothers; the Bill Dantz
Ranch and the Elk Horn Ranch owned by Ferris Merrifield
and Roosevelt, were the first to occupy the Bad Lands north
of the old Keogh Trail, on the Little Missouri. These, with
the ''777" Ranch just south of the Keogh Trail ; the Ox Ranch
of Towers-Gudgell. These two outfits turned loose ten thous
and head in the Bad Lands in the fall of 1883. With the Hash
Knife outfit, these were the pioneer cattle ranchers of the Bad
Lands of the Little Missouri. The town of Little Missouri
was then a typical Western town. One could hear the whirr
of the roulette wheel, the click of the poker chips and the rattle
of the spur, when the cowboys came to town.
A little incident in the life of the Bad Lands. Just south
of the old Keogh Trail was the ranch of the Lang Cattle Com
pany, a small foreign outfit. Financed by a son of Sir John
Pender of England, a Mr. Lang, a Scotchman manager. Dur
ing the summer of 1886, Mr. Pender paid a visit to the ranch,
and was in Little Missouri one day, when a young lady was
attacked by a large dog belonging to one of the Band Land cit
izens. There was in town a rough and ready type of the Old
West, they called Fighting Bill Jones. Jones saw the dog
attack the helpless young lady, and pulled his six-shooter and
shot the dog dead in the street. Mr. Pender, just from his
ranch, happened along at that time and recognized the dead
dog as one belonging to a friend, and asked of a by-stander
who had killed the dog. He was told that Fighting Bill Jones
had killed it. He said if a man shot a dog of his in the street
he would take a shot at him. Jones heard the remark and said,
"I am the man that shot the dog. If you don't like it just
turn your pet bear loose." Pender retorted, "I guess you don't
know me. I am a son of Sir John Pender of England." Jones
shouted back, "You man be a son of a lord in the old country,
but you act like what we call a 'damned son of a bitch' in this
country." Fortunately for Pender, he turned and went on his
way without saying another word. He remembered he was

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in the Wild West of the United States of America.
^^The "70L," the "Mc," the "N-Bar," the "U-Cross" and
"76" of the Powder River Land and Cattle Company, all of
Powder River; the "H. V." Ranch on Big Dry Creek; the
'S. T. V." Ranch, owned by Conrad Company, on Sand Creek ;
the Twenty-Two Brand of Cap. Harman, on the head of
Little Beaver; the Thirteen Ranch on Sandstone; the "T. L."
Brand of Dickey Brothers, and the "E6" Ranch on the Maura,
were among the pioneer cattle rangers, in the land by the end
of the trail. In 1884, the Marquis De Mores came to Little
Missouri, a small station on the N. P. R. R., where it crossed
the Little Missouri River, in the heart of the Bad Lands. The
Marquis was a son-in-law of the millionaire banker, Von Huff
man, of New York. His family belonged to the nobility of
France. He was a Marquis in the French army. He was said
to have had a million dollars in his own name and through
his marriage to the New York heiress, had at his command
two million dollars. His first venture in the business field was
the range cattle business. He bought out the "Y-Cross" outfit
in Oregon, and transferred the cattle to his range in the Bad
Lands of the Little Muddy, with Johnnie Goodall range fore
man. Next he built a road from Little Missouri to Deadwood
and started a stage line at an outlay of over fifty thousand
dollars. He then built a pasture fence, paying twenty-five
cents each for cutting cottonwood posts, where the cotton-
wood grew thick in the bends of the river twenty-five feet to
the first limb soft wood. The men made as high as twenty
dollars per day cutting. The outlay on the pasture was twen
ty-five thousand or more. He then went out to Western Mon
tana, to buy sheep to stock his pasture and an old sheep man
saw him coming and built a chute with wings at the foot of
a little round butte. The sheep were rounded up for his in
spection. He pronounced them "O. K." and the count fol
lowed. As they came through the chute the herder headed
them around the butte into the wings with the uncounted
ones. Ran them through the chute the second time, sold him
twenty-five hundred for five thousand and received his check
for five thousand head. Marquis counted them himself. I
believed the price to be six dollars per head. He had the name
of Little Missouri changed to Medora in honor of his wife,
and was the founder and owner of the paper, "The Bad Lands

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Cowboy." The boys called it the "Bad Boys' Cowlands." He
next conceived the idea of the dressed meat business, believ
ing by establishing slaughter houses in the range country he
could save the cost of shipping and the commission, which
would enable him to compete on the open markets of the East
with the well established firms of Armour, Swift & Com
pany of Chicago, and Kansas City. He had built at Medora
the largest and best equipped slaughter house west of Chicago,
with all the latest machinery and appliances appertaining to
the business. He secured the best help money could hire.
Hundreds of refrigerator cars were built by the Northern
Pacific Railroad, and kept at his disposal. It was common
rumor in the community that he had expended one and a half
million dollars by the time he was ready to start slaughtering.
His first bunch of beeves for killing were purchased from Col.
Simpson, of the Hash Knife outfit. They were drifted for two
hundred miles down the river and put on the scales and
weighed, full of grass and water. Cattle will lose one hun
dred pounds each in shipping from Western Dakota to Chi
cago. At these great central establishments there is no waste,
everything is utilized. The proceeds from the by-products
pay a large per cent of the running expenses. To the Bad
Lands operator the offal was a total loss and he paid for one
hundred pounds of grass and water with each steer that the
butcher of Chicago did not. With this unforeseen handicap
the Marquis sailed forth to put Swift & Company out of busi
ness and capture the markets of the East. He established re
tail butcher shops in New York, and other Eastern cities, and
put his product on the market at reduced cost. Swift & Com
pany met the reduction and went on doing business. In the
meantime Von Huffman came out on a visit to his daughter
and son-in-law. Took in the situation at a glance. The first
thing he did was to send the private car that was standing on
the sidetrack at the disposal of the Marquis at a cost of thirty
dollars per day, to Minneapolis. The keen business eye of
"Pa" Von Huffman saw the loophole through which his mil
lions were fast disappearing and the brilliant exploits of a
romantic character of the Northwest was closed, the curtain
rolled down. When the war .broke out in French Africa the
Marquis went to France and joined the army and was after
wards killed in the lead of his regiment in the Soudan.

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From 1,870 to the close of the trail in 1889, it is a safe esti
mate to say that five hundred thousand head of cattle were
driven out of Texas every year to the Northern range. The
maturing grounds at the end of the trail never could have been
successful breeding grounds under the old system. A cow
with a calf by her side in the late fall stood a shm chance of
living through the winter. The winter of 1881 was a severe
winter, causing considerable loss to the^ range cattle men on
these Northern ranges.
The severe winter of 1886 and 1887 was the most dis
astrous and discouraging winter ever experienced by cattle
men of the Northwest. Snow fell early. Then a thaw leaving
a sheet of ice over the ground, on which came four feet of
snow on a level and from ten to thirty feet in drifts, with the
very near continuous blizzards and severe cold, was too much
for even the native wild animals to withstand. I saw deer
and antelope lying dead in the Bad Lands, where they had
fallen into ravines and drifts, unable to get out. Cattle were
piled up dead in every bend of the Little Missouri from where
the brush set in to its mouth. Ninety-five per cent of the cattle
were lost in Eastern Montana and Western Dakota and
Wyoming. Some of the supposedly strong companies went to
the wall. Instead of the banks coming to their rescue, they
closed down on many of them and they had to sacrifice what
they had left on a poor market for that class of cattle. The
fall of 1887, the cattle just out of the hard winter, were not
very fat and there was an over surplus of canners from Texas.
When these hard-hit Northern ranchers shipped a train load
to market they would receive the proceeds in postage stamps.
From that date there was a change in the old range system.
Beef production under the old range system never was a safe
investment on the Northern ranges. The majority of those
who invested money in the cattle raising in the North, even
with free grass, failed to secure adequate returns. Hence, by
1910 the great basic industries of the Old West were entering
the transition stage. Unlike the arid regions of the greater
part of the breeding grounds of the Southwest, the soil of the
great states of Dakota, Montana and Idaho were known to be
productive, needing less irrigation, making the latest methods
of dry farming possible and remunerative. By 1880 the wild
Indian had been subdued and his hunting grounds, the van-

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
ishing remnant of the Old West, was invaded and taken pos
session of by that pioneer pathfinder of the prairie and plans,
the cowboy ranger. The once great herds of buffaloes that
fifty years ago roamed in thousands over his Northern range
were fast disappearing before the onslaught of the cattle men
and the hide hunters, and by 1885 the last of the monarch
of the prairies was exterminated, excepting a small remnant
of the Northern herd that sought safety in the Peace River
country, of the British Northwest, never to return.
Even with the buffalo gone from the range and the "Red
men" conquered, the life of the cattle man and free range was
doomed to be short. The last remnant of the Wild West was
showing signs of the marks of civilization. As late as 1890, the
western half of North Dakota and the eastern half of Mon
tana was free government land. During the next ten years
saw the most tremendous agricultural development ever ex
perienced in America. The great awakened tide of emigration
swept to the Northwest, where the homesteader received for
his reward part of the conquered domain of the cattle rancher
as a free gift from Uncle Sam. The transforming of the cattle
range into productive farm homes was only the work of a few
years. Five years after that great overflow of Anglo-Saxon
blood from the East to the land by the end of the trail, twenty
thousand homestead filings had been made in the United
States Land Office in Eastern Montana. The same transfor
mation has taken place in Western Dakota. Twenty-five
years of farming progress have changed North Dakota from
a stock grazing region to the front ranks of agricultural states
of the union. Thirty-five years ago North Dakota's successful
farming was confined to a few hundred square miles in the
now famous Red River Valley. Today North Dakota is a
state of farms and farmers. North Dakota has achieved her
present position in the agricultural world from her wheat
fields, which as early as 1915, were producing anually one
hundred million bushels. With their rapid development these
states were soon known to the world as the zone of plenty.
The haphazard method of farming to all grain has given way
to more diversified crops and in 1914, ten million dollars'
worth of live stock and five million dollars' vv^orth of butter
were produced in North Dakota ; and Montana leads the states
in bushels to the acre, with the a^-erage of twenty-four bushels

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of winter wheat per acre. Large acres of mountainous and
rough grazing land will continue a stock range. The passing
of the big stock rancher to the stock farmer with more men
in the business and fewer cattle to the individual will go on
down the lanes of time, producing their quota of beef in the
land by the end of the trail.
THE CHANGED CONDITIONS IN TEXAS
The Panhandle country has gone through an important
step in the evolution of cattle business. The longhorn has
disappeared from the range. In his place has come the Short
horn, Angus and the Hereford, with their better beef produc
ing qualities. In the last few years the homesteader has
about driven out the big cattle companies. The day when a
person could ride one hundred miles without striking a fence
is gone, and with it has gone the old range system. Then no
one fed cattle at any time during the year and no sheds or
protection of any kind were used. Today everyone feeds.
The country is fast becoming the land of the big farmer and
small cowman. It is reported that many farmers have raised
thirty bushels of wheat per acre. .
The success in raising small grain is not curtailing the
cattle industry. There are great areas in Texas that are
suited only for grazing, and cheap grass is the great factor
in the production of cheap beef. Considerable glamor has
been thrown around the Western cattle man. The type now
becoming extinct, for outside of the fenced pasture the range
outfit has disappeared, but most of it was mere sentiment.
With the exception of a few short years the business never
yielded adequate returns. The drouths and winter losses
were always a problem to contend with and financial results
disappointing. The East could never get away from the idea
that free grass was the principal capital of the range cattle
men. That cattle raised themselves, that the greater part of
the expense incidental to the business was branding the calf
crop and gathering the beef. When in reality free grass was
the curse of the industry. It was everybody's property, re
sulting in destruction instead of conservation, causing the
early passing of the great basic industry of the pastoral West,
where in a generation we literally wasted a national heritage

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
of grass. Texas, the birthplace of the range cattle industry
of the United States, is the last to fall before the onward
march of the homesteader, where the few remaining big
cattle outfits own their range, are holding their own under
protection of the pasture fence.
A GOVERNMENT OUTRAGE
The vast unoccupied range of the Indian Territory in the
days before it was thrown open for settlement, the white
man was forbidden to use or settle in the Territory. It was
exclusively an Indian country, though some of the cattle men
had made satisfactory agreements with the Indians for the
use of parts oi their nation for temporary range. Among
them was Col. Maberry. In 1885, through some dissatisfac
tion, these cattle men were ordered out of the Territory, and
not complying with the request as promptly as those in charge
thought they should, the government sent troops into the
Territory and double quicked them out north, into the strip
and the over-stocked ranges of Colorado, some of which was
burned off at the time. In the meantime the cattle men had
built a line fence extending from the eastern line of No-Man's-
Land along the line of Northern Kansas to the corner of New
Mexico, to prevent the cattle from drifting with the storms
too far south. Owing to the depleted conditions of the ranges
and the added influx of these cattle from the Nation, thous
ands of cattle drifted against that fence and perished, causing
the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars, just for the lack
of knowledge of the range, cattle business and the' existing
conditions, by the men in charge of the Government Patrol,
who ignored the cattle men's plea for a little more time. If
their wish had been granted, thousands of head of cattle could
have been saved. I only mention these facts that are now a
matter of history to show that the range cattle men have never
received any bouquets from the government. They have con
tinually been asked to move on. That is nothing more than
they expected, where they were occupying agricultural lands.
They have complied with every request willingly and un
complaining. Now that they have been pushed back to the
barren waste in the remote corner of the land, and being ,
American citizens representing the very best type of that

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virile Western manhood, they are entitled to some consid
eration by the Government.
THE BIG RANCHES IN TEXAS, THE SOURCE FROM
WHICH THE FEED LOTS ARE SUPPLIED
The milhons of acres of state lands in Texas which a few
years ago could be bought for a few cents an acre, enabling
those pioneers, who had the rare foresight to purchase large
bodies of land and under protection of the pasture fence to
guard against the curse of overstocking. From 1892 to 1900
prices dropped so low that many of the large ranches of the
West were broken up. Cattle other than milch cows de
creased 10,040,000 head. In 1893 and 1896, when the price
of beef fell so low, wheat and corn became the stable crop
and were given far more attention than were cattle. The
value of land increased, with the advance of land. Immi
grants kept purchasing farther West. The homesteader and
the sheep men kept crowding the cattle men farther from the
good grazing lands to the less desirable section. The produc
tion of beef was discouraged and retarded, not only by the
low prices and the decrease in breeding stock, but by the cut
ting up of the ranges and the increased value of farm lands.
The price of cattle did not keep pace with the price of other
commodities. The census of 1900 shows that there were on farms and
ranches 50,583,777 cattle other than milch cows, while the
census of 1910 shows this number to have decreased to
41,198,434. This was a decrease of 9,385,343 in ten years.
With our entrance into the World War in 1917, greatly in
creasing the demand for beef, with the increased demand for
veal and the drouth then prevailing in the grett breeding
grounds of the Southwest, the main source of supply. Adding
to the already alarming decrease so much that for the first
time in our history it became necessary to look to a foreign
field for relief. It was mainly through these great breeding
ranches of Texas, with their changed system of cattle raising,
many producing ample feed to insure them against loss, that
kept the shortage from going back beyond the hope of re
covery for at least a decade. There was no movement from
Texas in 1920, until late in 1921. The exorbitant freight

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
charges even then made it impossible to ship beeves to mar
ket at a profit. Since, there has been an excellent movement—
everything looks hopeful, grass and water plentiful, this sum-
rrier, 1922. Even with a continuance of present conditions it
wil! take the industry five years- to get back to normal pro
duction. These are facts that ought to stimulate conservation
of grazing resources and prevent legislation injurious to the
cattle industry.
Of the big pioneer cattle ranches in Texas there
are none better known than the Great Kings Ranch of
the Southwest. The founded of this great ranch was the late
Captain Richard King, who first engaged in cattle ranching
in 1857. His first purchase of cattle was of the old original
longhorn stock of Mexico and Texas. The foundation on
which he built one of the great cattle ranches of America.
His live stock holdings at one time were 100,000 head of
cattle, 20,000 sheep and 10,000 horses. He was the first to
import new blood for the building up of the inbred longhorn.
Thousands of the Flying "W" cattle have been driven over
the trail to the ranges of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.
As many as 30,000 calves have been branded ou this ranch in
a single year. At the time of his death Captain King's ranch
comprised 500,000 acres of land. The present management
have increased the holdings to approximately one million
acres, on which today graze thousands of head of high-grade
cattle. In 1908 the "Hash Knife" outfit, one of the old landmarks
of the Pecos River, disposed of their landed interest to the
White Star Land Company, of Kansas City, Missouri. Judge
Word of Amirillo, Texas, bought the brand and cattle. The
"Hash Knife" brand was known from the Rio Grande to the
Yellowstone. Among others of the big outfit still doing business in the
Panhandle of Texas is the "L. F. D.," owned by J. P. White,
who has about 600,000 acres under fence and up to 1910, was
reported to be running close to 50,000 head of cattle, half of
which was she stock, and branding from fifteen to twenty
thousand calves a year. If I have been rightly informed, the
cattle holdings have been reduced to 25,000 head. The
"L. F. D." range was formerly the old Yellow House di
vision of the famous "X. I. T." Ranch.

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THE CAPITAL SYNDICATE
In the seventies, Texas lost her capital building by fire.
At the time Texas had millions of acres of land lying idle, sell
ing then for a few cents per acre. The citizens of the Great
Empire conceived the idea of paying for the rebuilding of
the capital in land. They set a very low valuation on the land
and advertised for bids. They desired a capital worthy of the
largest State in the United States. A syndicate was formed
in Chicago and an estimate made of the cost of the kind of
building the State desired. An agreement was reached. The
syndicate went ahead and built the capital. After it was com
pleted the State of Texas deeded three million acres of land
in Northwest Texas to the syndicate in payment. This com
pany formed the Capital Syndicate Land and Cattle Company.
They fenced the land and stocked it with cattle. This ranch
comprised a body of land larger than the three states of Dela
ware, New Jersey and Connecticut, and was the largest pri
vately owned ranch in one body on the North American con
tinent. When they went to have their brand recorded they
made it "X. I. T. X.," standing for— "10," "I" for in, "T" for
Texas. Meaning Ten Counties in Texas, as the ranch com
prises ten counties.
Another great ranch, the "7 D" outfit, at one tirae ran be
tween seventy-five and eighty thousand head of cattle. They
drove their last herd over the trail to Montana in 1901. The
"Long S" outfit of C. C. Slaughter, one of the best known
brands in the Southwest. I beheve there are still on the
range running about fifteen thousand head. The Spring Lake
Ranch the "Masked O" Brand. With ten or twelve thous
and head. The "L. X." Ranch with twenty-five thousand
head, owned by Lee Bivens, of Amirillo, Texas. The Spade
Steer Ranch, and there are a few outfits still doing business
in New Mexico, among thera are the "Bar W" outfit. The
"V. T.," at Magdalena; the "Diamond A," at Eagle; the
"L. C," at Silver City, are among those that have survived
the ravages of time. There is none more closely identified
with the cattle trail than John R. Blocker, who for thirty
years drove thousands of cattle to every part of the range,
and is said to have driven more cattle over the trail than any
man living, and was one of the last to drive over the Great

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Texas Cattle Trail to the Northwest.
The "P" road brand of Ike T. Pryor has been conspicu
ous since the early days of the trail to the close of the Old
Trail in 1884, when the homesteader in Kansas pushed the
trail west beyond the western border of the Panhandle, to
the line of New Mexico, through Colorado and Wyo"ming, to
the end of the trail. Mr. Pryor needs no introduction in the
land of the range. The "P" Brand is known from the cactus
shores of the Rio Grande, to the bunch grass prairies -of the
Saskatchewan. His life has been closely interwoven with
the trail. Through the courtesy of Mr. Pryor in a recent com
munication I am able to give the cost of moving a herd of
three thousand cattle from Southern Texas to Montana, or
twenty-five hundred miles: With three thousand head of
cattle there were eleven men, including the boss ; ten men at
thirty dollars per month ; the boss one hundred dollars ; pro
visions one hundred dollars per month ; six horses to each
man. This caused an outlay of five hundred a month to move
a herd of three thousand cattle, four hundred and fifty to five
hundred miles. Briefly speaking, it cost not to exceed three
thousand dollars to drive three thousand head of cattle from
Southern Texas to Montana. Mr. Pryor's last drive was in
1884, when he drove fifteen herds of three thousand each, a
total of forty-five thousand head, disposed of them to the
ranchers to re-stock their ranges in the land at the end of the
trail. Mr. Pryor said his loss that year was fifteen hundred
head, or three per cent.
Today it would cost twenty-five thousand dollars to ship
three thousand head of cattle from South Texas to Montana,
by rail. Mr. Pryor is still in the cattle business on his ranch
of one hundred thousand acres at La Pryor, in Zavala County,
Texas. He carries about six thousand head of cattle. The
source frora which he still helps supply the empty feed lots. A
brief sketch of Mr. Pryor's life in the Old Trail drivers of
Texas reads more like fiction than facts. This history, "Old
Trail Drivers of Texas," can be secured from Fred Sanders,
San Antonio, Texas.
The ranch of Mrs. John Adair, in Randall and Brisco
Counties, comprises 700,000 acres and is one of the best
ranches in Texas. This great ranch was established by
Charlie Goodnight, in 1876, and contained 1,000,000 acres. In

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
1877 Mr. Goodnight sold a two-thirds interest to Mr. John
Adair. Mr. Goodnight said in the early days of the ranch
it cost him more to herd the buffalo off his ranch than it did
to herd the cattle on it. They were the first to introduce the
Herefords in that part of the State. In 1884 they purchased
from Finch, Lord and Nelson, forty registered Hereford bulls.
Today thousands of white-faced calves are branded each year
on the ranch. After the death of Mr. Adair, Charles Good
night and Mrs. Adair dissolved partnership. Mrs. Adair
took two-thirds each of the land and cattle. She still owns
her part of the ranch, which is one of the great breeding
ranches of high-grade cattle in Northwest Texas.
THE RANCH THAT HARKS BACK TO THE OLD
DAYS— THE GOODNIGHT RANCH
Charlie Goodnight is still in the cattle business, having
been closely identified with the cattle industry in Texas since
1856, having first engaged in the range cattle business, when
he was only nineteen years old. He has witnessed the trans
formation of Texas from a wilderness, when thousands of
buffalo and wild horses roamed at will over the vast unoccu
pied prairies. When Northwest Texas was the guarded hunt
ing grounds of the Commanche, and the wild longhorn was in
the heyday of his existence. To the Texas of today, taken as
a whole, one of the greatest States of diversified farming in
the Union. Mr. Goodnight is engaged in breeding Buffalo
Polled Angus cattle, Cattalo and Karakule sheep.. On his
ranch near Goodnight, the town that was named after hira,
in Armstrong County, Texas. Mr. Goodnight is much inter
ested in raising a cross-breed. A cross between a buffalo
and the Angus cattle. He has hopes of producing a breed of
hardy cattle that will replace the Herefords. An animal car
rying buffalo blood never eats loco, never has blackleg, or
drifts before a storm. They live to a great age ; they have the
extra ribs of the buffalo and when butchered will dress as
high as sixty-eight per cent. A buffalo cow thirty years old
was butchered on the Goodnight ranch, dressed nine hundred
and sixty pounds.

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THE TRANSFORMATION
The first cattle to invade the vast and trackless plains
of the Old West. The longhorn has, with his native range
companion, the buffalo, disappeared from his native heath.
The cattle that first raade Texas famous as the home of the
longhorn has gone forever. In his place has been substituted
that great beef breed, the Hereford, the pride of modern in
telligent breeding, that sorae day will onece more make Texas
famous. This tirae it will be known as the horae of the
"Whiteface." The great beef empire of the Southwest. The
day when no one paid any attention to breed, when the only
requisites were four legs, two horns, a hide and a tail, has
also passed with the scrub, since men have learned that it
costs no more to produce an animal that will respond quickly
to good treatment and will weigh as much at two years old
as the scrub would at four years old. As a natural result in
keeping with the economic condition of the country and the
great transition that has taken place in the range cattle in
dustry. Now the "Whiteface" is seen in thousands, from the
Cimarron to the Rio Grande.
To Judge O. H. Nelson, widely known as "Bull Nelson,"
more than any other man, is due the credit for putting a bet
ter grade of cattle on the Panhandle ranches. Between 1881
and 1888, Judge Nelson drove ten thousand of the best bulls
he could buy and sold them to ranchmen in Northwest Texas.
The cattle men have never forgotten his service to the indus
try, so they call him "Bull Nelson," to keep in memory that
service. In speaking of Charlie Goodnight, Col. Nelson said
they had enjoyed a long friendship, owing to the fact that in
the early days they were next door neighbors. Their houses
being only forty miles apart and none in between. That makes
us think kindly of those pioneer mothers of the range, who
bore with fortitude the many hardships of frontier life.
Among other ranchers still in the ranks of the cattle
ranchers are the Chowden Ranch, the Scarbaur Cattle Com
pany, and the ranch of the Nelson Morris Company, com
prising 250,000 acres all of Midland, and the ranch of George
Walcott, of Big Springs.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

THE SPUR RANGE
The passing of the Spur Ranch from one of the great
breeding ranches of Texas to the farmer. The home of the
hog, the land of the pumpkin, cotton and corn, has removed
from the ranks of the cattle breeders one of the most re
nowned cattle ranches in Texas. The Spur Brand was known
to every cowboy from the head of the Brazos to the end of
the trail. I am indebted to Mr. Charles A. Jones, manager
for S. M. Swenson & Sons, Spur Dickens County Texas, for
this brief review of early days of the ranch. The inception of
the Spur Brand was in the Hall cattle brought from the Cim
arron, New Mexico, in 1878. The Espuela Cattle Corapany
was organized in 1882, and in the year 1884 was absorbed by
the Espuela Land and Cattle Company, Limited, of London,
a Scotch-English Syndicate. The ranch originally comprised
approximately 500,000 acres in Dickens, Kent, Crosby and
Garza Counties, Texas. In the early days of the ranch, ap
proximately 80,000 head of cattle were run, and as many as
18,000 calves were branded in a single year. In 1907 the Spur
Ranch, both land and cattle, was purchased by S. M. Swenson
& Sons, and Charles A. Jones, formerly with Armour & Com
pany, at Kansas City, succeeded to the management of the
properties. In 1910 the Spur cattle were sold to W. J. Lewis,
of Clarendon, and the land put on the market in lots to suit
the purchaser. One-half of the great ranch has been sold and
its adaptability for agricultural purposes has passed beyond
the experimental stage. The former owner made a great suc
cess in the cattle business under the old system and it has
been proven that the farmer can and will make a success here
with the present system of diversified farming.
The town of Espuela, a Spanish word meaning "Spur,"
is located on the ranch and is the terminus of the Stanford
and Northwestern Railway, affording ample shipping fa
cilities.
THE "S. M. S." RANCH AT STANFORD, TEXAS
In the sixties a young man just out of college and a com
panion went on a sailing trip to the Gulf of Mexico. There on

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

'¦¦^ ¦ V IB - -— *. " ****** T "S I '^ *^ JM-
H**"^ . '^" I*'"" "-¦<« ^Kt k^fVf ' * '¦ "^

JT

.•ft*- Si "¦-.'¦

-:#a,^^r"- .. . . "^^-^h

AN EARLY DAY RANCH "HEADQUARTERS."
Up to the 90's this sort of "Dug Out" camp was very common. Many a wife
of some now prosperous cowman went as a bride to this sort of home.
the coast of Texas, the boat was wrecked and the two young
raen decided to return by prairie schooner across Texas,
against the advice of the residents in the town from which
they started. They set off through the hostile Indian coun
try and after many hardships arrived safely at their destina
tion. One of those ship-wrecked boys was E. P. Swenson,
the founder of the great "S. M. S." Ranch. In 1882, Mr.
Swenson began the fencing and developraent of the ranch.
From his first inspection of the land he has advised against
selling it, claiming a good portion of it was good agricultural
land. Tirae and conditions have proven the wisdom of his
judgment. In 1920, Mr. Swenson secured the services of Frank S.
Hastings. Mr. Hastings was no novice in the game of judging
Herefords. He had had years of training under the critical
eye of the late Kirkland B. Armour, of Armour & Company,
Kansas City, a real lover of the Herefords, and having been
associated in a business way with that great judge of Here
fords, Mr. Simpson, of Gudgell & Simpson, of Independence,

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
Missouri, coupled with his natural ability and love for cattle,
made Mr. Hastings a valuable acquisition to the "S. M. S."
Ranch. Born in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, then the gate
way to the Old West, on the border lands of the range, where
he could sit on the back fence of his father's farm and watch
the passing herds of Texas cattle being driven North in
search of a market. Thus the very environments surrounding
Frank Hastings' boyhood days, naturally caused him to take
to cattle like a duck to water. Mr. Hastings has kept in view
the new conditions confronting cattle raisers today, that have
in part been brought about by the natural process of industrial
evolution and the general inability to buy, has had a depress
ing effect on all classes of business. Cattle men today are
confronted with the necessity of adapting their business to
a pattern that more closely fits into the economic conditions
found in the locality in which their interest lie. Through rare
foresight and intelligent selecting of the best, Mr. Hastings
has developed one of the very best herds of Hereford cattle
in America. The great "S. M. S." Ranch comprises 450,000
acres and is the most unique cattle ranch in the world. The
only ranch of which I have any knowledge that does a mail
order business in cattle. Where there is no scrub and every
buyer has the same chance on an even basis. There is no
choice nor no picking. Yearling bred at the "S. M. S." Ranch
from the feed lot of Dan D. Casement, Manhattan, Kansas.
Weight 1161 pounds, dressing 64.41 per cent; demonstrating
what good breeding will do and proof that the days of the
baby beef has arrived.
One of the greatest ranches in the Southwest is the.
Matador, whose fame extends far beyond the confines of our
own country. Mr. H. H. Campbell, the founder of this great
ranch, was engaged in cattle ranching in Ellis County, Texas,
from 1865 to 1878. Mr. Campbell was one of the pioneers in
the range cattle business when Texas had thousands of cattle
but no market ; when the rugged pioneers of the range sought
the markets of New Orleans, Havana and the Government
posts in the Indian country, and the mining towns beyond the
unsettled Indian country to the far West. Mr. Campbell
drove through to New Orleans in the early days, using pack
horses, before the days of the chuck wagon, and drove to the
mining towns of California, across a wild and hostile Indian

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
country. In 1878, Mr. Campbell found the limits of his range
being narrowed by the invasion of the settler and having long
had visions of a cattle ranch on a big scale, he sought the aid
of someone having the raeans to assist him in carrying out
his idea of a big cattle ranch. Meeting with Mrs. Britton,
Lomax and Nucholds, bankers of Fort Worth, and Mr. Cato,
of New York. He interested them in helping finance the en
terprise. He then started out to look for a location. Measur
ing up to his idea of what a big breeding ranch should be in
regard to natural resources. He first sought the Davis River,
and Concho country. Turning them down on account of not
sufficient rainfall. He then turned to the head waters of the
Brazos River, where he found the choice locations already
occupied by Jess Pliston, Jim Reed, Jim Newman and others.
He pushed on farther north to the Peace River country, where
he found his ideal of a ranch location, where could be had a
million acres or more in one solid body. With all the natural
resources, good turf, sufficient rainfall to insure grass, run
ning creeks, free of bog holes, where the Indians had been
driven back and the buffaloes killed off except a few strag
glers. Mr. Campbell picked Ballard Springs, a famous buf
falo camp, for the headquarters location, it being about the
center of the range he wished to cover. The camp was occu
pied by Joe Browning, whom he bought out for a small sum,
and there in August, 1879, located the headquarters of the
faraous Matador Ranch. The company was organized with
a fifty thousand dollar capital. The company consisted of
the four partners mentioned, Mr. Campbell rnaking the fifth.
Each subscribed ten thousand dollars. A. M. Britton was
elected the first president ; S. W. Lomax, secretary and treas
urer, with H. H. Campbell, general manager. The first cattle
bought was from John Dawson, of Fort Worth, their range
on the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos, and branded
"V." These cattle were counter branded "50M," which rep
resented the capital stock of the company. The "50" is still
the horse brand. The cattle brand was changed to "V" in
1881. Their second buy was the Berry cattle of Buffalo Gap,
in Taylor County. The third buy was the famous Jingle Bob
cattle from Coggin and Willey. These cattle were named
from the ear mark. The ear being cut so it hung down and
flapped. Their range was in Southern Motley County, which

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

95

THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
became part of the Matador range. They next bought the
"T. 4 I." cattle of Huston Brothers, and Lemour. The last
two buys cleared the desired range of small ranchmen and
left the way opened for the building of one of the most noted
cattle ranches in the world. The late J. L. Harrison was fore
man for the Matadors for several years and at the time of his
death was quite prominent in the cattle business. J. H. Smith,
now a prominent citizen of Motley County, came to the Mata
dors with the Dawson cattle and was one of the trusted and
most successful trail bosses from Texas to Montana. J. R.
Beasley, for years boss of the Matadors, now prominent citi
zen of McCulloch County. J. D. Harkey, for many years
sheriff and tax collector of Dickens County, came to the Mata
dors from Hall's Ranch. To show the kind of men these men
were, I will relate a little incident that happened while Harkey
and Beasley were working for Hall.
"H" and "B" were two neighbor ranchmen and agreed
to help each other work the range and brand the calves. "B"
did not let "H's" men know when he worked his range, went
ahead and branded his calves, then sent raen down to work
"H's" range and get his calves and other cattle there. Some
time previous to that, there had been a herd of South Texas
cattle driven through "H's" range, causing a heavy loss of
cows from fever, leaving a great raany of "H's" calves mother
less on his range. These men knew that "H" would fire them
if they let "B's" men work the range with all these mother
less calves still unbranded and they expected they would get
fired if they did not let "B's"' men get their cattle, as "H" and
"B" were good friends, so they figured it was a case of get
ting fired either way and they had rather get fired for doing
their duty, so they went to the camp where others of "H's"
men were camped and told them how the land lay. Van
Lenard, Jim Jones, Harkey and Beasley and others of "H's"
men decided to put "B's" men off the range. They realized
it was a man's sized job, but it was their duty to do it, so
they went ahead and accomplished their purpose. Sure
enough, "H" fired the whole outfit for doing their duty as
they saw it in defense of his own property. George Walker,
one of their most popular bosses died on the range. His
funeral service was read by one of the boys. Mrs. Campbell
selecting a chapter in the Bible suitable for the occasion.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
J. D. Stacker, at one time boss of the ranch, now a prominent
citizen of Floyd County, was one of the first raen hired on the
ranch. One of the best and most popular. Dad Lenard, the
human landmark of the range, one of the first line riders of
Matadors' before the days of the fence, is now a prominent
citizen of Motely County, and can still trail a bunch of horses
or cattle across the prairie where most people could not see
a track. These men were of the old cowboy stock that would
stand by right at all hazzards, at all times, and under any and
all circumstances. The improvement and development of the
ranch was carried out under most unfavorable conditions. The
nearest railroad depot being the T. P. at Fort Worth, a dis
tance of three hundred miles. The supplies were all hauled
from there the first year. Mr. Campbell was fortunate in be
ing able to get the lumber for the first house on the ranch, and
the first in the country at Fort Griffin, a distance of one hun
dred and fifty miles, over a country without a road. The house
consisted of two rooms, twelve feet square and was first occu
pied by Mr. and Mrs. Campbell. By the spring of 1881, the
Texas Pacific Railroad had built out to Colorado City, a dis
tance of one hundred and twenty miles from the ranch, and
that was the shipping point for a nuraber of years. In 1881
the first child was born to Mr. and Mrs. Carapbell, a son, and
the doctor was brought from Fort Griffin, one hundred and
fifty miles, for the occasion. The only other lady in the
county was a Mrs. A. B. Cooper, who lived twenty miles
away ; far from civilization and the soothing presence of
woman companions. Mrs. Campbell lived the only guardian
angel of their frontier home. Often it was necessary to leave
her entirely alone. A little incident happened during one of
those lonely moments that in after life was the cause for niany
a ^mile when looking backward over the hazardous trail of
time. Mrs. Campbell, being alone and lonely and not at the
moment realizing the distance they had to go for supplies,
traded all the flour on the ranch to a west-bound mover for
a dog. The result was the ranch was without bread for two
weeks. Such was life in the far West.
In sickness and accidents when the boys felt the need and
sothing influence of a mother's ,care, she was ever present to
bind their wounds, striving to allay the pain as only a mother
could Is it any wonder that some of the boys justly called

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
her the mother of the range? In 1883 the Matador Cattle Com
pany sold out to a Scotch syndicate, which organized the
Matador Land and Cattle Company. Mr. H. H. Campbell
being retained as manager. The old company turned over
forty or fifty thousand head of cattle to the new company,
but little land as most of the range was free State land. Soon
after the transfer of the cattle to the new company, Mr.
Campbell, with their co-operation, began to grade up the cattle
and buy the land, and as a consequence the company was
soon owners of one million acres of land in Motley, Dickens,
Floyd and Cottle Counties, and a much improved herd of
grade cattle. Between 1885 and 1888, they reached their
maximum production. Branding from eighteen to twenty-
five thousand calves a year and were running approximately
100,000 cattle on the range and employed from one hundred
and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty men. In order to
keep up the high production it was necessary to find a matur
ing ground for the steer cattle and in line with the other great
producing ranches of Texas, made use of the greatest of all
cattle trails. The trail from Texas to the maturing grounds
of Wyoming and Montana, where they drove thousands of
head of stock every year until the close of the trail. By 1889
the settlers were drifting into the country and filing on the
school lands, thereby narrowing the great ranges down to
the limits of the wire fence. Motley County was organized in
1891 and Mr. Campbell elected judge, and severed his con
nection with the Matador Land and Cattle Company, and
was succeeded by Mr. Murdo McKenzie.
Mr. J. M. Jackson and John McBain are the present man
agers of the Matadors, still one of the greatest breeding
ranches in the United States. I am indebted to Mr. Harry H.
Campbell, feeder and breeder of cattle at Matador, Texas,
for data pertaining to the Matadors. He was born on the
ranch and grew up with it. A son of the founder, he saw the
ranch grow from its early days to be one of the greatest cattle-
breeding ranches in the world. Texas is the cradle of the
range cattle industry of the United States. Her ranges have
stood more grazing than all the rest of the States combined
and shows the least effect. Today she stands pre-eminent
as the beef cattle nursery of America. There is the source
from which flowed from 300,000 to 500,000 young steers every

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JOHN JACKSON. SENIOR FOREMAN.
MATADOR RANCH
year for twenty-eight years through the gateways. Dodge
City and Ogallala the distributing points to the maturing
grounds of the North, where they were grazed to maturity,
to at last find a market at the great centers of population.
THE GREAT CHICAGO MARKETS
The lack of a market was by far the greatest drawback
to the early Texas cattle ranchers. The vast plains country
offered little inducement to agriculture owing to its remote
ness from the markets. The great stretches of prairie and
plains were best suited to the grazing of cattle. The opening
of the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, in 1865, removed from
the brow of the range cattle ment the great overhanging cloud
of doubt and uncertainty of a market and gave them hope
and encouragement. It was this always ready market sys
tem acting as a stimulus that made possible the expanding
of the great range cattle industry in a few years to the outer

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limits of the vast free ranges of the West. By the early
seventies the Chicago live stock market was as it stands today,
the commercial head of the vast live stock industry of the
United States. The fact that the Chicago live stock market
continues year after year to maintain its remarkable su
premacy, notwithstanding the Western advance of popula
tion and agricultural development and the existence of other
live stock markets nearer to Chicago's Western sources of
supply, is to her superior advantages of geographical loca
tion. Magnificent transportation and local facilities and
greater inducements in every way for both buyers and sellers
of live stock to meet and trade with the most satisfactory re
sults to all concerned. No better recommendation of the
Chicago market could be shown than the fact of this constant
free competition in daily buying of live stock and the con
clusion is inevitable that it is at once the best market for
both producer and consumer. The market where the pro
ducer can get the best prices for his live stock and where the
consumer can get the best and cheapest meats and other
animal products. Chicago's immense patronage tells a story
of general satisfaction.
No market in the country can offer to producers and
shippers o live stock no such great advantages as are found
at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. In 1913 Chicago butch
ered 2,886,456 cattle, and Kansas City butchered 2,318,855
head of cattle, and eraployed men, women and girls to the
grand total of 33,410 in that great industry. Today ten mil
lion potential readers receive the bureau of markets, live
stock, and meat reports every day. The various press asso
ciations place a high value upon the accuracy and unbiased
nature of the bureau's reports and every day a 110- word live
stock report, prepared by the bureau, is dispatched from each
of the five leading live stock markets to thousands of news
papers over the leased wire circuits of these associations. The
commercial telegraph companies have a special market report
ing service, known as the "C. N. D." The subscription lists
of the mimeographed reports contain 10,000 names of pro
ducers, co-operative organizations, dealers and others. To
make possible the service outlined above which members of
the trade affirm is the best service of its kind yet available,
the live stock and meat divisions, maintain eight branch offices

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in the eight largest live stock and fresh meat centers in the
United States. At Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, St. Paul,
the National Stock Yards in Illinois, New York, Boston and
Philadelphia. Trained market reports and telegraphers are
located and at stated periods each morning designated re
ports of market conditions are released. These branches are
connected with each other and with the Washington office
by leased wire, approximately 2,375 miles of wire extending
from Boston in the East to St. Paul in the North, and Kansas
City and East St. Louis in the South. Thus linking five of
the largest live stock markets and four of the greatest meat
consuming centers in the country. The news is bulletined as
fast as it comes over the wire. Producers, shippers, traders
and consumers consult these boards constantly and are kept
informed of movements, prices and general trade conditions in
the kind of live stock or dressed meat in which they are in
terested. The Chicago Live Stock Market is by far the most
important live stock center in the world. Here an average of
3,000,000 dollars of business is transacted every business day
and except for temporary local conditions, prices at raost of
the other live stock markets throughout the United States
are largely based. While the census of 1910 showed our
available beef cattle, other than milk cows, was 41,198,434.
In 1920 our edible live stock was 23,321,000, milk cows
42,870,000 other cattle, and 45,067,000 sheep, and approxi
mately 66,650,000 swine. During 1920 more than 100,000,000
animals were slaughtered in the United States and dressed
meat, including lard, amounted to 20,500,000,000 pounds.
Stupendous as these figures are, still they probably fail to
bring home to most of us what they stand for in measures of
foodstuffs. Revealing as they do, how much it takes to nour
ish this nation and have besides a surplus of some comrnodi-
ties or export. The above figures show only a small increase
in our beef cattle other than milk stock for the past ten years,
while from 1900 to 1910 our population increased twenty-one
per cent. While it is true for several years we have been eat
ing less meat than previously, substituting larger quantities
of other food stuffs, drinking more milk and using more
cereals. Dietitians tell us that the change is better for our
bodies and for our purses. But dietitians have not proven
that the human race can well get along without meat any

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more, especially without beef. Here in the West we have
one of the most rugged and intelligent races of manhood and
womanhood in the world and the people have always been
large consumers of beef.
During the war and since the scarcity and high prices of
meat the under-nourishment of the children and rising gen
eration reached an alarming state. Recent investigations
have proven that it was for the lack of that great food product
— beef — that was the main cause for that under-nourishment.
We have in the past been able to look beyond the frontier of
cultivation to new and untouched lands, ready to supply the
landless farmer with a homestead. As the homesteader en
croached on the domain of the cattle rancher, the rancher
moved on West to new pasture. To-day that untouched re
serve has disappeared. The vast free range of a few decades
ago is now in the hands of the homesteader. The cattle
ranger is now at the end of the trail, there are no other lands
to conquer. I am indebted to Milt Hinkle for the information that the
last roundup on outside range in the Southwest was in the
spriug of 1907, in Chavis County, New Mexico. The roundup
was thrown together at the old round grounds by the Four
Lakes, where they thrwed together about thirty thousand
head of mixed cattle. In order to work the herd they cut it
into four roundups or bunches. There was approximately
seven hundred head o saddle horses at that roundup. Hinkle
has worked all over the range country, at one tirae worked for
the great Duggan Ranch in the Argentine Republic, South
America. That outfit claimed to have over one million head
of cattle and horses.
The roundup just mentioned in the Four Lakes County,
New Mexico, was said to have been the last big roundup in
the West and chronicled the passing of the old open range
system. The great range cattle industry as it was a quarter
of a century ago is no longer possible.
Nevada and Wyoming, with a few open spots in New
Mexico and Arizona, were the last to shed the hide of the Old
West. The last to cling to the vanishing remnant of old
open cow range. The great fenced ranges of Texas, pre
viously mentioned, will be the source from which the feed
lots of the corn belt \yill be filled in the future. After just

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passing through three of the hardest, most depressing years in
the history of the range cattle business, when it looked for a
while like one of the basic industries of the State would be
forced out of business, Texas last fall, 1921, was quoted as
having 4,500,000 range cattle out of a total of 66,191,000 of
all classes o cattle for the entire United States. Remarkable
showing under the circumstances. Some of the pioneers are
still living that took an active part in transforming Texas
from the range of the buffalo, and the hunting grounds of
the Commanche to the great agricultural and stock farming
empire of to-day. These men never know defeat — with every
rebuff they come back with renewed hope, wiser and better
fitted to cope with the economic conditions of the times.
These pioneers were a rugged set of men, well qualified for
the self-assumed task. They pushed the Aborigines back,
utilizing the country for what it was best adapted at that
time. The range cattle industry has seen its inception zenith
and partial extinction all within a half century. What was
the beef producing grounds of the West a few years back now
are being used for other purposes — whether practically and
intelligently or not, time will tell.
The history of the early day cowboy comes largely in
the way of stories of shootups and drunken brawls. It was
said that many of them had to leave their own country and
with that dare-deviltry sought the wild free life in which they
tried to live up to the reputation of being wild and woolly.
Often the rustler was a cow-puncher — he had to know the
business to do his thieving — so with many the idea of the cow
boy still suggests, helped by the movies, a rather tougfh bunch.
In a very small per cent of cases that was so. But in a great
majority of cases of in a general sense, nothing could be
farther from the truth. I do not claim that they were all
perfect or without their faults, though comparatively few
were driven from some other country. The great majority of
them were natives of the Lone Star State. Those who were
not went because they wanted to go. They loved nature and
the wild free life of the open spaces and as a general rule
their word was good as any man's bond. They were honest
to a fault. If he had not have been, the great cattle industdy
of the West never could have existed as it did for the past
fifty years, and the great ranches in Texas that stand to-day

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a lasting monument to that virile type of Western manhood
would not exist.
It was through the honest co-operation of the old-time
cattle rancher and his cowboys with the trooper of the fron
tier posts and the ranger before the law came West, that
sounded the death knell to the rustler and the "Bad Injun,"
and made possible the rapid settlement of the West. The men
I have been associated with on the range and on the trail
were mostly of that good old type of cowboy that you could
depend on all the time. Till Driscoll, the boss for Schreiner
and Lytle, whom I went up the trail with in 1883, was killed
in Raton, New Mexico, in 1885. He died the death of a
typical cowpuncher, with his boots on. Till, like the rest of
us, had his faults, but there is one thing sure, he was as good
a trail boss as ever drove a herd over the old trail.
Gus Black of Eagle Pass, Texas, who for years drove for
Lytle and Schreiner, is one of the best known trail drivers in
Texas. He is still buoyant with drive, for time has dealt
lightly with him. W. J. Glenn, of Midland, Texas, who with
the "S. S." herds followed the long and dusty trail for years,
is enjoying life in Midland. Lytle and Schreiner, and Lytle
and McDaniel were at one time the largest drivers of cattle
from Texas to the Northern ranges.
Men of world-wide fame of whom it has been my good
fortune to meet on the cattle range, were the late Marquis
De Mores, of whose exploits I have just mentioned; the late
Theodore Roosevelt and Fredric Remington. The two last
I was better acquainted with. They rode the range with us
and lived in the open on the roundup and by the campfire.
Theodore Roosevelt become the beau ideal of the cowboys,
the uncrowned king o the plains. In the sumraer heat or
blast of the blizzard he lived in the open, hunting the grizzlies
or mountain sheep or goat, that finds its pasture at the sum
mit of the loftiest and most rugged peaks. He was ever a
leader by the stout merit that counted on the frontier. He
climbed the glooray heights of the Rockies and peered into
the dark ravine of the Sierras. Out of all came the Rough
Riders and the mighty results to him and the Nation.
To Fredric Remington more than any one else should be
given the credit for his part in helping to immortalize the
scene of the Old West. In his statuettes, the busted bronkie.

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and his paintings, Pony Tracks in the Buffalo Trails," and
others keep alive the stirring times of the Old Frontier.
Fredric Remington and Theodore Roosevelt were two men I
learned to love. They had a charm or fascination about them
that drew men to them. Mr. Remington was full of buoyant
humor. He liked nature and loved the rough and ready West.
I remember when in 1885, he was with us on the fall roundup
in West Dakota. We most always hunted the Sioux Reser
vation first to get what cattle, if any, had broken through
the line and drifted onto the reservation. We were working
back up the South Fork of the Cannon Ball. We hadn't
found any cattle. It was the object of the outfits bordering
on the reservation to prevent the cattle from drifting that
way and generally succeeded very well in keeping thera off
the reservation. One bright morning in September, our boss,
George Towers, said, "Mr. Remington wants to go with you."
I, Jirn Keen and Dock Lorance took the north side of the
river, Mr. Remington with us. The other boys rode the south
side. We rode a circle of about twenty miles, when nearing
the river we came onto the chuck wagon stuck in an alkali
bed. The wheel horses were lying down, the wagon was up
to the hubs in the gumbo. We unhitched the wheel horses
and hitched them ahead of the leaders to the end of the tongue.
By that time the other boys came up and we all tied on with
our saddle horses, some to the side of the wagon. When all
was ready and the word was given to go, my horse, being a
little too near the sink hole, in pulling stuck his hind legs
down in the gumbo up to his hocks. He reared straight up
when I released my delly to keep him from pulling himself
backwards. I let out a link, gut out on firm footing and we
took another pull at it and succeeded in pulling it out, very
much to the surprise of Mr. Remington. Some time after
wards T received a magazine with the picture showing my
horse reared on his hind legs, a real life-like picture. I could
very near recognize the boys. I was riding a dark bay horse
and the photo was very good of him and all the rest. That
time, the early fall of 1885, was the last time I ever met Mr.
Remington. Then the range cattle industry in the West had
about reached its zenith, though the great ranges were still
free Government land. The great human tide in a few years
after swept over the Western cattle range. Without the old

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and unsettled West the United States could not have been
what it is. The very nature of the country made men self-
reliant and produced a class o men of a distinct type — men
whose very nature was to be honest. They loved the wild
open spaces. They were fitted by nature to lead the advance
guard of civilization. They were the kind of men who filled
the grassy plains of the Southwest with cattle. Some of the
earlier pioneers were engaged in cattle ranching in Texas
when they threw off the galling yoke of Mexican rule and
raised on high the bonny blue flag, the emblem of the Lone
Star State. Luxuriant grasses grew all over the unfenced,
miles of prairie and plain, under such favorable conditions
their herds increased. The one great handicap was the lack
of a market. Their very remoteness from the centers of popu
lation and the thinly settled condition of the border States
made the finding of a market for their beeves a most difficult
problem. They sought the nearest Eastern market at New
Orleans and the Government Posts and the mining towns to
the west. Distance was not considered a factor those days,
the whole country west and north was one vast stretch of free
range, the home of the buffalo, the hunting grounds of the
Indians, and the Longhorn was capable of furnishing his own
transportation. They could graze their beeves all the way to the back
doors of border towns and reach their markets in fine cnodi-
tion. The old-timers gradually pushed on to the North and
by the late sixties and in the early seventies had found a mar
ket at Baxter Springs and Abilene, Kansas. Some drove
through to Independence and Kansas City, Missouri. Thus
driving their beeves to market made the opening up of the
Great Texas Cattle Trail to the North an absolute necessity
to insure the life and expansion of the range cattle industry.
Later, when Texas was producing an over surplus of
Longhorn cattle, thousands of head more than they could
carry through to profitable maturity, without greatly reduc
ing their breeding sock. It was at this period that the trail
was pushed on North, to the distributing points of Dodge
City and Ogallala, where the Northern ranchers met the trail
herds from Texas and purchased their yearling and two-year-
aid steer cattle to stock he untouched bunch grass ranges of
the North. There was the origin of the Great Texas Cattle

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Trail, that led from the Rio Grande, to the British Northwest.
Across six Sates including the Indian Nation. The longest,
most famous cattle trail known to history. Those days the
wealth of the great Empire State of Texas was in he cattle
and that 2000-mile stretch of trail was the outlet or the artery
through which flowed from 1867 to 1887, over 20,000,000 head
of cattle to the markets and the maturing grounds of the Norh-
west. Ever since Moses, the first trail boss, led he children
of Israel with their flocks and herds out of bondage into the
happy land of Canaan, the cow or her kind has been in the
front ranks of advancing civilization. It was the ox team of
the traders and trappers and those of the intrepid missionaries
and the Augonauts of 1836 and 1844, who pointed the way for
the mightiest human migration of the world's history. Fol
lowed by the Mormons in 1846, who settled in the Salt Lake
Valley, and founded the Great Salt Lake City, the first per
manent settlement in the West, beween the Missouri River
and the Pacific Ocean. Then in 1849 came the ox teams of
the gold seekers of California. They followed the Oregon
Trail for more than a thousand miles from Independence to
the big bend of the Bear River in Southern Idaho and con
tended for possession of the single trail then existing with the
still passing throng to Oregon. In later years parallel trails
were worn deep for long distances as the multitudes jostled
each other on their weary Westward journey. The world-
famed Oregon Trail led through the South Pass of the Rocky
Mountains, while the great emigrant trail of the gold seekers
of "Forty-nine," crossed the Sierras through Emigrant Gap,
the natural gateway to the Pacific. This great Westward
trail is without its parallel of picturesque scenery, its tradegies
and legends of heroism that some day will lend a theme for
an imperishable epic to go down into history for all ages as
has already been the physical marks along the way to point
the spots where the multitudes passed, suffered and died.
The Old West with its romance of Forts, Indians, cattle
and cowboys, has passed ; with it has passed the spring round
up ahd the free, unfenced range. When the leader of the
circle moved away at the regular fox trot as the grey dawn
lit up the jagged peaks in the dism distance, followed by all
the cowboys of the roundup, he would drop them off in two's

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and three's to drive down canyon or creek. He would take
the outside, then far away in the distance we would see their
figures against the horizon as they followed the divide, the
furthest point of the morning circle. When the cattle were
bunched on the roundup grounds, we would change to our
trained cutting horses. Then we would see a great display
of horsemanship as they separated, a cow and calf or beef
steer from the main bunch to the cutout. The old-time cow
boy was a child of nature; his home was with the wagon, his
bed a roll of blankets, the blue sky for a canopy. He knew
every cow trail in the range country. He could converse with
a cow in her own language, wih the instinct of an Indian and
the resistance of an Anglo-Saxon. No day's ride was too long.
Now, his old home has vanished from the West, since the
pastured fence has encircled the cow range. The white-face
has taken the place of the Longhorn and the barbed wire fence
of civilization has criss-crossed the cattle trail. Ever since
man took his first tottering upward step toward civilized life,
the cow has been in the front ranks of his advancement. All
down through the past ages along the trail of humans' up
ward progress has been noted the ever presence of that mother
of the human race. Her hoof-prints marked the trails that
pushed the star of empire West. Under the new evironment
domesticated cattle will go on through the ever-changing
lanes of time, supplying some of the essentials to life's prog
ress, health and happiness of the human race. Now as the
open spaces vanished a true type of the Western plains is
passing. The cowboy is afoot in the land at the end of the
trail. Where the "Red man" fought his last battle against
the onward march of the "Paleface." Where the buffalo
made his last stand against the cruel slaughter of the hide
hunter. Now the whistle o the locomotive has drowned the
howl of the lobo wolf. The cow pony is turned loose in the
big pasture. The mount of the fence rider is branded
"FORD."
The pioneers did their part and it is reasonable to assume
that poserity will successfully solve each problem as it pre
sents itself. Nature has done rauch for huraanity in this vast
region and humanity has ever manifested an ability to make
the raost of nature's lavishness.
The Great Texas Cattle Trail lingers only in our mem-

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cries of the past as the trail over which thousands of cattle
and hundreds of cowboys were transplanted from he mesquite
grass range of the Pecos to the bunch grass range of the
Yellowstone. THE OLD FRONTIER
(Frank B. Linderman, in Scribner's Magazine)
Adown the trail with the buffalo herds
And the tribes of the warlike Sioux
Are the roundup ways of the cowboy days
And the old chuck wagon, too.
The trapper sleeps and the packer's gone
With the coach and the bronco team,
And the bunch grass range is growing strange
To the lonely campfire's gleam.
The trails are dimming amon gthe hills ;
Old wallows on the plain
Are leveled now by the nester's plow
And there is no wagon train.
The bull team by old Time's corraled
O'er Custom's sharp divide,
And shades galore of thrilling lore
In its deep'ning thickets hide.
The trooper and the halfbreed scout,
In a history making mass,
With the pioneer and the old frontier
Have sifted through the pass.
But like echoes of the life we knew,
A love that's deep and strange
Is camping close to the fading host
As it crosses Mem'ry's range.
In closing this story of the Cattle Trail, it would be only
half told without mention of the pioneer mothers, who took
such an active part in civilizing the West. I can do no better
than quote the beautiful tribute to the pioneer mothers, writ-

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ten by Mr. Frank Hastings, manager of the great S. M. S.
Ranch at Stamford, Texas, who wrote in part:
"In Texas, perhaps, more than any other state, for a period
between 1865 and 1900, women knew greater hardships by
reason of the scant population of the cattle country. The
dangers which the early settlers passed through had their
horizon, but none greter than those of time of great personal
safety, and less companionship. The epitaph of the frontier
woman will never be written ; her part in bringing the wilds
into civilization, her mission in pushing forward the faltering
steps of man, the courage she gave him to fight on, no tongue
can tell, no pen portray. Far from the companionship of her
own sex, often without them, and without doctor in woman's
hour. She has left her impress upon the American nation,
that tells its story every day in high places in clean manhood,
and womanhood, in conception of duty and inherent knowl
edge of right and wrong.
The frontier woman is disappearing as the lonely wastes
vanish, but even in the improved environment she is yet one
of the sturdy glories of American motherhood.

THE DEAD PAST
Where once the old six-shooter spoke
The copper's billy swings;
The glamour o the past is broke
By laws an' rules an' things.
What once was roaring' dancin'-halls
A deadly silence wraps —
Since punchers took to overalls
Instead of spurs an' chaps.
The click of chips ain't heard no more ;
The raulette wheel don't whir;
The gamblin' joint's now a store.
An' things ain't what they were.
The games is done; the curtain falls
On faro, stud an' craps —
Since punchers took to overalls
Instead of spurs an' chaps.
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There ain't no gang comes whoopin' down
The middle of the trail,
A-shootin' up the little town
An' drivin' strangers pale;
We've done with all them oldtime brawls
An' crazy shootin' scraps —
Since punchers took to overalls
Instead of spurs an' chaps.
I s'pose the hull thing's fer the best;
And yet somehow I sigh
Fer that old rough-an'-ready West
I knew in days gone by.
It seems to me that life just crawls
An' all its joys collapse —
Since punchers took to overalls
Instead of spurs an' chaps. — Berton Braley.
THE SONG OF THE COWBOY
The cowboy ranger Symbol of the West,
His life of romance and daring no one can assail,
Drove savage and rustler from the land of the blessed.
Now afoot in the land by the end of the trail,
His pony must earn his keep by the sweat of its brow,
Never more stand guard in rain and the hail,
Never more will he follow the trail of the cow.
He must till the soil at the end of the trail,
Look far over younder just nearing the crest.
That many colored something part hid in the vale.
Like a long slender ribbon stretching far to the West,
'Tis the last lone herd at the end of the trail.
Where he buffalo roamed in his halcyon days,
The elk roamed the mountains,
And the valleys were blessed.
Where the lobo wolf prowled and the antelope grazed,
In a land of wonders, the dream of the West.
Oh, dear land, of Texas where my boyhood days
In rounding up the cattle we never would fail.
The home of the longhorn where the mustang grazed.

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And was driven with the cattle to the end of the trail.
Here is to my comrades and dear land of the range.
From the long dusty drive, we have changed to the rail.
Since the herds have departed the land is so strange.
May we meet over there by the end of the trail.
—By J. L. Hill.
THE COW-PONY OF THE WESTERN PLAINS
Cortes landed at Tobasco in 1519, with the first horses
ever brought to America. To men of all ages the horse of
Northern Africa has been the standard of worth, beauty and
speed. It was bred for the purpose o war and raised under
the raost favorable cliraatic conditions, and its descendants
have infused their blood into all the strains wihch we regard
as valuable. The Moors, stocked Spain with this horse, and
the so-called Spanish horse is more Moorish than otherwise.
It is fair to presume that the lightly armored Cavaliers of the
sixteenth century, during the Spanish conquests of America,
rode this animal, which had been so long domesticated in
Spain in preference to the inferior northern horse. To this
day the pony of the Southwestern plains shows many points of
the Barbary horse to the exclusion of all other breeding. In
contemplating the gradual adjustment of the Spanish pony
of the Southwest to his environment, no period more com
mends itself than that of the time from the Spanish invasion
of Mexico to the present day. The lapse of four generations
and the great variety of dissimilar conditions have so changed
the American bronco from his Spanish ancestor that he now
enjoys a distinctive individuality. This individuality is also
subdivided, and as all types come from a common ancestry
the reasons for this varied development are sought with in
terest, though I fear not always with accuracy. Cortes left
Cuba on his faraous expedition with 16 horses which were
procured from the plantations of the island at great expense.
As a raatter of course these horses did not contribute to the
stocking of the conquered country for they all laid down their
lives to make another page of military history in the annals
of he Barbary horse. Subsequent importations must have re
plenished the race. Possibly the dangers and expense attend
ant on importation did not bring a very high grade of horses

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from Spain, though I am quite sure that no sane Don would
have preferred a coarse-jointed weight carrier for use on the
hot sands of Mexico to a light, supple Barb which would
recognize in the sand and heat of his new world home, an
exact counterpart of his African hills.
As the Spaniards worked north in their explorations they
lost horses by the adverse fortunes of war and by their stray
ing and being captured or stolen by Indians. At a very early
date the wild horse was encountered on the plains of Mexico.
But a long time elapsed before he was found in the North.
La Salle found the Comanches with .Spanish goods and also
horses in their possession but on his journey to Canada it was
with great difficulty that he procured horses from the Indians
farther North. In 1680, about the time of La Salle's experi
ence in he South, Father Hennepin lived with the Sioux, and
marched and hunted the buffalo on foot. The Comanches
boast that they remmebered when the Arapahoes, to the
north, used dogs as beasts of burden. That horses were lost
by the early Spanish explorers and ran in a wild state over
the high, dry plains of Mexico and Texas there is no doubt.
And as the conditions of life were favorable they raust have
increased rapidly. How raany years elapsed before the
Northern Indians procured these animals with which they are
so thoroughly identified is not easily ascertainable. The
Cheyenne Indians, who were well versed in tribal legend
which is rehearsed by the lodge fire in the long winter nights,
claim they have always had horses. I suspect this assertion
has its foundation in the vanity of their chivalier souls, for he
Cheyenne legend runs very smoothly and has paleface
corroboration back to a period when we know that they could
not have had horses. Only on the Southern plains did the
Spanish pony reach his most typical American developraent.
The earliest pioneers even before 1812, found thousands
of wild horses running on the vast unsettled prairies and
plains of Texas and Mexico. Their range extended from the
eastern line of Texas to the Staked Plains on the west and
from Mexico to the hne of Colorado on the north. These wild
ponies, known as Mustangs, were more numerous even in the
early days on the Upper Trinity, the Concho, and the Brazos
Rivers, though they were found on the prairies all over East
ern Texas in scattered bands.

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As the pioneers advanced the wild horse moved farther
back frora the haunts of man. He sought the farthest Western
plains. Far out on the waterless Llano Estakado and the
head of the Colorado and the Canadian Rivers. There he
roamed in thousands, until the advancing lines of the white
man drove him from the Western plains.
It was from these wild herds that the Indians secured
their horses before the paleface crossed the Big Muddy. One
of their favorite methods of capturing the wild mustangs
was one they learned from the Mexicans. In summer most of
the creeks in Texas dry up, water standing in holes. The
Indians would find where wild horses were watering near a
tree standing on the bank of the creek which was often the
case in Eastern and Central Texas. Then they would spread
the loop of their lariat or rawhide rope near the edge of the
water and secure the other end to the tree then one of their
number would climb the tree and hide among the branches
and wait for the animals, when one of the animals stepped
into the loop the Indian would give the rope a quick jerk and
tighten it around the leg. Once secured they would side line
it or tie one fore foot and a hind foot together about two feet
apart and put ropes enough on it to hold it, slowly but surely
they would work it to their camp and by constant work with
it and starvation, would ultimately subdue it. The early
pioneers of Texas found numerous herds of these wild horses
running wild on the prairies. It was from this stock, secured
from the Mexicans, that the early cattle rancher got his cow
ponies. The Mexicans of the Indian-infested frontier kept
their ponies close herded ; they lived where they located their
ranches. They took some pains in breeding as they desired
good horses, and selected their stallions in order to produce
them. From this Spanish stock sprang the famed Texas cow
pony. The Spanish horse nof Northern Mexico was the pro
genitors of the American bronco. Most of the early ranchers
in Texas raised hundreds of these ponies, running loose on the
prairies, they would round them up and brand the increases,
and break them to saddle, buckboard, or plough as needed.
Thousands were disposed of to the ranchers in Arkansas,
Louisiana, and Missouri. There were men in Texas engaged
in dealing in horses exclusively. At one time these ponies
could be bought in Mexico for four or fve dollars a head, even

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selling in Texas as low as seven dollars or less. When broken
and mated up they would bring frob $40 to $100 a span in St.
Louis or Chicago. Many of these ponies running loose on the
prairies of the Southwest strayed away or were run off by
some wild .stallion to his band of mustangs ; thus the wild
horses increased after the arrival of the pioneer.
As late as 1880, hundreds of these wild horses ranged
over the plains of Western Texas, Indian Territory and West
ern Kansas and Colorado. By that time their ranks were be
ing thinned. Like the buffalo and the wild Indian, they were
driven back before the fast advancing line of Anglo-Saxon
civilization. Like the buffalo, he was hunted for profit.
Though the same wasteful methods were never pursued, his
carcass was not let to putrify on the prairie or to becorae
food for the wolves, only in a very few instances. He was
tamed and adopted to the useful needs of manking.
The mustang hunter of the plains outfit consisted of a
chuck wagon and pony team to haul the grub and bedding,
ropes for corrals and other necessary trappings. A raan to
drive the wagon, cook and act as camp guard, and two or
three riders — ^generally four men in all. Each man would be
furnished with five or six of the very best Spanish horses
procurable, good rope horses. Often they would use a light
wagon or buckboard to haul water and grub along while fol
lowing the wild horses. Thus equipped they would go to the
range of the mustang. On finding a bunch they would, by
the aid of field glasses, follow them for days, keeping them
away from water as long as possible. When they would get
to water and quench their burning thirst the hunters would
have their gentle horses near and while the wild horses were
so full of water they would not run fast they would drive
them to a corral built purposely nearby. Often they would
find it necessary to kill the wild stallion, for these stallions
will fight to the last for their family and freedom. They rope
and throw them, hobble or side line the leaders, drive them
into the settlements where they would break thera.
Now the wild horse has also disappeared from the West.
He made his last fight for freedom in the rugged wilds of
Nevada where the remnant of the herd was caught in 1908.
The hunters used corrals; the country being broken they
could build their corrals in some canyon or narrow pass in

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
the mountains known to be the passageway of the mustangs.
To this corraj they would have a wing extending a half a raile
on each side of the gate, or entrance. Often the hunters would
have some gentle horses inside the wings. When they were
fortunate enough to head the mustangs in the right dierection
they could capture the whole herd. The wild horse is the
wildest animal in the world, and when one of those stallions
head for a certain country, or in a certain direction he would
go or die, and drive his bunch with hira. I have been told re
cently that there are a few wild horses yet running in that
wild desert country in Old Meico southwest of Nogales, Ari
zona. The golden age of the wild bronco ended some 40 or
50 years ago when the great tidal wave of Saxonism reached
his grassy plains. He was rounded up and brought under the
yoke by the thousands, and his glories departed. Here and
there a small band fled before man but their freedom was
hopeless. The act of subjugation was more implied than real. To
this day when the cowboy in the great fenced range in the
Southwest goes out and drives in a herd of broncos to the
corral there is little difference between the wild horse of old
and his enslaved progeny. Of course, the wild stallion is
always eliminated, and he alone was rseponsible for the awe
which a wild horse inspired. The home of the simon pure
wild horse was on the Southwestern plains and when he ap
peared elsewhere he had been transported there by man and
found his freedom later on. There was a horse in the Indian
Territory called the Cherokee pony, which is a peculiar animal
of low stature, generally piebald or spotted with a great pro
fusion of mane and tail. He is close set with head and legs
not at all of the bronco type and I am sure that his deriviation
is from the East, though some insist on classing him with our
Western ponies. The most favorable place to study the pony
is in an Indian camp as the Indians rarely defeat the ends of
nature in the matter of natural selection. The ponies are
allowed to eat the very greenest grass they can find in the
summertime, and to chew on a cottonwood log in winter with
perfect indifference on the part of their owners. The pony
is thus a reflex of nature, and coupled with his surroundings,
is of quite as rauch interest as the stretch of prairie grass, the
white lodges, and the balnketed forms. The savage red man

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
in his great contest with nature learned, not to combat nature
but to observe her moods and to prepare a simple raeans of
escape. He put up no hay for the winter but relied on the
bark of the cottonwood for fodder. The writer has witnessed
the Indan's treatment of his ponies in winter. I have seen the
Sioux build a brush corral around their ponies out of green
cottonwool brush and poles in dead of winter, when two feet
of snow covered the ground. That was all they had to eat.
After a night's enclosure in their brush corral, they would
have the bark eaten off of everything in reach.
Before the early grass starts in the spring the emaciated
appearance of one of these little ponies in the far Norhwest
will sorely try the feelings of any lover of the equine race. But
when the young, tender grass does shoot out, the pony scours
the trash .which composes his winter diet, sheds his matted
hair, and in a month shines forth another horse ready to fly
over the grassy plains wih his savage master, or drag the
travois, and pack the buxom squaw. The Indian cayuse is
generally roan in color with always a tendency this way. In
height he is about 14 hands and while not possessed of the
activity of the Texas pony, some say he has more power.
From my own observations I am quite sure the Texas pony
will stand more hard riding than the Indian cayuse, while both
are supposed o have descended from the same ancestral
source, the different environment under which they have been
reared for generations has made of the Texas Spanish pony a
superior horse for hard riding. Like the trained athlete inured
to carrying the heavy cowboy saddle, and rider, has produced
in the Texas cow pony a weight carrier with few equals if
any, and none superior.
The Indian always close-herded or staked his ponies
while the Texas cow pony had more freedom running at large,
on the range, when not in use. Some expect to find in the
Indian pony of old, the bounding steed of romance. Do not
be deluded into expecting the arched neck, the graceful lines,
of the English hunter, for they are not there — they have
existed only on paper. He may be all that the wildest en
thusiast may claim in point of hardihood, but he is not beau
tiful. His head and neck join like the two parts of a hammer.
his legs are as fine as a deer's, though not with the flat knee
cap and broad cannon bone of the English ideal. For a long

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
ride give me the old Texas cow pony. His greatest good
quahty is the ease with which he stands any amount of hard
riding over the trail. This is not because of any particular
power over the Eastern-bred horse, or the thoroughbred, but
because of his hard stomach. He eats no grain in the grow
ing stages of his life, and his stomach has not been forced
artificially to supply a system beyond the power of the
stomach to fill.

Old "Cabby," 22 years old, still in service. One of many cow
ponies 15 to 20 years old and still good. These old cowhorses are
usually fine cutting horses and are not given hard work. Old Cabby
has never failed to hold anything roped off of him. He is in Mr.
Holmberg's mount, but the manager has a pretty strong claim on
him and the boys say, ia foolish about him.

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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
The same general difference is noted between an Indian
and a white man. You may gallop the pony until your
thoroughbred would heave and thump and go wrong in a
dozen vital places, and the broncho will cool off, and come
through little the worse for the experience. I have ridden a
Texas cow pony one hundred miles, frora sun to sun, many a
time, and have never seriously injured one yet from a long,
hard ride. It seems the hand of kind providence placed the
Spanish pony at the service of the early cattle rancher of
Texas, for no other horse could ever have filled his place on
the cow-range so well. He was through nature naturally
adapted for the long, hot rides so often necessary in the days
of the vast stretches of unfenced range. One thing is certain,
of all the monuments which the Spaniard left to glorify his
reign in America, there are none more worthy than his horse.
The Spanish stock of horses raay be found today in thousands
from the city of the Montezumas to the regions of perpetual
snow. They are grafted into our equine wealth, and make an
important impression on the horse of the country.
Quoting from the remarks of the late Frederick Reming, in
speaking of the Spanish cow pony when with us on the fall
roundup in Montana, in 1885, he said: "The lope is a term
which should never be applied to that motion in any other
breed of horses."
I have watched a herd of cow ponies being driven over
the prairie, where the undulations of the backs of the moving
throng were as regular and easy as the rise and fall of the
watery waves. The fox trot, which is the habitual gait of all
plainsmen, cowboys, and Indians, is easily cultivated in him
and his light, supple frame accommodates itself naturally to
the motion. This particular American horse lays claim to an
other quality which in my estimation is not the least, and that
is his wonderful picturesqueness. He graces the Western
landscape, not because he reminds us of the equine ideal, but
because he comes of the soil, and has borne the heat and bur
den, and vicissitudes of that pale of romance, which will cling
about the Western frontier. As we see him hitched to the
plow or wagon he seems a living protest against ultitarianism.
But like his red master, he will not go. He has borne the
Moor, the Spanish conqueror, the red Indian, the mountain
man, and the vaqueror or cowboy through all the glories of
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THE END OF THE CATTLE TRAIL
their careers, but they will soon be gone with all their heritage
of gallant deeds. The pony must meekly enter the new regime.
He must wear the collar of the new civilization and earn his
oats by the sweat of his flank. There are no more worlds for
him to conquer; now he must till the soil.
THE OL' COW HOSS
When it comes to saddle bosses, there's a difference in steeds ;
There is fancy-gaited critters that will suit some feller's needs.
There is nags high-bred an' tony with a smooth and shiny skin.
That will capture all the races that you want to run 'em in.
But for one that never tires ; one that's faithful, tried an' true ;
One that alius is a "stayer" when you want to slam him
through,
There is but one breed o' critters that I ever come across,
That will alius stand the racket — 'tis the Ol' Cow Hoss !
No, he ain't so much fer beauty, fer he's scrubby an' he's
rough,
An' his temper's sort o' sassy, but you bet he's good enough!
Fer he'll take the trail o' mornings, be it up or be it down,
On the range a-huntin' cattle or a lopin' into town,
An' he'll leave the miles behind him an' he'll never sweat a
hair,
'Cuz he is a willing critter when he's goin' anywhere.
Oh, your thoroughbred at runnin' in a race may be the boss,
But fer all-day ridin' lemme have the Ol' Cow Hoss.
When my soul seeks peace an' quiet on the home ranch of
the blest.
Where no storms nor stampedes bother, an' the trails are
trails o' rest;
When ray brand has been inspected an' pronounced to be
O. K.,
An' the boss has looked me over an' has told me I kin stay,
Oh, I'm hopin' when I'm lopin' off across that blessed range,
That I won't be in a saddle on a critter new an' strange ;
But I'm prayin' ev'ry minnit that up there I'll ride across
That big heaven range o' glory on an Ol' Cow Hoss.
— A. A. Brininstool, in Los Angeles Express.
NOTE: Illustrations thru courtesy of F s. Hastlngs, mgr. S.M.S, Ranch
120

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