EUNIVtB% ^lOSMFlfj-^ ^OFCAIIFO/?^ ^ ^OPCAllFOfti^ mmo\^ %a3MNn3\\v^ ""^(^Aiivaan^ %aviian# IIBHARYOC ^i! \V\l:UNIVtKVA OJIIVDJO^ ^clOSANCflfj'^ {•UNIVER% <5 fWDNVSOl^ IEUNIVER% mrnm^ ^lOSANGElfj-^ o "^Aa^AiNn-mv^ ^lOSANCElfJV. o = r< "^aaAiNnmv^ ^lllBRARYQ^^ u3 I I r^ ^ ^lllBRARYQ^ ^OFCAllFO/?^>^ \^myi^ ^OFCAlIFO% ^(?AHvaan# MIBRARYQ^, -j,^UIBRARYQ. ^\ME UNIVERJ//^ ^lOSANCFlfj^^ iir^i siir^ §io?^ ^c?AavHan-# ^^w^UNlVERy/^ ^l^n£;^ "^/SWAINrtlViV^ - <: V N i > '^/^a^AiNamv ^t-UBRARY-O^ ^iJOjnvDjo^ )ii ^.OFCAllFO^,|^ ^OFCAllFOft^ ^(?AHvaanx^ OC 5^tllBKARYQr .^^^^UNIVtRiy^ ^lOSANtflfJ^j. -s> O uL > ? Oow-Boy Life in Texas, • • • • On! • • • • 21 Years a Mavrick. \ Realistic and True Recital of Wild Life on thi Boundless Plains of Texas, being the Actual Ex- perience of Twenty-Seven years in the Exciting Life of a Genuine Cow-Boy Among the Roughs and Toughs of Texas. OUER PIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS, TAKEN FROM LIFE. By W. S. JAMES. CHICAGO: M. A. DoNOHUE & Co. smmasi i^ccoRDma to act op conouss Bf W. S. JAMES, F A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFB. On the 27th day of August, 1856, in Tarrant County, Texas, I drew my first breath, and from the best informa- tion I can gather, my mother — bless her dear soul! — shed many a bitter tear over her first born, because it was said that I was the ugliest little bundle of humanity that could have been found in seventeen States and fourteen Terri- tories; and to add to the discomfort of my child mother (for she was only a little past sixteen when I was born) they who know, tell me that I kept up a continual squall for three months of my first experience on a cattle ranch, and from the shape of my head and my incessant bawling it was vaguely hinted by some of the wiseacres that I was a little idiot. So between my homeliness and uncertain mental caliber no wonder that mother, in her new experi- ence, should become disheartened; but, thanks to a propi- tious climate and the refining influences of a leather strap judiciously applied, I eventually developed into quite a presentable youngster, when asleep. When I was one year old my father moved his cattle to a western county. This was in the fall of ^57, only a short time before the last great outbreak of hostilities on the part of the Indians that waged with such unceasing warfare on the frontiers of Texas for so many years. It being a wild, desolate region, and my father^s business necessitating his absence from home for a good portion of the time, it was thought advisable to make a sort of stockade round the little ranch house and provide mother and me with arms and ammunition with which to defend ourselves. So they cut oak logs eighteen feet long, as I remember from what I have heard — and in those days I was not so particular about a foot or two^ one way or the other, when it came to logs, 1258077 10 A SKETCH OF THE AUTBOS^S LIFE. as I did not have to cut or split them — they split the lof^i in half, dug a ditch around the house four feet deep, planted the first set with the flat side out, then broke the joints with the next set, making very good protection against attack. They were pinned together, and a good strong gate made. The spring from which we got water was perhaps 150 yards away, and when mother would go for water she v/ould take me outside the house, fasten the door to keep me from falling in the fire or burning the house down during her absence. She would take the double-barrel shot-gun and fo^r or five of the dogs, leaving part of them to protect ms. It was necessary that we keep a good pack of honnds on hands on account of the numerous varmints that were then in the country. Maybe you think this was not trying on a woman, but such was the life of many of the wives of the ranchmen in those early days. I grew and, as the saying go^, did well. I just can remember my first education. Mother says herself that she thought I never would learn m^ letters unless she could manage to get the alphabet put on the cattle one let- ter on each cow, as it was not hard for me to learn the brands. I got many a thump because of my seeming indo- lence. Strange to say, what mother hM tried for two years to teach me my first teacher accomplished in one afternoon. I suppose one reason for it was my natural cowardice. I was simply afraid not to. It is true mother would pound me around once in a while, but you understand that we were so near the same age I soon got used to her and did not so much mind her thumping. In fact she was the only playmate I had to be called one until I started to school, I shall never forget my school»days for many reasons, some of which are common to all boys. Mother had no girls, and I, being the oldest, was brought into requi- sition as the maid-of -all- work. The war came on. Mother had to spin and weave cloth to keep the growing^ little family of tow-heads, father and herself in something to wear. True, father had plenty of such as it was, but it was A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR' H LIFE, 11 in the shape of cattle and money, and neither would make good clothes and there was no cloth to be bought. Mother would spin and weave, father would help her nights and make our shoes and it fell to me to get wood, milk the cows and wash the dishes. The latter I never did like and it was more especially repulsive when I was going toschoo., for it knocked me out of my play time at noon. J do not suppose there is a boy on earth who likes to miss his play at school ^ if there is, his parents should get a double back action spanking machine and give him lessons every day until they infuse into him a little life, if he is a stout, hearty boy. Sometimes it was very trying on me. I remember at one time while washing the dishes from the morning meal I accidentally broke a saucer, and they were very scarce; but when mother knew that anything was acci- dental she was very indulgent. At the noonday meal we had company, and I will explain to any northern or eastern people who may read this that the noonday meal with us was dinner; we have breakfast in the morning, dinner at noon and supper in the evening. On this particular day I wished very much to re- turn to my school play-ground. Mother asked me very kindly to go and wash the dishes. Taking advantage of the presence of company, I said to her : *'If you make me wash the dishes I will break another saucer.^' She very politely informed me that I should wash the dishes and if I broke a saucer or anything else I should have the soothing application of a leather strap. I knew from sad experience what that meant, so I went to work, and it is needless to say that I was caref u^ • but as the Fates would have it, I broke the saucer. Bu v . Ob, the memory of her counsel with a leather strap appplied. While for mercy and for pardoa I, her eldest hopeful, cried. And while mother played the fiddle, it is true, though strange to tell, It was I who made the music, yes I made the chorus swell. And but for the words consoling which she spake so tenderly. While applying that cold leather (though 'twas hard for me to see) 12 A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR* S UFE. I'm sure I'd ne'er lurTive ' ,for it teemed thestan would fall, And my mother said: " I'll whip you ju»t so long as you shall squall." But the gentle words I've mentioned: '' Try and bear it now my son, You'll feel good when it quits hurting for I've only just begun." Then gays ihe : *' You'll break a saucer, Willie dear, I think you said.'* And she taught me, for she had to, how the narrow path to tread. She dressed me down and left me sadder but a wiser boy. Yet to-day I thank my mother that she used that leather toy. Yes, I love my mother better than if she had let me stray, For I needed just such training, I was simply built that way. And along the rugged pathway 'tis with pleasure I recall Admonitions backed with leather, tho' it used to make me bawl. For I couldn't do without it and I got it like a top When my stubborn will encountered, mother and that leather strap. As all the events of any interest that I could record are of a nature that I do not wish to recall; besides, they have been so often flaunted to the world by more courageous writers than I, being only the bloody times of a reign of terror, rowdyism and whiskey carnage from the years of '69 to '76, I will simply say that in looking back in review of my life during those years, I can hardly see how I passed through such a time, with the scenes so common of the nature above referred to, without becoming 80 demoralized as to render redemption impossible. It would look to a disinterested character that the thieves, cut-throats, thugs and hard characters of every State in the Union had swooped down upon Texas like so many vultures upon a carcass, and it was a struggle that has left its deadening effects upon the State and gave it a name abroad that it will take many years to outgrow. Texas got such a reputation for rowdyism and crime, that when she did arouse to the fact that she had received Buch a blot upon her fair name, the reaction was something wonderful, and for a peace-loving and law-abiding citizen- A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOIVS L2FR. 13 ■flip I do not believe she can be surpassed on the face of the globe to-day. At the age of nineteen I went to Lampasas, Texas, Wi*s married when twenty-one, and to the one I secured as the companion of my life journey I largely owe mf redemption from the life of sin and recklessness that I had adopted. Her help, coupled with the Godly coun- sel of Christian parents, and the fact that I still cherished their memory and advice as sacred, eventually wrought a change in my life . When God had given us some little treasures in our home, the childish prattle and confiding trust- fulness of the little ones aroused within me all the manhood that I had left. The first step that I took in the right direction was on the first day of January, 1884, I came home just about as drunk as a man can well be not to stagger (I speak it with shame); I dare say when I goi warm I would have done so if I had not gone to bed. I was very cold when I came in, and after greeting mj little family, I sat by the fire warming. My precious little girl climbed upon my knee, and putting her tender, little hands on my face, one on either side, and kissing me, she said : ** Papa, what's matter with your eyes?^^ Reader, I never had anything sink deeper into my heart. Shame, mortification, regret — conviction of worthlessness— com- bined to make me miserable and wretched. I felt, in th© presence of innocence, the criminal that I was. I said to her : ^' My darling, papa is about half shot in the eye.'^ She climbed down^ went into the nextioom, where her mother was, and asked: ^* Mamma, do you know what's matter with papa's eyes ?" Her mother answered: *^No ; what is it?'' *'He is about half shot in the eye," said baby innocence. Right then and there, friends, I made a solemn vow to God that I would never touch another drop of liquor, or anything that had alcohol in it, if I knew it. And, as God is my judge, I never have. That was nine years ago the first day of January, 1893, and with ^8 help I never will. I have this request to make i4t A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOI^S LIFE, of my friends : if they should ever see me unconscious not under any circumstances to allow the accursed stuff given me, for I never want the smell of alcohol on my breath again while I live. I am its inveterate foe and shall live and die fighting the demon that has blighted the lives of so many of my school-mates and companions and that came so near ruiu" ing my own life, that took my better judgment, sunk me almost to the level of the brute and came near to blighting the lives of those whom I had sworn before God to support and protect. On the 12th day of April, 1886, I was converted to Christianity, and though I have made many mistakes, lived far short of my privilege as a Christian, still it is largely due to the mistakes of my early life . God pardoned my sins and has upheld me with His loving counsel, yet I was compelled to reap my wild oat crop, the sowing of years gone by. The Lord can and will save the criminal in the felon's cell if he will only trust Him, but He will not gather his wild oats for him, for " What- soever a man soweth that shall he also reap.'* He saved me, but He did not go back and straighten up all the mistakes I had made, neither does he promise to do so, but He made it possible for me to do it and I will live to see every debt settled, every wrong righted and yet be able to look the world square in the face and practice what I preach without the fear of some one pointing at me and saying, ** Physician, heal thyself/* My faith reaches just that far. After I was a Christian I went out among the cattlemen and worked as a missionary, not as a minister, for I never felt that my calling, but as a layman in the church, until my health gave way and I was compelled to give up active work. 1 am regaining my health, and when once free from the bondage of debt I expect to devote the remainder of my life to the task of trying to make this old world better by having lived in it. Many things I have left out of this little sketch of my life because I am ashamed of them, many others I leave A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, Ift antold because it would be of no service to any one. One little circumstance in my life will serve to illustrate the folly of exaggerated stories often told by people of them- selves or written by the unscrupulous in regard to ranch life and read by the small boy. While in Mt. Eagle, Tennessee, in the year 1890, I met a little boy about ten or eleven years of age; be- fore I formed his acquaintance, some one had pointed me on t to hi m as a Texan. One day his mother approached me and said her little boy wished to know me. We met at the dinner table . He had a great many questions to ask about Texas, and by his perseverance attracted the atten- tion of very near every one who was at the table with us. At last he asked me if I had ever been on a ranch. I answered that I had. '* Oh/' said he, '*Did you ever kill an Indian ?'' I studied for a moment, at a loss Just how to answer the question. I was anxious to eliminate as much of the poison from his young mind as possible. Finally I said, '^ Maybe I killed one.'' All excitement, he exclaimed, *' Tell me about it quick.'' ''Well," said I, ''there were some Indians got after me once, and ran me so hard that I am not certain but that one of them from overheat took sick and died of a bad cold, I would not be sure of it, however some of the boys said they were sat- isfied he did." The little fellow was completely whipped out. He knuckeled right down to his dinner and did not ask another question during the meal. However, we became fast friends afterward, and when I left Mt. Eagle I think I left with him quite a different impression and nearer the correct one, in regard to life on a ranch, than he had gotten from the blood and thunder stories published by unscrup- ulous adventurers. I will say in conclusion, that the natural undeveloped resources of my native State are simply immense. They are beyond my power to tell, knowing the country even as well as I do, having spent my life in its borders. I have traveled it over time after time from Texarkana to El PasO; from Denison to the Bio Grande, cross, recross. m A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR* S UFh. Up and down, all ^round and for safe investment, for sure returns, I know no country of such advantages for the honest laboring man who wishes to live by his honest toil, there is no State in the Union where a small invest- ment will secure such a home as one can and may have \iu Texas. What the State needs to-day is men who can pay for, improve and cultivate as they should be cultivated, small farms of ten, twenty and forty acres of land. For truck farming it cannot be beaten the world over. Speculators have done for Texas what they have done for many other States, but she is now going through a good healthy sweat and by '95 will begin to move again, and I bespeak for her a prosperity such as has never been enjoyed by the dear old home land before. Some people say that they do not want to go to Texas because of the insecurity of life and property. I speak without the fear of successful contradiction when I say that life and property are as secure in Texas as in any State in the Union. I do believe that if I wished to take chances in crime I would rather risk my neck in any other State than in Texas. The reason is simple enough. The people have gotten tired of the name they had to wear, and the reaction has been universal. This is not an advertisement. I have simply related what I know to be true in regard to the land of my birth, and if yoK go there once, partake of the hospitality of her people, breathe her pure, invigorating air, feast on her beautiful scenery, delight yourself with the fragrance of the gardens of wild flowers in the spring time, bask in the sunshine of her cloudless skies, hear the sweet songs of her birds, you will back me up in my statements. But go slow, nowt- In justice I must give you the other side of the picture. Sometimes, when dry weather strikes her in summer, it is very gloomy. Again, when a Texas norther comes rolling down from the icy regions it is not so lovely. But the beauty of that is the cold snap seldom lasts longer than three or four days at a time, and if every third year was drouthy — which is not so — we would make A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR* S LIFE. 17 enough the two good years to keep us over in fine shape until the next one. Now to return for a word more on my own life. We are taught in God's Word that we should train up a child in the way he should go. From the dawn of my earliest recol- lection my father was a cattleman, and 'mid the trials and temptations common to life on a ranch, I cannot remember when my father and mother did not gather their little ones round the fireside before retiring for the night, read from the Bible, sing a hymn and offer prayer. Certainly, to a very large extent I owe my respect and love for Christianity to my early training, and every day thank God for the memory of Christian parents. I men- tion this that it may encourage some one to try my father's course. There is a chance for everyone to mend his ways, and now is the time. The longer one sows the larger the crop will be when the reaping time shall come. " Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth," A merciful father has given us this life in which to prepare for the next. Let us waste not the time in sowing wild oats. Be careful what you sow my boy. For seed that's sown will grow; And what you scatter day by day. Will bring you joy or woe. For sowing and growing. Then reaping anc: mowing. Are the sures; things e're known; And sighing and crying, And sorrow undying Will never change seed that it sowb. Be watchful ol your words my boy. Be careful of your acts; For words can cut, and deeds bring blood, And wounds are atubborn facts. IS A SKETCH OF THE A U THORNS LIFE, Whether sleeping or weeping. Or weary watch keeping, The seed that is sown will grow. The rose brings new roses, The thorn tree discloses Iti thorns as an index of woe. Be careful of your friends my boy. Nor walk and mate with vice; "The boy is father to the man," Then fly when sins entice. The seed one is sowing, Through time will be growing, And each one must gather his own. In joy or in sorrow. To-day or to-morrow, ibii reap what your right hand baa aofVB. A ^-^^Bo? in to« iMSt a? OEAPTEEt THE TERM OOW-BOl^* The term cow-boy has been so universally abused m its application to so many different classes and under such varied circumstances, that if it were not for the fact that every genuine article of any merit is sure to have a counterfeit, the genuine cow-boy would be ashamed to acknowledge his identity. As an illustra- tion of the assertion that counterfeits are an evidence of the existence of the genuine, take the treasury note, the silver and gold dollars, which are counterfeited because of their intrinsic value. They procure for us the necessaries of life. The Christian religion is another article that has thii evidence of its genuineness. Even the cold, philosophical moralist, the scientific, reasoning skeptic will tell you " I pay my honest debts, 1 give to the poor, the orphans and widows, I don't lie or steal, I do unto others as I would have others do unto me." Thus very minutely, though perhaps unintentionally, carry- ing out the line of argument given us in the Bible, In the language of the ancient pharisee : "God I thank thee that I am not as other men are." This is simply counterfeiting or trying to counterfeit the true prin- ciples of morality which come alone in their fullness, as a result of a living, walking, talking faith in the despised Kazarine. Foi, " Pure religion undefiled before God» and the Father is this, to Tisit the fatherless and widows, in thm n t? YEARS A MAVRICK. affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world." In the two illustrations here used to show that the presence of a counterfeit is evidence of the existence of the genuine, I have shown that there are motives of a selfish nature to prompt the act of counterfeiting, and if men will allow themselves to be led to the commission of such deeds in relation to these in view of the attending penalties, the article that offers no hope of reward as an inducement for duplicating itself, that is so widely looked upon with envious longing, so universally sought after as something to make one feel " big," as is the appellation " cow-boy," must in its original possess a peculiar merit. It is true there has been so much written and said about the cow-boy and ranch life of the blood and thunder, wild and woolly character, that the very novelty and excitement of the sensational stories so prevalent, would as a consequence attract the im- pulsive, hot-blooded American youth, and lead him to desire the reputation of a cow-boy. Just as reading the lives of such characters as the Younger Brothers and James Boys, and ten-cent detective trash, so often sends the small boy on the war-path with blood in his eye. The cow-boy is confined to certain localities, conse- quently is subject to impositions that sel/^.om fall to the lot of other characters. This is largely due to the sensational stories before referred to, written by people, as a rule, who know no more about life on a ranch than a hog knows about the solar system. The natural tendency of the human family seems to be to make Ufa Oir A TEXAS KANGB. » » stoiy teU well, and the commonly accepted theory is that It needs to be renovated and colored, in order to stand the universal test. In other words, "the unvar- nished truth" is too tame for this day, and age of nine- teenth centurj progress. When men write on the subject who are famiUar with the facts, from some unaccountable cause, they become possessed of aji ambition for notoriety, and are wilkng to belittle the craft by exaggerating ahnost everything of which they write. The pubHc read these stories, and from a morbid tendency on the part of a great majority of mankind to lionize a daring spirit, though it be of the demoniacal kind, they form thei^ opinions, which are too often very absurd. The boy at his mother's knee catches the inspiration that start* mm out m a life of counterfeiting the cow-boy. One of the greatest mistakes that parents can make is to point to a man of bad character, either of their personal acquamtance or in histoiy, and say of his daring: « I admire that man because what he does he does boldly and above board." The parent that thus places a premium on the misdeeds of the bold man is simply paving the way for a life of regret on account of the waywardness of his reckless boy. The first eviaence of a "cow-boy " counterfeiter, so often seen, is the sm'all boy, as he leaps astride the broom handle with an imaginary quirt and spur, with a leather band 'round his little cap, a twine string for a rope; he goes whooping across the room, chasing the cat, a stick in the waistband of big pants for a pistol or knife, thus putting into practice the lesson He has St »/ tEARS A MA VRICK. learned Itjy close observation, which will develop him by-and-bye into the "wild and woolly" would-be- horned cow-boy. The ignorance on the part of the majority of mankind of the true character of the " genuine cow-boy" makes it less difficult to palm off the counterfeit on the average man, than for the genu- ine article to defend itself against the encroachments of the humbug. In evidence of what I say, let a crowjd of half - drunken men board a train in any town in TexaSj begin to whoop 2,xi^ yell like % troop of Comanche Indians on the war-path, and every one who is not posted—- among the passengers— will talk about the " cow-boys," when perhaps not one in the outfit ever saw the interior of a Texas cow camp ; and yet, every such character will gladly pose as a " cow-boy.'" They think it looks *'big." Let some fiend incarnate tank up with "sixteen shooting liquor," take a pistol and shoot into a passsen- ger train, and it is the "cow-boys," A band of robbers throws an obstruction upon the track, flags the train, robs the passengers, kills the expressman, and it is a "band of cow-boys." A lone highwayman holds up the Angelo & Balinger mail coach, a cow-boy is sent to the penitentiary for the deed, and it is afterward proven that he knew nothing of it until he was arrested. The Comanche Chief, a paper published in Comanche, Texas, some years ago said: "He that tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted.' But the men who seem to take a delight in tooting th LIFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. S7 horn for the cow-boy are blowing it from the wrong end. They don't really wish to do him an injustice, but the spirit of extravagance in relating things about him, coupled with ignorance, leads them into error, and injures the subject ; however, true merit wili outlast misrepresentation, and one can outgrow it by an nonest and faithful adherence to truth, and close application to business. True nobility of character will show itself ; no difference what the surroundings may be. True metal will ring. I unreservedly make the asser- tion that there is no station or calling in life that will test true manhood quicker than the life of a ranchman. And my advice to the Jim Crow counterfeiter, who, in order to gain a reputation as a "bad man from Bitter Creek " by posing as a cow-boy with a dollar and a half leather band on a sixty -five-cent hat, and a bottle of red pepper and branch water red eye in his jeans, is for him to stick just as close to the piney woods of east Texas and Arkansaw as possible, and never show himself to any one except a downeaster, who has never traveled through the West. If he will take this little piece of gratuitous advice, he can bask in the sunshine of his own bloated imagination,and eat his own " little taters " in sandy land ; but if he ever ventures to show his contemptible cranium within fifty miles of a decent cow camp, he will have his humbug qualifica- tions of cow-boy stripped from his poor worthless carcass so quickly that he would feel like a jay bird with his tail feathers gone. Three rounds of the righteously indignant sarcasm of the ranch cook would 28 27 YEARS A MA VRICK, make him wish that he had never seen the outside of his little truck patch. A great number of this character make themselves so ridiculous that if they take work on a ranch they soon play out^ and are relegated to the rear. They imagine when they begin work that the first thing to do is to show how much liquor they can drink, and it is there they make a mistake. Some of them have sufficient sense to cut their eye-teeth and profit by their experience. One of the most disgusting features of counterfeit- ing the " cow-boy " is that class of young preachers who covet the appellation. What one is to understand by the term cow-boy preacher I have never yet learned. If it means a man who has been a cow-boy, and, hav ing quit the cattle business, has gone into the minis- try, then the term, in many instances, has been very decidedly misapplied. It is certainly quite amusing to see a little six-bit fellow start out to slinging slang from the pulpit, posing as the cow-boy preacher. He usually procures a ten-ounce hat with a leather band, a pair of high- heeled boots, and then he is sailing. I met one such, and in conversation with him found, to my astonish- ment and disgust, that he had never been on a regular cow ranch in his life. His experience consisted, I am convinced, in sitting on the fence and seeing the herd go by, 6r watching his mother milk an east Texas dogy cow. He didn't know the first letter in the cow-man's alphabet. It would be a regular Fourth of July for the boys LIFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, ^ to have him in camp for twenty-four hours. He would leave them a sadder but perhaps a wiser man ; and about the only pleasant sensation he would ex- perience when gone would be that of loneliness. Some people, it seems, can never learn that it is capital well invested to be just what God made them. It is one of the mistakes of a man's life to try to appear other than natural. The Scotch bard has most truthfully said, " The honest man, though ever so poor, is the king of men for a' that." To assume an unnatural character just for effect, or to appear to be familiar with subjects and things of which one is wholly or partially ignorant, is to place one's self in a false attitude that will sooner or later bring him to grief. We once had a character in our range who clearly wished to appear as a great and wealthy man, one who had seen the elephant and heard the owl. He was a peculiar specimen, one of those who, on the outside of about three-fingers in a wash-tub of red liquor, was a "bunch of roses" — who. in his own language, was born " high up on the Gaudaloupe, raised on thorny prickly pear, quarreled with alligators and fought grizzly bear/* sort of a fellow. Some of the less credulous of the boys at one time took it into their heads to take an inventory of his possessions and travels, as he should relate it. So, while one man questioned, another put the answers down, and at the close of an hour's talk it was found, by a careful summing up, that he was 316 years old, had visited nearly every known country, owned thirty- four ranches, over 80,000 cattle, horses and sheep to m S7 VMARS A MA VRICK, match, had served eleven termf? in the Legislature and Senate, twice in the national Congress, and just missed going to the United States Senate by one vote, and could have had that if he was disposed to lie, but w,hat he would not do for love, money or fame. This gentleman is a would-be cow-boy gone to seed, and is what a great many of the so-called cow- boys would be, under circumstances favorable to the development of this species of the animal. Cow-boy. Dude. He tootetb hxa owb horn.^he knows how — the dude blows it from the wrong tnd. (See page 26.) UFB ON A TMXAS HANOM. » CHAPTER II. THE GENUINE COW-BOY. The above title is not intended to apply to all men who have taken an active part in handllDg cattle, but to those only who have proven themselves worthy the name of genuine, because of the nobility of character they possess; neither do I wish it understood that I am thus assuming that the genuine cow-boy is altogether faultless, not so. Even the genuine is human and possessed of all the characteristics of frail erring mor- tality; but one thing I do claim for him is that, in view of his peculiar surroundings, temptations, associations and privations, he is an exceptional character in that he is possessed of qualities both useful and ornamental in any station in life; but especially so with him ; isolated as he has formerly been from the refining influences of civilization. In reality the cow-boy might properly be divided into three classes. First, No. 1, the genuine, because of his true manhood, not only in his relationship to those with whom he is daily associated in handling cattle, but with all the world. One who has as much respect for the rights of others, though he be miles away, as for his immediate neighbors. I mean by that, a man who is strictly honest, one whom it does no* affect in his general health to eat a piece of an animal of his own mark and brand. Still, one who is not so Pharisaical as to " Thank God he is not as other men," but can throw the mantle of charity sufficiently far as 04 ^ YEARS A MAVRiCK. to reach his less scrupulous brother and one who will look to the interest of his neighbor, when on a round- up, as he does his own, no difference what the repu- tation of that neighbor may be. One who is the happy possessor of the combined characteristics of a true gentleman, a loyal citizen and an all-round business man, with the get-up and get of a cow-boy. i^o. 2 is worth consideration. He is the true type of Western hospitality, liberal to a fault, especially in his moral views ; so much so that his conscience is possessed of such elasticity as to serve him in any emergency. Like the proverbial Irishman who, upon finding a U. S. blanket, called out ^ U f or Patrick and S for McCarthy. Och but I'm glad I found me blanket. Me father told me that edecation was a good thing and now I know it ; but for an edecation I never would have found me blanket." So it is with No. 2; he is peculiarly fortunate in his education, it often assists him in his interpretation of the brands of cattle from the northern range, and enables him to appropriate the same, he is thus finan- cially re-imbursed for his losses during winter's driving storms ; he is, however, peculiarly constituted when it comes to eating an animal encumbered with his own mark and brand, it is almost a dead-shot. If by any misfortune while he is in a distant range some enterprising No. 2 should feed him on soi^iie of his own beef, it acts like ipecac. In his owki **i,n- guage, *' It shore makes him sick, " (so I have heard them say,) and such a thing as eating their own is so rare, if they should find it out, it seems not unlikely that the thought of such would cause a re-action in the UFE O^r A TEXAS MANGE. 85 physical man ; it never proves fatal, however, as it Is part of his existence to get even. No. 3 is the roaming, " come day, go day, God send Sunday, good-natured easy-going cow-boy," who is just as happy where he is as where he is not ; who cares for nothing but a good saddle, spurs and quirt and a fc?ty dollar job ; who seldom aspires to accumulate for himself, but is satisfied to spend his life in working for some one else, and when the season for working cattle is over repairs to the nearest town and spends what ^e has earned, in having a good time. No. 2 manipu- ates this latter class in many ways ; they, as a rule, Till do for him what they would fear to do for them- ^Ives, and too often it is the case that No. 2, when in ^o close a place, in order to save himself will slip the iiead of soaie pliable dupe into the halter that justice iias designed for his own. Don't understand by this that I mean to intimate that No, 2 is a thief. No, indeed, if any one should accuse him of such conduct, it wouldn't even rufBLe his feelings, as he lives daily in the consciousness that everything he does is on the dead square. No. 2 is simply a rustler from way back, and when it comes to a round-up he's there. I have given the shady side of the character of No. % and I am glad to give you his virtues, and don't wish you to think that I am partial in what I shall ?^^ of the sunny side of his life. No. 1 needs no coloring or apology, as his life is a living index to his character^ No. 2 needs the mantle of charity very extensively thrown around his wayward shoulders, and it is but m 99 WSAMS A MAFMiCM. Jtast when we consider his environment^ the pecnliai eircnmstances under which he has been trained (which will be treated in a separate cnapter). It is but clmr- itable to give him credit for the good in his nature. No. 2, with some exceptions, is a neighbor to be proud of; he has nothing too good to divide, you know when you enter his home that you are welcome. There is an air of freedom that one can feel sensibly pervad- ing the home of Ko. 2 that inaudibly but positively breathes a hearty welcome. You needn't expect him to neglect any of his duties to entertain you, for he will not, but you have the freedom of the place, let it be large or small. He will ride twenty miles on a rainy night to bring the doctor for a sick neighbor, or go to the relief of a distressed human being, no difference what his character. All he needs to know is, that they are suffering. If any of his associates, those with whom he " stands in," should be so far misunderstood as to get arrested he will go to his rescue, and as a rule is able to |make satisfactory explanation and secure a verdict ; this especially applies to dates back of '87. It is now getting to a point, and has been for several years, that jurists and judges are getting so incredulous that the boys have been having considera- ble trouble to explain their mistakes, and the conse- quence is that many of them have been sent east to Work under the supervision of the State ; this is invari- ably done under protest, and nearly every one who takes a State contract is innocent ; and if you don't believe it| yon may be convinced by going to Rusk, tlFE OR A TEXJ.SRANGB, 87 Texas, and ask them, or to the court records, and almost without exception you will find a plea of " not guilty.'* A genuine No. 2 never goes back on a friend. If some unfortunate should come to him in distress, one who is in danger of being " pulled " for " pulhng," he will rustle up the best stray horse in the range, borrow a saddle from a sheep man, provided the snoozer is away, and filling him up on good grub, will give him some of his spare cash and let him ^' lean forward and shove," after giving him some meeting house advice, which, as a matter of course, he takes. No. 2 will guard the interests of his neighbors in the cattle business, and also his stand-by's with jealous care. When he finds cattle in a distant ranch belong- ing to neighbors, even though it is a poor neighbor, he will drive them for him ; and even a nester, if he is a straight man, receives the careful consideration of No. 2, often having the free use of milk cows the year round. In fact, if No. 2 allows him to milk them at all, it is free, the only consideration being that the calves are cared for and not knocked on the head with the churn dasher, to prevent which he usually requires the nester to milk half a dozen or more. No. 3, on the other hand, sometimes by close appli- cation to business, especially if he is a live, energetic rustler, will accumulate sufficient property to take his place in the rank of ranch men. Those who did not accumulate and start in cattle eventually marry and either settle down to engage in grangering, become nesters or take a contract from the State, There are other characters in the cattle business 88 97 YEAMS A MA VRICK, who will be mentioned in the course of our story boi the three classes mentioned include the principal actors in active cattle raising, and the classes herein mentioned will figure prominently in the illustrations as we pro- ceed. In conclusion I wish it understood that my definition of the cow-boy is a big-hearted, whole-souled bundle of humanity, kind-hearted, generous to a fault, possessed of all the frailties common to mankind, and not the biggest rascal on earth by a jug full. Bad man from Bitter Creek.— Tanks up with red eye; has on a 65a hat with a $1.50 band round it. (See page 27.) iJF£ ON A TEXAS MANGE. 4i CHAPTER m. THE CLASS OF MEN WHO AKE RESPONSIBLE FOB THE HARD NAME THE TEXAS OOW-BOY HAS. In early days prior to and some years after the Civil "War, Texas offered an asylum or city of refuge, as it were, to the criminal scum of creation. This was largely due to the fact that it was almost a wilderness, with no railroads, no telegraph lines and very meagre facilities for transportation and communication. In the first place, it took men of an iron will and nerve to brook the difficulties to be met with in this, the then far West. It being a frontier country and the field of operation for the wily red man, it is not strange that men were received by the settlers with open arms in that lonely region and no questions asked. From a personal knowledge, though but a boy during the more trying times, I can remember when one man met another they were friends. It was for mutual protection they embraced each other as brothers, and many no doubt were driven to this section by the force of circumstances, who through the very insecurity of their surroundings and the knowledge of a probable early call from this to the great unknown, were drawn by the chords of — the secret of ail fellow feeling — sympathy, to a closer union with their fellow beings with whom they were sharing the perils of life on the frontier. As sympathy is akin to love and love is the foundation of right living, many such characters have grown to be our best citizens. I have in mind a «3 f7 YEARS A MA VjRICK, few such who were arrested and taken back to their former homes to answer charges for crime committed in years gone by. They were almost invariably cleared and sent back to their family. On the other hand, many came and instead of becoming better, gathered round them congenial spirits who like themselves were outlaws from other more populous States and they are the ones who painted towns red, caused discord and confusion in the range, that made life and property insecure in Texas. They proved a greater scourge to the State than ever the Indian with his war paint could do. This class of people have given the State the name of being tough and have caused many good people to shudder at the thought of making their homes there. This condition has developed in the mam since the war. There seems to have been a general rush to Texas after the cessation of hostilities, of all the ren- egades both north and south, those who took no part on either side, and took advantage of those unfortunate times to give free range to their inbred tendencies to rob and pillage the defenseless, were the worst. Prior to the war such a thing as cattle or horse stealing was seldom heard of except by the Indians, in fact for years after the war closed a man that would steal a horse was looked upon as a worse character than if he killed a man. The reason for such a state of feeling is not clear, unless it was because the majority of men that were killed were either of the renegade class before referred to or some one who had mated with them, and the majority of horse thieves were of as I UFBON A TEXAS RANGE 48 Chit ^eiy class who came to Texas to save their own necks and for the purpose of living without work. The beginniDg of cow stealing began during the last years of the war. There were a few men who by hook or crook kept out of the oonfiict, remaining at home presumably to care for the women and children, look aiter the "stuff" and see that the "Yankees" didn't get away with *' Our Niggers." These men, or some of them, spent the greater por- tion of their time the first three years in the profitable and interesting business of speculating on the probable length of time it would take the South to lick the " Yankees," and as an observant boy I can safely say that I have seen as many as twenty of these lords of creation sitting round the corner store whittling, spit- ting tobacco juice and in the characteristic language of the cow puncher "swapping lies" from morning until noon and from noon until dark for months, and their wives at home carding and spinning thread and weaving cloth to make them pants to wear out on the curb-stone. The men who had with energy and pluck by caring for their cattle accumulated goodly herds were as a rule the ones who, when called upon to fight for what was presented to them as personal liberty and State's rights, the first to respond. The genuine cattleman, though easily led to a conclusion^ is not the man to shirk a duty. I mean, of course, as a rule* There are exceptions to all rules. Leaving his cattle as he did to look after them* selves, he was compelled to trust to luck, so^alled, a< U W YEARS A MAVRiCK. to whether he would ever see them again. The gentleman of leisure herein referred to or, more prop- erly speaking, the whittling deacons who had been living off the misfortunes of others by eating other men's cattle, seeing the fortunes of the Confederacy waning, decided to raise cattle of their own. One little circumstance will suffice to show their method of raising them. There was one old Methodist brother who owned an old cow known in the community as " old Crump," owing to the fact that her horns turned round in front until they very nearly met. It was noticed that every few days the old brother would drive in a yearling with no mark or brand, and soon it would be seen to carry round with it the old gentleman's brand. If any one asked him where he got it his reply was always the same, "It is old Crump's yearling,'' until it became quite a proverb, and by actual count old Crump's increase in one year amounted to forty-seven year olds, thirty-one two year olds and thirteen three-year-old cows and calves, be- sides keeping a large family in beef. Now if some enter- prising " Yankee " will only secure some of old Crump's stock and start a stock farm and call them thorough- breds, his fortune is made. But I am here to tell you, my friend, you can't do it, for the day of wholesale cattle stealing is gone and that is the name we Texas people give it. This same old bag of corruption, after it became a penitentiary offense to steal a yearling, sat on the jury and convicted a sixteen-year-old boy for branding a little scrub calf. After he had stolen himself Lii^M QH A T&XAS kAMGB, 4i .» into respectability, ho was the first old donker to cry out "stop thief." The poor old sinner has gone to meet his God. But when he gets a seat in the heavenly choir with a golden crown to adorn his brow and the beautiful white robe of the saints shall enciijle his poor perjured soul, then the devil had better double- bar the regions of the damned or his kingdom will be depopulated. No, I don't believe that any one who dies with no show of restitution for such corruption, with no acknowledgment of his wrongs, will ever enter the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem. There were a great many renegades who came in, at, or near the close of the war that started cattle stealing in reality ; they played a high hand for a time, and some few Texans joined them, but some how or other the dis- ease went in on a great number of them, the trouble developed into a choking sensation and they died very suddenly of a broken neck. I believe the most popu- lar name for the disease is hanging. I don't wish for once to be understood to advocate such a course, 1 am only relating facts and not theories. I am opposed to mob law and no one in Texas pretends to defend it on any other ground than that desperate diseases require desperate remedies. If I was to theorize on the causes leading to such things I would lay it all at the door of our franchise laws that grant an unqualified vote to everything that wears breeches. Ignorant, unscrup- ulous and irresponsible voters elect ignorant, un- scrupulous and irresponsible law-makers who pass un- wholesome and unhealthy laws, and the same ignorant, ^ m WBAMB A MA VMIiM. anscmpulous and irresponsible voters elect the same class of executive^ officersj thus making it possibie for a criminal to swear out, lie out and prove out of any- thing, until honest men become desperate and in the heat of passion, engendered by such a state of things, they take the laws into their own hands and thus become criminals themselves. I don't believe it safe for [any community or that crime was ever lessened by such a course. Yet, on the other hand, I don't think there have been many innocent men who ever suffered by the mob except when two factions have waged war among themselves, when no doubt some good people have suffered, but the commu- nity at large was not responsible for it. In conclusion, I will say that observation and experi- ence have clearly taught me that it was not the native cow-boy who painted towns red, and gave cattlemen a bard name, but the renegade from the East and North; vjrhile the native Texan was not, nor is he now, an angel, still it is a wonder that he is as good as he is, considering his education and his association with his neighbor from the older States, and but for the fact that he had a back- bone of his own, he would certainly have been a " little bouquet of sun-flowers," In proof of what I have said I will respectfully refer you to our criminal records. There you will find that the native criminal (that got caught), is but a very small factor in our court records ; aside from the negro and Mexican, our Texas birds are in a large majority from other States. My reader, you may think me egotistical. That I He ate his own beef.— And it made him sick. (See page ti,} ^ UFB ON A TEXAS RANGE. ^ am partial to the cow-boy is but natural, as a lifelonpf association with the knight of the quirt, spur and tug, has given me a knowledge of his real worth ; still I deny the charge of egotism, and in justification of my claims, I leave it to any man who has spent five years in the Lone Star State, west of the Brazos river, especially if he has shared their blanket, their beef and bread, laughed at their jokes, and heard them sing their cow- boy songs. I know what his verdict will be. With all his faults, and he has his share, he has a heart in him as big in its willingness as the Texas Capitol, is a friend in need and a friend indeed, and his soul is as precious in the sight of Him who says " Whosever will may come " as the wealthiest nabob who walks the streets of New Y brk. My per- sonal observation and experience have taught me that no man living has a greater regard for the feelings of others than has the cow-boy. When coming through Arkansas some white-liv- ered, drunken cur fired into our train. It made me feel quite irreligious to hear some of the passen- gers say that it was " some of those Texas cow-boys." I never knew but one outfit in Texas that would have hired and kept a man on the ranch that would do such a thing, and I don't believe that one out of every five hundred of the cow-boys who have figured in cattle in Texas would do such a thing. They have more personal self-respect and, as a rule, they have too much respect for women to do anything that would frighten them or endanger their precious lives. No, friend, the cow-boy is a bundle of fun, but pure 60 27 YEARS A MAVRICK. unadulterated cussedness is nob one of the ingredients in his composition. He is rolicky, but not mean. You may say what you please about your Eastern civiliza* tion, and I grant that in some localities you are far in advance of Texas in some things. But, remember, I am now talking of the cow-boy and I have witnessed things in some of your Eastern cities and towns that I never saw, and that would never occur in any Western town in Texas. I mean incivilities to ladies or, what I, with my unvarnished ideas, would call uncivil treat- ment. I have seen ladies forced to abandon the sidewalk on account of the crowds of men congregated there, and while I have seen from fifty to one hundred cat- tlemen at one time I never saw one refuse to give his room to a lady, let it be on the sidewalk, in a street car or on a railroad train. He may jog along in a kind of a " don't give a cent if I do " sort of a style with men, but is always the quintessence of good be- havior when there are women around. I have met him in the camp, on the round-up, round the herd, at a frolic, in the rain, when the sunshine was making all nature ring with her chiefest joy, the light. I have seen him under any and all circumstances, and never do I remember having seen any man who will give better attention at church or a lecture, or who is more considerate of the feelings of others. Honesty, plain and unvarnished, in presenting the great subject of Christian' ity to his consideration will catch him much sooner than all the clap-trap plans adopted by so many workers. As a rule he is a reasoner after his own system, and UFE ON A TEXAS MANGE, SI when dealing with him be certain your argument is backed with God's word or, as he wonld put it, " with bible." The two most essential qualifications in deal- ing with the cow-boy in his souPs interest are tact and tenderness. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from ein and the graTe; Weep o'er the erring one, care for the fallen. Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save. Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter* Feelings lie buried that grace can restore; Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness. Chords that were broken will vibr&te once more. Rescue the perishing, duty demands it, Strength for thy labor the Lord wiU provide; Plead with them earnestly, plead with them gently^ Tell them a Savior for sinnsrs hath 4isd Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will ss^y^ ft m WSAHS A MA viuac. OTAPTER rr. SENSATIONAL STOBIES, THBIB XESULTa Since the serpent approached our mother Eve in the garden of Eden with a lie in his mouth, we have a record of the presence of the demon all along down the vista of the years; he has dragged his slimy folds across the threshold of peaceful and otherwise happy lives, and as in the case of the illustrious pair, who first partook of the sweets of counnubial bliss in peaceful innocence, only to have their cup of happiness crushed by the tempter. So with their posterity from then until now, we find history so full of the presence of this grim monster of deceit with its crowning results, bitterness and woe, that one is made to shudder at the recital. All along through the pages of Holy Writ do we find portrayed in graphic detail the direful results of the false statement, even the grandest characters of ancient times, whose lives we have recorded therein, stand under the shadow. Abraham denies his wife and comes near to bringing ruin to a nation which had befriended him, and certainly brought shame and mortification to himself. So with his illustrious son Isaac, guilty of the same crime. Jacob stole the bless- ing of his elder brother and was made to suffer for a lifetime in consequence. It is one of the truest and most universally tested facts recorded in God's word that "God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. " UFB on A TEXAS RANGE. H David throtigh deceit brought about the death of one of his most valiant soldiers and this entailed upon his posterity endless trouble and disgrace. The counsel- ors of the heathen king Darius by deceit had Daniel cast into the den of lions and by so doing brought destruction upon their wives and children as well as themselves. This grim deceiver comes under many fashionable names in this the advanced day and age of the world, the nineteenth century. It is called exaggerating, a stretch of the imagination, misrepresentation, prevarication and numerous other very paliating aliases, but the unvarnished, unpolished cow-boy calls it "lying ". Many good credulous fellows have read those exaggerated stories of life in the far west on a Texas cow ranch and have had education quite bitter in the school of experience for their ignor- ance and want of judgment. They come to Texas perhaps with good capital, the result of years of patient work and economy on the part of a good and indulgent father, who has " divided unto them his living." They wish to engage in business that promised fabulous returns. The first thing they do. in the majority of cases, is to show how much they know, and in the presence of an outfit of regulars, they make complete donkeys of themselves. They often play out in three rounds, some of them make good use of their experience, and some oS them let some sharper invest for them and they go halves in the proceeds ; the result is the old story of " capital and experience," the two soon swap places (however, the rui« is not with- out exceptions). 54 t7 YEARS A MA Vkx%.^. One circumstance that I recall was a young man who came to Texas in ' 82 ; he had in cash $30,000 to invest in a ranch. He landed in a "Western town, met some of the boys, and made known his intentions ; he also made free to state that he was " onto " cow-boys, but wished to thoroughly learn the ropes, etc.; so they took him in hand, learned first his ideas concerning the business, blowed him in for $100, for an old stove-up pony, a sixty-five dollar saddle, a pair of flashy red blankets, spurs, quirt, rope and leggings, cow-boy hat, two six-shooters and a long keen knife ; after tanking him up on red liquor they started him out to paint the town red, taking care all the while to keep their own necks out of the halter, which a cow-boy knows just how to do. This young man allowed himself rushed into making a ridiculous picture of himself by appearing on the streets whooping like an Indian on the war-path, firing off his pistols and running that old stove-up pack pony up and down the streets until the sheriff got hold of him and run him in ; he then allowed himself further imposed upon, by cursing the judge, according to in- structions. The fine and costs amounted to $150, before he got through. He made bond for his appearance and then went with the outfit to the ranch. Next morning when he awoke, he was all alone, horse, saddle, blankets and everything he had started with, gone. They had made him drunk and robbed him of everything while he was asleep, and were in hiding to see the effect on him. He looked all around, and then hit the road and began to cut dirt for town, a sadder but wiser man. Some of the boys followed him at a safe distance with his outfit, LIFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, 58 and when they saw him get in a farmer's wagon, they surrounded him, beat him to town and hitched his horse where he could find him when he came in. The man of whom he bought the horse went to him and gave him back his money, took the old horse off his hands and gave him five hundred dollars worth of good advice in a few words. That young man, unlike many who started just as he did, took the advice, went to work, learned the cattle business and afterward became a reasonably good cattleman, but like a great many of the more visionary among the boys went under in the great rise and fall of cattle from 1880 to 1885. At one time there came an old gentleman from the Eastern States to western Texas and bought two thou- sand choice steers; he was one of those genial character! sometimes to be met with in most any station in life, who are as happy at one time as another, no difference what their surroundings may be, and let me tell you right here that this is the most fortunate disposi- tion for one to possess who goes among cow-men. He will have less trouble and get less skin knocked off his shins. But of all the unfortunate characters who ever came into the clutches of a cow-boy, the braggadocio, self-important smart Aleck is the worst. But I am deviating. This old gentleman came to receive the cattle, and drove out to the camp in a two- horse spring wagon, or hack as it is called in the West. He wore a silk hat. The camp was located near a spring of water, under a large live oak tree, whose fivergreen foliage covered " way up yonder " close to a quarter of an acre of ground. It was a lovely summer- S6 tf YEARS A MA VRICK. day, a trifle too warm in the sun, but a gentle breeze made it delightful in the shade. Our Mr. N- — had located his claim on the southern boundary of the massive roots of the tree, and was enjoying a snooze. He laid his hat by his side ; the cook was busy about the dinner, so the old fellow was left to enjoy himself according to his own sweet will. Chuck time drew near and the boys, fifteen or twenty of them, came riding into camp for the purpose of eating something up. As they approached the place where Mr. N was, the tramp of their horses' feet disturbed his slumbers and when once fairly awake he heard the boys, who had stopped within twenty or thirty feet of where he lay, commenting on something. One said : **What must we do," another said, " What is it ? " one said *^ It's a bear," another, "It's the venomous kypoote," another said "It's one of those things that flee up and down the creek and hollowed *walo wahoo,' in the night time." One called out, " Boys, it's a shame to stand peaceably by and see a good man devoured by that varmint," and calling loudly to the now thoroughly excited old man to " Look out there, mister, that thing will bite you," at the same time drawing his pistol. Mr. N. sprang to his feet like a ten-year-old boy (as some of the boys put ft, got a ten- cent move on him), and didn't stop to get his hat. He had perhaps gotten ten or fifteen feet from his pre-emp- tion when almost every man in the outfit, fired (some of them two or three bullets,) into that silk hat, simply shooting the crown off. LIFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. 6» The bewildered old fellow was so thoroughly scared that it was some time before he noticed what it was that had come so near devouring him; in fact not until one of the boys dismounted, took a stick and turned it over and said, "Boys, it's shore dead." Our good- natured old friend, after recovering from his scare, took a hearty laugh over the little jam bore and called the boys all 'round to his wagon and drew out a jug of sixteen-shooting liquor — thus they celebrated the death of the terrible varmint. One of the boys loaned the jolly old boy his hat, and he wore an old one until he could get one from town, when they all chipped in and bought one of the best to be had, a regular cow-man's hat, and gave it to Mr. N. Besides, they offered to pay for his, which he positively refused to let them do. Bnt one thing cer- tain, he hadn't been in that outfit three days until every man on the ranch, even to the cook, would have fought his battles for him, if occasion had presented itself. Now, there is just that in the average cow-boy that would be called stubbornness in more' 'civilized society.^ If Mr. N. had gotten mad and caved 'round a little he would have been told that if he expected to bring wild animals into camp and not have them killed he was simply off his base, and they would have kept up the theory of "that terrible varmint that was killed. '^ One thing, however, I will state, if the}^ had known when they rode up that Mr. N. was a man as old as fifty they would never have " killed the animal," neither would they have offered any comment on it in his presence % but he was a man who carried age remarkably well and 60 21 YEARS A MA VRICK, one would not, on short acquaintance, have taken him for more than 38 or 40. A great number of men come to Texas under a false impression in regard to the character of the cow-boy and are brought to grief. Those who are willing to make the best of their experience, take him as they find him, treat him as a human being, though a rough one, and are willing to see his virtues and cultivate his friendship, they never lose anything by so doing, but find in him a friend who, with rare exceptions, never goes back on a chum or betrays a trust. In other words, many of them are diamonds in the rough. This is evident from the fact that many of the most substantial citizens of our Star State, especially that portion which was once the great grazing pastures for the long-horned Texas cow, were once the heedless, free and easy cow-boy. Some of whom went busted and had sufficient practical common sense to locate a claim, settle down to business, making first-class grangers. Others stuck to the old heifers through the panic,, and have been rewarded for their faithfulness. If you have the range the old Texas cow will grow you out of an almost overwhelming difficulty. The commonly accepted proverb of the cow-boy is : " The way of the transgressor is hard and the prayers of the wicked availeth nothing." (I don't quote this as scripture, for it is not.) For a man to come to the range and assume that he knows as much as an old-timer, was a transgression that made his lot a hard one. If he wickedly persisted in being civilly treated, his prayer was unavailing. UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. 6i But if he took his medicine like a little man, h© was soon " in the swim," and ready to enjoy the discom- forts of the nest victim. Such is life in a cow camp. m S? YEARS A MA VRICK. CHAPTER V. TEE BEGINNING OF CATTLE STEALING IN TEXAS ON A LARGE SCALE. Before the war and for many years afterward, cattle stealing in Texas was virtually licensed. Don't understand by this that our honorable law-makers granted a regular license to men for so much money, to steal cattle. Not that. It was simply a finable offense to steal a cow. It was a license on the same plan that gambling and other like offenses against the peace and dignity of the State of Texas and other States, specially in the cities, have been permitted to be carried on, a kind of an understanding with the peace officers that at regular intervals they should pay their fines and run on undisturbed until the next regular grub time with the officers came round. The only difference being that a man's time for contributing to the State for stealing was not a stated one, coming only when he was caught, or some poor fellow, who couldn't steal as fast as some other fellow, put up a job on him and had him pulled. He would then come up and either plead guilty or fight it. In either case, if he was found guilty the fine was $20, which he easily paid and could steal enough cattle in a short time to double his investment. Stealing cattle prior to the war was a rare thing. Perhaps one reason being they were hardly worth stealing, another, the country was so sparsely settled and the Indians were so ** rolicky " it took a good JUPE ON- A TEXAS RANGE, 63 part of the time to look after them. It was made a felony in 1873. As I have before stated, some old fellows who were too cowardly to go to the war and too lazy to work began the business before the war closed. Thus giving the introductory pages to the subsequent history of cattle and horse stealing in Texas which prevailed for many years to an alarming extent But to the credit of a reconstructed order of things be it said, the business has been waning for the past five years, and has dwindled down to such a point that there are but two classes who " monkey " with other people's cattle now. They are the natural born fool, and the fellow who has stolen a sufficient amount to make him respectable and who has it down to a science. There has been so much written about the Mavrick that it seems useless to mention the origin of the term. Some one may wish to know however. The original Mr. Maverick located in southern Texas and be- ing constitutionally a ^ merciful man,^ he had so much mercy on his animals as to refuse to mark and brand them and in the cattleman's parlance if you should ask concerning the ownership of any animal, the answer would be according to the brand the animal bore. For illustration: Suppose we should find a cow belonging to Westmore whose brand is X W, called cross W, I ask: ** Whose cow is that?" the answer would be "That is a cross double U and Mr. Maverick having no mark or brand when they came across an unmarked one it was called a Mavrick. After the war, when the poor, half-starved, weather 8& m YEARS A MAVRICK. and war-beaten fellows returned, those who had left cattle went to work to make up for lost time, and those who had none, to get even for their four years of serv- ice. And it soon became a sort of general scramble as to who should get the greatest number, and on account of thousands of cattle having become wild and unruly because of neglect a very general license was granted, or rather taken, to kill and eat when one was hungry. Thus it was that the majority of people who lived in the West became involved in branding Mavricks, and killing strays, which at that time was not looked upon as stealing, but a kind of pull dick pull devil, the devil-take-the-hindmost sort of way of securing all the cattle one could. This, in after years, produced a regular harvest of thieves. After it became theft the habit of taking what one could get his hands on, regardless of its origin, sim- ply accepting it as so much found, and therefore legiti- mate prize, became so fixed on many that they never could quite comprehend how hard it was to quit until they were run in. The circumstances leading to a change in the laws may be briefly stated as follows : A great many of the more active and better equipped among the scram- blers began to accumulate large herds, and as there were no pasture fences then, they were compelled to turn their cattle loose on the range. The less thrifty and more extravagant classes refused to recognize the rights of the growing nabobs to have their unbranded calves left alone, while they were still keeping up their Qld game of branding Mavricks indiscriminately, and flu lienli Qt Cr«»£ior stayed home to ketp the Yankies iiom getting -0», £man's range, though the snoozer owned his miles of range, the cattle of a dozen ranches were allowed to roam at will on his land. This would naturally drive him to fence. Other sheep-men seeing the pros- perity of one would come in and buy up large tracts 106 27 YEARS A MA VRICK, of land and say to Mr. cow-puncher "move your ranch; "then he "had to," and in order to protect himself he was forced to buy or lease and fence. So the ball began to roll and accumulate until the trouble precipitated between the pasture men and the free grass fellows. The wealthier class, of course, could buy up larger tracts and lease more land than the little fellow, and when it once began to be a fixed rule for each man to get all he could and keep all he had, the demon of avarice that goes to make up the leaven of so many of our lives, stepped in as the initiator of schemes for swindling and prompted many men to buy up and lease land on all sides of large bodies of indi- vidual property that was not likely for years to be molested, fence all together and thus utilize thousands of acres of land that they had no right to. This had the natural tendency to bring out all the rough points of antagonism in the little fellow, who was thus cheated out of what he conceived to be his legitimate heritage, and the consequence was that he bought a pair of nippers and went to cutting or hired some enterprising fellow to do it for him. There was at one time a law passed in favor of the cattleman, allowing one man to take up seven sections of State school land on certain conditions, giving a certain time in which to pay it out. A cat- tleman of means would take up seven sections and then have as many of his hands as he wished to take seven sections each, and thus enable one man to control whole counties. This brought about a state of affairs that UBM OH A TEXAS RAHTGBn 107 culminated in the repeal of that law and the passage of a new one allowing but one section to each man and opening all land to actual settlers, not leased or legitimately held by former claimants ; this resulted in a more relentless war between the big pasture men and the squatter, or the man with the hoe, than had ever been waged between any two classes in the state, making litigation almost endless and causing the larger cattle owners to combine, forming cattle com- panies and syndicates sufficiently powerful to crush out of existence the smaller f rey. The advent of barbed wire into Texas brought with it a reign of lawlessness and terror, such as has no par- allel in the State's eventful history. Then there were decidedly two classes, free grass and pasture men, and never in any land has there been greater bitterness and eternal hatred than existed between those two factions. It was to be heard on the range, at home 'round the fireside, in the courts, in the legislative halls, every election was carried or lost on this issue, the best men of the country were on one or the other side of this question. If a man was a pasture man, he was favoring the wealthy, if a free grass man, he was branded as a wire cutter, when in reality neither charge was necessarily true. It is useless for me to enter into the arguments o,i the two sides of this question as it has been thoroughly "cussed and discussed" by writers better qualified than I am to do the subject justice, besides it is not my object to deal in theory but facts, and thii I sh%}l da as far as in me lies. IJ!5 tf TEAMS A MAVRICK, Prom my knowledge of the true state of affairs wire-cutting was merely another or new form of mob iaw; the beginning of such work was, to some who never stopped to reason, a justifiable act of self-defense, but to a thinking man lawlessness is never justifiable. An outraged community unable to bring to jus- tice a known criminal, takes the law into its own hands and meets out to the offender summary punish- ment ; they argue that ** this is the only way to deal with him" never looking to their own crime. If a man is hanged without a trial, the perpetrators in the eyes of the law are murderers and instead of lessening crime they have increased the criminal class. A man fenced up land t^e had no legal nght to, he was crimi- nal; his neigbl :rs band together and ewt- his fence and there are mor^ ^r^r^minals. The first thing tnal; espeoiallj aroused the indigna^ tion of the stock-man relative m barbed wire was the terrible destruction to stock caused from being torntefe on the wire, and the screw worm doing the rest— this was especially the case with horses. When the first fences were made, the cattle never having had experi- ence with it, would run full till right into it and many of them got badly hurt, and when one got a scratch suf- ficient to draw the blood, the worms would take hold of it. Some man would come into a range, where the stock had regular rounds or beaten ways, and fence up several hundred acres right across the range and thus endanger thousands of cattle and horses. After the first three years of wire fences, I have seen horses and cattle that you could hardly drive between two posts^ UFB ON A TEXAS RANGE 102 and if there was a line of posts running across the prairie, I have seen a bunch of range horses follow the line out to the eEd and then turn, but in a few years the old tough hided cow found a way to crawl through into a cornfield if the wire was not well stretched and the posts close together. The man who had horses cut up and killed by the wire, often felt like cutting it down all of it, and in many instances did ; but like every other class of lawlessness it ran to extremes and before it had gotten very far, was taken up by the more vicious, and such a time one would hardly dream of, who has never had the misfortune to witness it. It became so common that whole pastures would fall in one night and it made no difference who owned them, the presence of the dread enemy was sufficient evidence, and down she came. The men who cut the wire with a very few exceptions were men who owned but few if any horses or cattle ; many of them owned nothing ?<• all, they came out to find room and grass and that gi^-j was the most rabid of all others. I once met one of those fellows, who was working * ittle East Texas dogy stag and a little bull to an old tiaman wagon (wood axle). He had seven dogs, nine children, a wife, a cob pipe and a roll of home-spun tobacco stuck down in his hip pocket. I mean the tobacco was in his pocket — not the family. I asked him where he wds from : " I am from Arkansaw, "Whoa Bully." "Where are you going?'' "Going West to find grass and room. Ike-lep." He was a regular cop- peras-breeches and one-gallus sort of a character ; had just as soon live as to die ; fight one man as two, and 110 97 YEARS A MA VRJCK. would spend more time twisting a rabbit out of a hol- low tree than he would to secure a shelter for his f am- ily in time of a storm. He could afford to have one or two children blown away,but rabbits were too scarce to take the chances on losing one. There would seem to be some excuse for the man who had stock injured by the wire,, but for the man who had nothing on earth to lose or gain, who just did it from pure unadulterated cussedness, there can be no mitigation of his crime. Doubtless many good men for the lack of better judgment on the impulse of the moment, when they came face to face with the evidence of their loss, were led to cut fences, but the cutting of fences made them no better citizens, but had the direct tendency to lead them into other evils. " Evil commu- nications corrupt good manners." One starts out down the stream of wrongdoing, and soon he finds its water growing deeper, the cause being that every little rivulet of evil wends it way on downward to the Eiver of Crime and the man who once allows himself launched upon this dangerous stream is too apt to drift with the tide of evil, until at last he is disrobed of his power to battle with the awful current, and is helplessly swept out into the whirlpool of ruin, irretrievably sinking at last into the ocean of eternity, where he receives his wages, for " The wages of «in is death." The legislature eventually made it a felony to cut a fence, with punishment at "State Contract." Many men, both good and bad, lost their lives in the conflict and a bitterness engendered of neighbor against neighbor that will tend to chill the blood UFB OI\r A TEXAS RANGE, lit of good citizenship for years to come. Free grass has gone and nothing to show for its usefulness but the fact that the country was opened and the way made possi- ble for our present development and growth, by men who had iron nerve and will to bravo the diflBculties of a frontier life, all for the benefits offered by free range, and that, that was good. SuflBce it to say that the old fellows who camei law and conquered, were not the wire cutters, and, to their credit be it said, almost to a man they con- demned it. I mean the older settlers, those men who came in the early days and carved out of the wilderness a home for themselves. Many of the dear old " diamonds in the rough " have gone to answer the summons of the great pioneer of the universe and those who are still with us and witnessing the advance- ment of civilization as a rule are not appropriating to themselves the credit due them for the patient toil and hardships that have given to many a poor man a home in the land of milk and honey, and very few of those who are enjoying the fruits of their labors properly appreciate their real worth, plodding along as they do, their chief occupation gone, often looking as they do with an eye of longing toward the setting sun that so often in early life marked the course of their journey, taking delight in nothing now so much as the privilege of recounting their experiences of more exciting times. But some day the eye that was so keen to discover the presence of his inveterate foe, the red man, and draw so fine a bead along the barrel of IIS Sff YEARS A MAVRICK^ an old ^'Htnnan rifle" as to flsake it estvemely un^ healthy for the varmint or game that came within the range of his trusty piece, that eye will look for the last time upon the accoutrements that were once his trusty companions in the times that tried men's hearts, and then the soul will take its place in the phantom bark that will bear it across the River of Death to the "better shores of the spiritland," where there will be no more heartaches, no more Indians to encounter in deadly strife, no more wild beasts to trouble the peace* fulness of that home of delight, no more struggles between free grass advocates and pasture men* Nearly all of the old frontiersmen of my knowledge are soldiers of King Emanuel, many of those who took part in the struggles recorded in this chapter have since laid down the sword and taken up the cross, many of the thoughtless youths who were led into lawless- ness are now living in a way that bids fair to render them useful. Let us hope that the gospel of peace will yet reach many more who are yet on the " broad trail,** may be as a pointer to the herd, may be as a common hustler keeping up the drags yet on the " broad trail" that leads to eternal condemnation, for " Wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." Yes, the great free grass struggles are over, the people have as a rule buried the tomahawk. Barbed wire, like the Johnson grasSj came to stay, and the people of Texas have decided to make it a blessing instead of wrestling with it. It is bad medicine when a fellow fools with it^ and no sadder plight can be T^asture Mao^ wireOutl^? (Set pige 10e.| 13f UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. tl5 imagined than one in which a man is described as being between a mad Texas steer and a good wire fence the only thing possible for him to do is to drop to the ground and roll under, leaving the steer to interview the fence. The experience of the'^ree grass men wrestling with barbed wire reminds me of a story told on an old frontiersman which occurred in an early day. He lived out on the Colorado river not far from the mouth of the Concho. While out hunting one day with one or two of his boys, they became separ- ated and were on opposite sides of the creek, the water hole, unfortunately, was swimming for some distance up and down from where they were, the old gentleman discovered a young wildcat, and it being gmall, he decided to take it prisoner, so he caught it, but it wag large enough to make him regret the rash act, so he decided to turn the thing loose, but when he pulled its fore feet loose, it would catch him with its hind feet, it was simply making sausage meat of him, when he called for help. His boy ran down to the bank opposite to where he was and being unable to reach him called out to know what the trouble was. " I have caught a wildcat and it is tearing me all to pieces," said the lather. "Turn it loose," said the boy. "Turn it loose? that is just what I have been trying to do," said the father, " but I can't turn it loose." So with the wire cutteri he caught a wildcat and could not turn it loose. I shall ncTer forget the first wire fence I ever tair« Itodca trip to Fannin county with my grand 118 m YEARS A MAVRICK. father to buy some cow horses. While passing through Tarrant county we stopped near his old ranch on Deer Greek to see about some stock horses of his that ranged near the old place. While there, I saw a horse that had been cut across the knee, and we were told that the wire fence we had just passed was the cause. When I saw a barbed-wire machine at work manufact- uring it and was told that there were thousands of them at the same work, I went home and told the boys they might just as well put up their cutters and quit splitting rails and use barbed-wire instead. I was as confident then as I am to-day that wire would win and just as confident when we landed the first train-load of cattle at Fort Worth, Texas, that between wire and railroads the cow-boy's days were numbered, as I am that he is now almost a thing of the past. UifS ON A TEXAS RANGIL U7 CHAPTER IX. MODEBN CATTLE STEALING AS A SOIBETCB. We live in a day of advancement. Hardly anything that can be mentioned that has not been improved or at least had the earnest thought of the inventive crank. Inventors are so numerous that it might be said their name is legion. It has been said that a crank is some- thing that turns, and but for cranks the world would stand still. One has said that one of the characteristics of a crank is that it turns in the same place all the time, and by another that if it does turn in one place it gets out of the old rut and describes a larger circle than does the shaft it turns. But I have seen adjust- able cranks by means of which one might describe quite a variety of circles and they were very useful. There is one fact beyond controversy and that is we have cranks. And about as great a nuisance as we have in the way of a crank is the man who gets cranky and is always harping about cranks. You may not think this sticking to the subject, but you will see by and by. The question might be asked, " Why do you write about stealing? People know enough already about stealing.'' I have a reason and I trust to be able to make it plain, and if I do not, then my indulgent reader will have to go through life enjoying the bliss of ignorance. It is an old and a very true saying that it takes a thief to catch a thief, that is equivalent to saying that to detect a man in crime one must be familiar with the crime. Can it not be equally true 118 S7 YEARS A MA VRiClt. in trying to lead erring men to a better life. You must first, as far as in you lies, know their peculiar needs? If you are to be brought to sympathize with a man in trouble you must, in a measure, be able to place yourself in his condition, at least acquaint yourself with his peculiar suffering and temptation. The great difficulty in the way of the usefulness of many minis- ters of to-day is that they are wrestling with problems and questions with which they are almost wholly unac- quainted. In order to be able to reach the cattlemen with the Gospel, the worker must familiarize himself with his manners and customs, and the heading of this chapter is one of the customs of some of them. What ? Stealing a custom ? Yes, stealing is a custom. Why should such a statement as this seem strange ? Is lying not a custom of some merchants ? Is scientific swmd- ling any part of the life of any of our great land agen- cies, mining corporations, town-site companies, grocery men, dry goods men, the great packing companies or canning companies? Do any of our little truck farm- ers ever put the little " taters " in the bottom of the barrel, the best wood on top of the load ? If they do, what is it but scientific swindling? Yes, some cattle- men get stealing down to a science and they are just as good and not any better than your thieving mer- chant, farmer, miner, real estate dealer or swindling trader in 'anything else. Theft and robbery are one and the same wherever you meet them, and the only thing that makes the difference is, that the penalty is not the same. One Irishman stole a horse and was on the way to the penitentiary, another learned what iia UFB ON A TEXAS RANQB. \Vk was going fof and said, " You are a fool. Why didn't you do as I, buy him on credit and never pay for him I" The difference is, one steals while you sleep and ttie other takes advantage of your confidence and robs you according to law. The crime is not quite the same. One is theft, the other unadulterated cussed- ness. Christian people make great efforts to save a drunkard, and it is right, but let us study how to indis- criminately reach all classes. The inventive geniuses very naturally run into the cattle business, as in all else. Men became perfect horsemen, perfect hands with a rope, and I can truly say I believe they got the question of " pull- ing " cattle down to about as fine a point as I ever knew anything brought. Some one might wish to know where I got my information, and for the special instruction of such, if there should be one so curious, I would suggest that if any one else should ask the question, just say that you don't know. Tho many names given stealing are such as to make it almost respectable. For instance, instead of stealing a bunch of cattle, he would get away with them, got off with them, or palled them ; and if any two men were engaged in a special job, they stood in ; if they were very success- ful, they made a good haul. If anything came into the range that was known to be total stray, or from a far distant range, it was good truck; a stray, unbranded horse was a slick ; one that was not thought to be fully safe to handle, was simply held by some little brand or maris, so that no one else would bother it, and while waiting developments, it was '< a sleeper." If there 190 t7 YBABSA MAVRICK, was no racket raised about it and everything movod smoothly, it was bought, and a bill of sale, witnessed all in good legal form, oould be produced at any time it was needed, provided the animal was not shoved out of the range. The word *» handle " and " rustle " were two favorite names for stealing. A little circumstance occurred in our range that will illustrate what I am trying to tell. Several cattlemen rode up to the house of a nester one day and one of the boys was engaged in conversation with the nester's wife, when she said to him (we will call him Andrews): " Mr. Andrews, what would you think if I told you that we haven't had a bite of meat in our house for more than a week ? " " Why, Mrs. Clay (that name will do), why don't your husband go to rustling ?" She replied: ^\ This thing called rustling is only another name for stealing, and I will let you know my oldjtnan is above that." " So was I," said Andrews, ^^ until I came near starving to death, and I learned to rustle." At one time when an old nester had lost a bimoh of nice hogs and was looking for thmn, he called at a ranch on his rounds and took dinner. He was very kindly treated but no one had seen his hogs. After he had departed some of the boys, among the rest the proprietor of the ranch, enjoyed a hearty ) laugh at the nester's expense. The joke was that the fellow had eaten some of his own hogs for dinner. There were some little boys standing round but the father never dreamed that they had taken notice of the conversation. In a few days the fello?T G»m and while out on the run with another of the boys, they stopped at a hotel to get breakfast. His companion posted the waiter, and by giving him a quarter got him to agree that when the other called for bread or anything else in that way he would, as though he had misunderstood, simply move it to -the other end of the table. By and by he called to the waiter and said, so that every one around the table could hear, **Move the bread, please.*' The waiter picked up the bread and moved it to the farthest end of the table, when, seeming as if not the least bit put out, our friend said, "Thank you,'' and went on eating. However, I don't remember having heard him ask another servant to "move the bread. Many of them are fond of practical jokes. If they find a man to be timid on any point, that is the thing they especially press, sometimes to unreasonable extremes. I remember one young fellow who came to us was very much afraid that he would meet. a pan- ther. As soon as it was known every one knew of some very bloody conflict between man and panther, in which many a good man had gone down, and when night came they would sit 'round the flickering camp- fire and tell stories concemmg panthers and Mexican Uons until the poor fellow would be so frightened that Ihey would have to let him make his pallet betvreen tvro iU Sf YEARS A MAVRiCR. others. One night one of the boys, who could imitate the panther,came into camp rather later than usual,and as he came singing along, within a hundred yards or so he hushed singing, tired off his pistol, squalled like a panther and then began to hollo murder, at tha same time dismounting and striking his horse, making him run into camp riderless, while he kept up the most unearthly screams crying for help. The boys all grabbed their guns, as though to help him, leaving the poor trembling Johnny alone to follow the bent of his own inclination. By and by, after firing several shots, they came into camp with the fellow who had done the calling, wrapped up in a blanket which had been previously besmeared all over with the blood of a beef they had killed in the afternoon, mak- ing one of the most real-looking tragedies one could imagine, but when they reached camp they looked in vain for Johnny. They began to be a little alarmed for him, when they discovered him m a tree some thirty or forty yards away. They finally succeeded in getting him down and to camp but they had scared him so badly that it was days before he was altogether him- self and I candidly believe he was near to losing his mind. They never tried to scare him again, and strange as it may seem, after hearing that it was a joke he was never afraid of a panther again. We had one peculiarly dull fellow in our outfit who was as cowardly as he was ignorant, especially when it came to a personal difBculty. Some one of the boys was always finding some ground to pick a row with him, Just UFB on A TEXAS RANGB, 186 to see him get scared ; they would let <» to be very angry and he would beg like a dog. One young fellow, especially, would pick a row with Dave almost every day. He had kept it up until everyone in camp wag tired of it. One day he came in and, as was his custom found some fault with Dave and began to accuse him of some very absurd things. Before anyone oould hardly realize what had happened Dave knocked him down and such another pounding j^ou scarcely ever saw a fellow get, while all the boys whooped and encouraged him to give ii to him, and there is no tell- ing how long *t woiLi ia ;e lasted if the fellow Dave had down hadn't gotten nold of a rough, wooden stake-pin. When he got it he called out " Give me my knife," and began to saw away on Dave's neck, saying at the time, '^ I'll cut your throat." Dave, thinking he had his knife and certain his throat was cut, just fell over and cried out, " I'm a dead man!" but when he found out he was not hurt he gave the boys due and timely warning that he could fight, and to make his word good he gave two or three of them a good pounding before they would let him alone. He taught them to respect his muscle if they did not respect his brain. Sometimes in camp, as m other places, practical jokes were not so funny to the perpetrators as they might wish. There was a young fellow came out to our country from the East ; he was a great big, over- grown boy about eighteen or nineteen years of age. He had a brother-in-law in the cattle business and went on a round>up with an outfit from our range. One flight hfe brother-in-law pnt up a job on the boy to scare him. It was before the Indians had ceased to make their monthly raids into our settlements. The brother-in-)aw and two others fixed up as Indians and the fourth man took the boy out some distance from camp to see if their horses were doing well. They had looked through the bunch and found them all right and just as they were starting for camp the three men made their appearance from behind an embank- ment and iired their pistols in the air. The boys broke to run, the supposed Indians in pursuit, firing as they came. The one who had enticed the lad away from camp ft)ll, and called to him not to leave him, ha was shot. The boy wheeled round and drew his pistol, began firing, and before they could reach shelter had wounded his brother-in-law in two places and one of the others, I think. I am not too certain of that but have seen his brother-in-law many times since and he will go through life a cripple, the result of his folly. One will n:eet with people sometimes who wish to pose as cow-men very much. One such, while on the train one day, speaking of his ranch, was asked by one of the boys, of whom there were several by, where he ranched, and when told he asked his mark and brand. The fellow really didn't know what he meant and none of the boy s^ were surprised, for he had on celluloid col- lar and cuffs and toothpick shoes. A cow-puncher never togs up in such traps. I don't mean by that to be disrespectful, for many good men wear both, but a cow-boy nevee. When a greenhorn comes into a range he will have all sorts of impositions practiced on hiflOL UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE until he cuts his eye-teeth. Never anything very seri- ous but sometimes very annoying, and mortifying always, unless one is very genial and accepts it as part of his training, which is by far the better way. A young man moved into a good range and after looking round bought a bunch of cattle of a ranchman who lived some five miles from where he was stopping. He drove over a nice bunch of young cattle and gave them some salt. In the meantime several of the boys gathered on the cow-yard, ^y and by one of them broke out laughing ; the rest of the boys knew it was a joke and began laughing also. The young fellow looked puzzled and asked an explanation. After enjoying the laugh, the one who had started it said " Bob, if I wasn^t your friend I wouldn't tell you, but you have allowed that fellow to swindle you." " In what way % " asked the astonished boy. " Why those cattle are the remnant of an old stock that fellow has been working off on greeners for some time ; they are aH old, rnn-down stock and are so near run out that they have no front teeth in their upper jaw." The looks of the youngster would have been a study for an artist. It was a combination of surprise, chagrin and incredulity. All the boys chimed in to verify the statement, and to prove it to him roped several head of the cattle and let him see for himself. He finally became very angry, and when some of the boys pro- posed to help him drive them back and see that he got justice he readily consented, drove them back aF.i demanded his money. The man of whom he got them, in order to carry out the joke, agreed to rue the WH tf YEARS A MAVRICK. bargain. After dinner was over they explained it to him, and he enjoyed the joke as moch as anyone, drove the cattle home, and in a few years became as good a judge of a cow as any of the boys. He always knew the ones that had no teeth after that. This is one of the methods used by the cow- boy to guy a greener, but not the only one. The name is legion. I remember once when a number of gentlemen came into camp out on the Leon river, two of them in a buggy and three others on horse- back. Before leaving the East they had provided themselves umbrellas and the little leather saddles used in I^ew York and all of the Eastern and some of the Southern States, which are very good in town, or when a man has but little riding to do, but in working cattle a man wouldn't last until he was all gone. When the gentlemen above referred to came in sight of camp with their umbrellas stretched, every cow-boy in the outfit made a rush for his horse and ran, like a troop of wild Indians had made their appear- ance, and those who had no horses took it a-foot, some of them calling at the top of their voice : " Mister, please don't turn that thing loose;" others calling out: "Don't shoot, I'll give up." Some of the older fellows, whose days of such fun had passed, laughingly told the gentlemen that they needn't be frightened, as the boys were only scared at their umbrellas, but advised them to put their saddles in a good, safe place. Some of them took the joke nicely, and others got mad. They didn't say anything, however, but showed it by their looks. Finally, being assured of protection, the boys UFB ON A TBKAS RANQh IH came into camp very cautiously ; then they opened the conversation among themselves, each teiiing what hd thought it was, some declaring they were so bad scared they didn't have time to think. One little fellow, who as a rule kept quiet until called on, was sitting silently by, when one of the gentlemen, who seemed to enjoy the fun, asked him : " Well, my friend, what did you think it was ? " Without hesitation he replied \ *« Buzzards ;" then went on to say that mother had read to him in the Bible about some birds bringing something to eat to an old preacher, and he thought if it wasn't buzzards it was them birds coming with something to eat. " I know we're not preachers but we're good just as hard," said he, " and we're hungry, too, for human grub, and if anybody brought anything good to eat in this camp I think he should give us some," The secret of this little speech was, he had seen some canned fruit in the ^'•^o^y* Some of the men of the umbrella and human saddle crowd seemed most thoroughly disgusted, as was plain from their looks, but at least two of them enjoyed the joke hugely. By and by one of the boys made it in the way to run over one of the saddles and fell full length on the ground, turning the saddle over into full view of the boys ; it had been covered with a blanket or partly so. This was the occasion for another general stampede, but they rallied and gathered around the saddle and held another consultation. The final decis- ion was that it was the chief of the hairy tribe, or something good to eat, and that as a band of civilized cow-boys they would desist from doing it bodily harm diS the thing seemed to be quiet and willing to do the U2 £7 YEARS A MA VRICK. square thiog. Then they dispersed and each went about his business, joking each other about the adven- tures of the morning, one of them declaring that he intended to go to meeting next Sunday, he was so glad he was alive. UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE Hi CHAPTER XL Three of the gentlemen referred to in the preceC- ing chapter became so thoroughly disgusted that thoy pulled up stakes and shoved for town as soon a? din- ner was over. It is needless to state that they did not eat dinner with the boys. But it is a mystery to me how they managed to pull through with their din- ner, as the boys were continually bantering them to *' swap grub," and all during luncheon could be heard such remarks as, " Boys, it looks like you'd offer a fel- low ak>me cake.'* One cow-boy said to another, " Jim, I'm nearly dead for some peaches." " Mister, I'll give you some beef for some sugar." " Say, you there ! I'll call you captain if you'll give me some cake." Finally, most thoroughly out-done, one of them arose, began to bundle his duds, and, speaking to his companions, said: " I thought I was going to meet gentlemen when I came here, but I don't think I was ever so treated in my life." At that every one of the boys broke away and ran for forty or fifty yards, hiding, or seeming to hide, until our Eastern friends were entirelv out of sight. They left two of their number behind, who came for business and were willing to take the cow- boy as they found him. This story is as true to life as it is possible for an eye-witness to relate it after the lapse of twenty years. It goes to show the peculiarities of the cow- boy in an early day, and I am prepared to say that, like the proveri>ial " Ben. Moore's leather shirt," when i44 27 YEARS A MA VRICK, he tried to wash it " it got no better fast." The boys never did such a thing simply to mortify theiy visitor, but to try his pluck. One of the gentlemen of the two above referred to, who remained, in the course of the afternoon, just for the novelty of the thing, made one of the boys a pres- ent of hi« saddle and umbrella, and told him to have just all the fun with it he wished ; and perhaps no one else but a oow-boy would have thought of doing what he did. There was an old tree within about ten feet of the wagon, that had a limb running out near the ground. He took the saddle, put it on the limb, stretched his umbrella over him, and sat there like a statue, not speaking to any one, for over an hour. It was one of the most ridiculous sights I remember to have witnessed in camp or anywhere else. The last time I saw him he had that little old saddle and the umbrella. The gentleman who presented them to him became one of the successful cattlemen of Texas ; not on a very large scale, but a more substan- tial man I don't know anywhere. He is now devoting his time to the breeding of blooded cattle and horses ; has one of the finest small stock farms in the State, and he owes his success in a measure to being able to take the cow-boy as he found him, and make him his friend. He thus secured their respect, love and protection ; and that means something in the cattle business. The boy of the circumstances as above related (tb quiet youngster referred to in another part of this story) is now a man reasonably well-to-do, has a cul- UFB ON A TEXAS HANi'U 145 tared family around hinij and is rne of the most de- voted Christian men in the commtiiiity in which he lives, universally respected and loved for his real moral worth. I merely state this to show you that c -1 did not go to the bad • and I will state in this connection that when they did, it was the exception ^nd net the rule^, and I state nothing that I am not able to back with testi- mony. Of course I may err in the relation of some incidents, but have not overdrawn, and many things here given are less vividly represented than to my memory the real case would show the facts. Some one may read this and say that those gentle- men were justly indignant. I will ^dmit that it was trying to the nerves of a sensitive imn, but will say further that the boys were just as light-hearted as they were full of fun. That was their style, and the good old adage we so often hear, "When in Rome do as Romans do " is equally applicable to the cattle ranch, and if a man came to the ranch and wished smooth sailing, he had to adapt himself to the surroundings. I have found in my short experience that the man who is incapable of drifting with the tide, bending to the breeze, runs up on many a snag in this world, and to such a one no difference if in the cow camp, or the gilded drawing rooms of a fashionable IN'ew York mansion. The rough corners are always coming in contact with his feelings ; in fact there are very few plaees in thu old world that contain unalloyed bliss for the sensitive man. If one is to be sure of unwounded feelings, it is best to adiust himself to his surroundings 5 and not try tC 14S iT YEARS A MAVRJCK. regulate his surroundings to work in harmony with hit feelings; if he does the latter he simply makes a mistake. I don't mean to be understood that one is to give up j)rinoiples for comfort ; not so, but there is a way to lead instead of being led. I have never found that to be by brute force, but rather by kindness. The Apostle Paul proposed to be " all things to all men " that he might perhaps be able to win some ; the inference is that Paul followed the admonition given by the King in Proverbs. "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly," and by being friendly he won friends ; and while he did not necessarily engage in, w even endorse any eoil ^ractioe^ still he used a conse- crated judgment in his dealings with men, and proved ihat he loved them. At another time there came to our range a couple of men, evidently from the East, who had bought some cattle for the Eastern market. The cattle were to be delivered at Fort Worth, but they came out to " rusti- cate." They were in camp when the outfit came in ; about ten o'clock the boys brought a yearling to camp for beef. They soon had it stretched. Along to- ward eleven o'clock one of the boys went to where the beef was hanging, and cutting the foreleg with the shoulder blade loose from the ribs and brisket (a piece never eaten unless extreme necessity demand it), he came dragging it on the ground up to the fire where the gentlemen were, and throwing it carelessly on the fire, turned to one of the boys and said : " If that meat gets done before I get back, turn it over." He got on his horse and rode oQ. toward the herd, and posted th9 He rides a human saddle. (See p&ge 144) w UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. 146 herd hands that there were some greenhorns in camp, and what to do when they came in, this being the range camp, or rather the herders' camp; we had no cook, it was every fellow for himself. After awhile one of the boys turned the meat over, which was charred on one side. When Rob returner^ he picked up the shoulder of meat, caught the shame in the fork of a limb, and turning to the strangers, said: " Gentlemen, come to dinner," and then to the boys, "Bring the bread and salt.^* Some of the boys in the meantime had made some coSee. The strangers came with a very poor grace, however, and they were very timid at arst, but before the meal was over they both declared they had never eaten beef that was half so sweet and juicy. They remained in camp for the full time of the gathering and expressed regrets at having to go when they did I am sure there never came to our outfit two men who were more universally liked than were these. The lecret of the beef being good was that broiled beef is always good if it is fat and tender, and this was both ; then it was thrown on a bed of live coals and became seared before it lost any of its flavor, and was cooked before being salted, which should always be done. The salt takes the juice out, or causes it to run out. Then to add to that a good appetite made it very palatable. In SOI ^ outfits it was cup,ton?ary to pick up the first thing one yame to regardless oi whom it belonged to. This was a constant annoyance to one who wished to live in common decency, for it was sometimes carried to outrageous extremes. For instance, a man rode up I and pulled off bis saddle and hung his quirt on the horn and went about his dinner. Some one would want a quirt, spurs, blankets, or anjrthing else, and would lift the article wanted from the other man's saddle and go. At one time one of the boys had been to St. Louis and came home with a beautiful pipe ; when he had the boys all together, he said . " If o w, boys, you know the custom in this outfit of taking the first thing one comes to. I have here a beautiful pipe that I prize very highly, because of the fact it is a present to me from a friend. [N"ow when anyone wants to smoke this pipe you are welcome to it, if you will return it when you have done; but I want it distinctly under- stood that if any man walks off with my pipe, it will cost him a pony." They all laughed at him, but for some time no one molested the pipe. Several of them tried it, but invariably returned it. One day one of the boys picked it up and smoked it, knocking the ashes &om it on his boot heel, he placed it in his pocket, mounted his pony and was gone. The next morning he had a horse out of place. He scoured the range in every quarter but couldn't raise him. Finally one of the boys saw him smoking and said : "Isn't that Joe's pipe?" He answered that it was. "Well " said the first speaker," I can tell you where your horse is" and proceeded to explain. Now it happened that this one had not been present when Joe had given the warning, or had forgotten it, the habit was so common. At any rate he was good warm (mad) and proceeded to interview Joe concerning the horse. Joe acknowledged that he had hiip hidden out. They LIFE OJr A TEXAS RANGE. ISI had some sharp words about it, but finally the one who had the pipe produced it and Joe told him where his horse was, but wouldn't go and get him. They were soon friends again. It is useless to say that they let Joe's pipe alone afterward and the little circumstance was the means of breaking up the practice in that outfit. Sometimes the boys would impose a fine for cer- tain " unlawful acts," such as blowing one's nose within a certain distance of the camp fire, repeating what some notorious liar had said, using profane language before the cook, "Miss Saliie" (as the cook was gen- erally called), throwing a rock at a horse, and many other offenses — too numerous to mention. The fine was generally, for the first offense, a plug of tobacco; for the second, two plugs ; for the third, three plugs and a dressing-off with a pair of leggings, which meant to bend a fellow over a log, or something elsej and give him ten licks with a pair of leather leggings. Some would walk up and take their medicine like a lit- tie man, which was far better, as such a one was nc^ very severely " dressed ; " but I have seen men protest quite vigorously, but don't remember a single case when it did any good. And when one appeared very " obstropulous," the fine could be doubled, and it was invariably done, unless at the termination of the X^scl strokes the victim begged for mercy and pardon, in which case it was always granted. I have, however, seen men hold out until their punishment was very se- vere, and in rare instances I have known personal dif- ficulties to grow out of it, but it was the exception. As a rule they felt so comf od;able alter it quit smaiti W2 i? r&AI^S A MA VRICK. ing they were glad enough to *^agh it off and say mc more about it, as they ha^'^ the whole outfit against them, for in making ruks it was always by a majority vote, and it will be remembered that, with rare excep- tions, we were all Democrats. You ask why ? Simply because our fathers before ws werey and we were ex- actly like ninety-nine out of a hundred people with whom you meet. If called upon to give an intelli- gent reason for their religion or politics they couldn't do it. Many men who boast and blow about Demo- cratic or Republican principles, if they were to meet one in the road would have to be introduced to it, and then they would be simply taking some one else's word for it. I don't know so much about the Republicans as I do the Democrats, but if one was to introduce to a southern Democrat a Republican principle under the assumed name of tariff reform, he would take it to his bosom and cherish it as the idol of his heart, with a very few honorable exceptions of course. From what I have been able to learn, the same is true of the northern Republican. The principal reason is that the majority of poople in the world don't think for them- selves, but allow a few fellows to do it all for them. Suppose the same rule was applied to the physical body, as the one appropriated by the political body. To illustrate, suppose we let one out of a thousand eaj^ for us and we go about howling about how good it was, one can readily see the result. They would soon dwindle down, dry up and blow'away to the unknown UKB ON- A TEXAS J^aNGE. :j& sinores of eternity ; and from a cow-boy's standpoint, that will be the condition of our body politic in the near future, if people don't wake up and think for them- selves, learn to do more and howl less, and in this alone the safety of the government lies. In our rulings in camp, we allowed the good old Democratic principle of *' Let the majority rule " to guide us. Althouo^h I have never been able to find out why that was called a Democratic principle more than Republican. As the foundation of our Repub- lican institutions has this as one of its chief corner- scones, and every Republican I have interviewed believes in it, yet the Democrats have appropriated hj ^.nd call it " oum." ^ ometimes for want of better amusement the boys wou* "" hold court, ard many of them knew how as they hsid been there. We would empanel a jury, elect a con- stable, sheriS', bailiff, prosecuting attorney, and judge, eierk'and all. We would have some of the most amusing trials. We would get some fellow up, usually who had really been guilty of some misdemeanor, and bring in the real witnesses. One to appreciate it must attend such atrial. Some of the boys were very well posted in the law. It would make a book worth reading just to record one of such trials when a large outfit were engaged in it ; and to a bystander who was not in it, it would have been real to an alarming extent some- times. At other times when none of the religious men of the outfit were in camp, or even if there were, shtjuld they be those for whom the boys had no respect 154 »T YEARS A MAVRJCK, on account of their inconsistent li^es, they would hold mock religious services (however, there were ungodly men in almost every outfit that would never engage in or encourage anything of the sort. Many of them where they could do so would prevent it.) There was one young boy in an outfit that I was working with who could hear a sermon preached and get up a month afterwards and reproduce it almost word for word. I don't tnink I would be exaggerating to say that there were three preachers of his acquaintance, whose sermons he stored away, and these he could reproduce at will. To say the least, he had a remarkable memory and was good at mimicry. He could use the gestures of the three men to a very taking degree. When he was in camp, there would be preaching, as a rule, twice each week. One night after he had preached a complete sermon he took the boys down to the creek and had them all in the water. He had emersed several when part of the embankment caved, and came near drowning them. After that he never would preach a Campbellite sermon ; saying that he was convinced that emersion was not right and that the Lord was trying to kill him for it. Let me say just here, that his arguments were Just about as logical as many I have heard by Christian people in favor of or against any theory they might have. Instead of God's eternal truth, they take some oircumsfcance in life as the foundation and proof of their argument. One evening some months after this circumstance occurred, the same boy was reproducing or recit- ing the Methodist sermon he had heard the night UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, 155 before at % camp-meeting fifteen miles below the ranch on the Colorado river; when all of a sudden one of the boyt jumped up and began to exhort him to desist, and with tears and pleadings succeeded in running the boys all out of camp. Finally he got his horse and started down to the meeting. Some of them followed and tried to get him to return, but without avail ; so they went with him and when they reached the meeting ground, it aroused the whole camp and such another time as they had can better be imagined than described. That boy quit the ranch and went into the ministry, but was not called the cow-boy preacher. I mean the one who was converted that night It broke up preaching in that camp. The one who preached that night, afterwards became a worker in the church. ISa |g^ TEAMS A MA VRICK. CHAPTEK Xli, THE COW-BOY IN RELATION TO SLANO. The use of slang has become so common among the American people that it is a little hard to tell some* times what the term means. Many slangy expressions are so common as to become proper, if we are to be governed by the time-honored rule, that use is the law of language. Take the expressions, " get there," " he got there all the same," " all the same," " that^s right," "your right," "I should saj so," " that's what's the matter," " he couldn't quite cut it," " blaze away," **fly in," "go for him," " he went for him," and a hundred others. In fact one must needs be a finished scholar, not only in theory, but in practice, to know the unadul- terated English when he hears it; and some slang expressions are so expressive that one hardly feels like objecting to them. I had heard slang so universally condemned, and had the northern and eastern people held up as models worthy of imitation so often, that I had about decided that we poor Texans were an isolated mixed herd of half hog and half alligator sort of animal, and that we were the most outrageously slangy set on the face of the earth. In consequence, I was most thoroughly brought into sympathy with the Reverend Sam. P. Jones, for the abuse that was heaped upon him ^iMT the use of slang. Except in oases where some little ^^pgun of a preacher tried to put on Mr. Jones' pants and waltz round on his stamping ground, nearly all the ministers outside of the Methodist Church were UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE- 158 firing into the gentleman. They wouldn't say, I am shooting at Sam Jones, but would cjock their little cM hog leg pistols and point out over the congregaticm and say : "Look out there now, I am going to shoo*, and I won't call any names ; but I am shooting at the man who says when preaching, " You grand old ras- cals." In fact the one who lectured through Texas on *^get there," and they fire away.^ I had noticed that when the gentleman above referred to had conducted the meetings, the devil had been very considerably exercised over what he had said and the great racket the old fellow raised was in regard to his slang, I assert again that I was greatly in sympathy with Mr. Jones, because he seemed so dosely allied to the poor, ignorant, uncultured cow- boy, and I supposed it was because he did not know any bett^. In the coarse of a few years of more intimate association with people of all classes, I changed my mind in regard to the reasons prompting him to the use of such bad English. I decided that if a man wished to become a missionary among the Mexicans, the first thing necessary would be to familiarize himself with their language and the best way to do that would be to live among them, for the simple reason, that if 1:^ learned to speak the Spanish, he could go ahea'i and preach to hundreds of them, where he could not afford to take the time to teach them the English before try- ing to preach to them. If he tried to preach to them in English without first teaching them the language, it would be simply folly. They would not understand him. Mr. Jones evidently understood this and simply 160 ^ YEARS A MA VRICK. went out in his work to reach the greatest number of people possible, and in order to do so he speaks to thenj in their own language. For I have been in the South- ern, Eastern, Northern and part of the Western States^ and nowhere have I been that slang was not used by ihe masses. I don't believe it should be the case, but S is so, and for people to stand out and berate a preache/ for the use of slang and in their condemnation use the very expressions they are condemning in him, it reminds one of the old story, • 'Pot calling kettle black- face. I heard a lady berating a minister for using slang. She was speaking in the presence of her chil- dren and said : "I think that a minister who will use such slang in the pulpit ought to have a head jmt on him." Now this lady was a professed follower of the Lord and had often said that she was going to make a minister of her little boy. The hardest thing for me to comprehend is how people can make such distinctions as that it is worse to use slang in the pulpit than around the family fireside. God has said to parents, " Bring them (your children) up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and again, " Train up a, child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." In other words, the way in which you train him, when be is old that way will he walk. A young lady teacher at Monteagle, Tennessee, said to me once: " I would like to go to Texas if the state of society was not so bad, and I believe it would scare me to death to meet one of those cow-boys. Why, they tell me that they do not use any other language out slang." I admitted that they Tere quite prolific UFE OJ\r A TEXAS RANGE, |«] in the use of the obnoxious dialect ; in less than two minutes that same young lady, upon being reminded that she would be late at the round table if she was not careful, remarked as though it was her native tongue : " I'll get there all the same," and turning to her companion who had just entered the room and who had worn this young lady*s gloves on a tramp to the Forest Eidge, she said : " Fever mind, Miss, I'll get even with you and don't you forget it."' I thought to my- self : " if I lived as near you as you do to me, I would come to see you every day." I had a brother who stopped one night with an old granger in eastern Texas and when they were at the table one of the little follows asked for gravy but could not say gravy. He called it " dravy.'' One of his little brothers who was older, and consequently wiser, said to him: "Iss I touldn't say dravy better en you tan I'd say drease by dranny." And when one finds that they can't practice what they preach better than many people who condemn the use of " slang in the pulpit, " I think they had better quit harping on that particular subject. The wrong that I can see in the use of slang is that it panders to the low and vulgar. It usually starts from a source that to say the least is hardly creditable, and it is always in the di- rection of lowering the standard of the purer English, and as I candidly agree with Dr. Black of the Missouri Yalley College, when before the Synod of Texas he said that the English speaking people were the ones to bring this old world to our Lord, the Ohrist, I am very decidely in favor of maintaining the English in its m fff YEARS A MAVRICK, purity, and slang expressions are superfluous in the pul- pit or out of it, and why all thisnamby pamby milk and cider fuss about the pulpit no j^ace for this, that and the other % If I read my Bible and interpret it aright, *^ Ye are the temple of God " 1st Corinthians, 3: 16-17. And if that be true then it is criminal to use slang in the pulpit, my Xian friend, it is criminal to let it pass your own lips. No difference what I have said and shall say about slang among cow-boys, I am unconditionally op- posed to the use of it in the pulpit, out of the pulpit, in the home and every other place (though I fall short of what I know to be the proper thing), for I am in favor of educating the millions of people who are coming to our shores in the English not as it is now spoken, but as it should be spoken in its purity, and just as they hear it that is the way they will speak it, and I want to seethe day in America that the English speaking people will control our Government. I am opposed to any man that can not read and write the English language hav- ing a voice in the control of this Government, and un- til our franchise is regulated so as to shut out ignorance and foreign domination we are drifting toward the shipwreck of our republican institutions. We now return to the subject. Slang in the cow- camp, like the cow-boy in politics, has no rule to regu- late it, but is a creature of circumstances, and the cow- boy in this regard at least is like Napoleon Bonaparte who, when the allied powers submitted a proposition to him, that if he would capitulate they would make him the King of some rather insignificant possession, his UFE ON A TEXAS RANGI&, IM reply was that he thanked them, he was in the habit of making those things himselL So the cow-boy is under no obligation to any one for his slang and no one is responsible for it, as he makes it for himself. The simplest English sentence may by some chance circum- stance be converted into a slang phrase by being mis- applied. To illustrate, a number of the boys were one day standing on the corner of a street in a western town when a little black dog came trotting across the public square ; they were making some very unkind re- marks about the dog, as he had no tail and his ears were cut off. An old drunken fellow standing holding to a sign post took in the situation and in his half- drunken, foolish way said: " Something seldom about that little black pup." This created quite a deal of mirth ; the boys took it up from that and to-day there is not an expression more universally in use in the West among the boys than this one, "Something seldom," and the variety of uses to which this expression is subject is some- thing curious; for instance, if one sees a very fat horse " there is something seldom about that horse," if very poor, " something seldom about him " if very large or small it is the same. If a young lady is handsome, " something seldom about that girl " if very homely "something seldom." It is applied to tall people, short people, fat people, lean people, good houses, bad houses, one-eyed people, cross-eyed people, fast horses, fine cattle, scrubby cattle, good preachers, bad preachers — anything and anybody under any and all circumstances conceivable. There is " something seldom " about them. The expression " old taller " is used very largely in 164 m YEARS A MA VBidC. the same way, except that it usually has some specific meaniDg, aud originated from something of a legiti- mate sourofj, as old taller (or tallow) is the best quality of tallow, being that gotten from a fat old cow or steer, and is much ^rmer and more substantial than that of younger cattle. When a real fat cow was found, the habit of saying " she was old tallow'* grew to be quite universal; from that, anything that wasM was " taller," and if real fat was " old taller." Then it became quite common. If any of the bo3rs became very fleshy or rosy, some one would say, '* Old boy, you are getting to be old taller," and so it grew to be a term universally applied to fat people, cattle and everything else. I never fowget an instance where one of the boys came near getting " crawled,'^ as he termed it. Sev- eral 2/oung ladies were in a store trading ; one of them was very fleshy, and this young fellow remarked that the one with the red dress was " shore taller." Her father happened to hear him and demanded an expla- nation. The fellow begged the old man's pardon, and said he only meant^ that she was fine looking, which was really true. Yet I would suggest that one of the most unmanly things for any one to be guilty of is to stand on the streets and make remarks about ladies who happen to pass, and, though unthinkingly done by good men, yet it is very uncalled for, and, as one respects his sisters and mother, he should never do it. If he has no respect for them, and has so far fallen be- neath the dignity of a true gentleman as to wilfully do such a thing, then a lady is not injurod bv his remarks ^memt^Mi '^^ ^^ :^»g ^^f& ij^' LIFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, If} any more than if any other flop-eared hound were to bark at her. Another expression, though used metaphorically, may be interesting. If anything occurs to very much discommode one, or something occurs that greatly disappoints or annoys one, a common expression among the boys when relating it is to say, " He looked so bad his ears flopped." I remember a poor fellow who was with us on the road, hauling lumber out from Lampasas to one of the western counties. He was very heavily loaded, and drove into a little gully, or deep, narrow ditch, and broke his wagon. One of the boys, in describing it, and telling how bad Charley looked, said, "The poor fellow, I was sorry for him; he looked so bad his ears flopped." In describing how anything, animal or man, got out of the way, they "leaned forward and shoved." To illustrate, one of the boys was caught away from his horse, and a bad cow was going for him, when iome one, who was safe, called out to him, " Look out, Jess." He didn't take time to look, but started for the first tree at a two-forty gait, and he was so much in earnest that he "leaned forw^ard and shoved " If any one looked very badly from sickness he "looked like a motherless calf." If one horse beat another very badly in a race he beat him " from where you laid the chunk." This became so common that " the chunk " was left off, and it was " from where you laid her/' If any one succeeded in accomplishing an ob- ject, as finding a horse or cow, or anything that was of any importance, such as beating a case in court op m ^ YEARS A MAVMiCM. winning in a horse race, one would ask, ^' JM jkm beat them, Don?" Instead of saying, "Yes, sir," in English unvarnished, or "you bet," as our Yankee cousins, he would say " you heamer. Charity." I do not think I ever heard the expression, " you §aid something" in camp. It was ** you said it," " you hit 'er pard," " that's its shape." In fact, the most de- cent slang of civilization would be perverted by the cow-boy. If a man played a good game at pool or billiards " he shoots 'em like the Watsons ; " or any- thing well done was " like the Watsons." If you ask one to join you in any enterprise, great or small^ sig- ^cant or otherwise, if he was willing he did not say, '*I will," but instead "I've got your company." If two men had a misunderstanding and one jumped on the other, or struck him, one telling it afterward would say, " he went to him all spraddled out." If a horse could run well but was not the best, it was " he can't fly but he can catch birds." If an animal was good blood, it was as " fine as split silk." If one was willing to stay by a fellow in trouble, he would stand by him " as long as there was a button on Jabe's coat." If one was lost " he didn't know straight up ; " if drunk, ** he couldn't hit the ground with his hat " — ^^ as drunk as a biled owl." If a man was homely he was as ugly " as galvanized sin f if he was rafoally, he was " a double back-action, adjustable fraud ;" "as dirty as a flop-eared hound." If one man betrayed confidence with another ^* he gaTt Mm dirt ; " if h» was untrust- worthy* he wa^ ^^iMf • *' If woflMsiiij. "h« wasn't UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, 16& worth a barrel of shucks ; '' if lazy, he was " too alow to grow fast," " molasses wouldn't run down his legs." One of the men who usually did the shoeing for the ranch was in the very ungenerous habit of whip- ping his wife and children. I do not say this of per- sonal knowledge but the boys said he did and I be- lieve it to be true. He would not do so when sober, but was never sober when he could secure the " red eye.'^ Invariably when he went to town he would get drunk, and when he did his mule usually threw him off before he got home. Once, while coming home, his mule, as usual, threw him to the ground and ran out into the woods. One of the boys being with him, rode 'round her, and the drunken fellow came stumbhng on behind, when he aroused a rattlesnake, fell headlong right on top of it, and the snake bit him. The fellow who was with him got him home as soon as he could and came running up to the ranch. Sev- eral of the boys were congregated in the cow-yard and saw him coming. Some one said, " Something is wrong or that fellow would never get such a move on him as that." When he came up he was asked what the matter was, and he said " Bud was snake-bit." One rakish fellow sitting by asked, " Did it hurt the snake? " " Of course not," was the reply, " Then you needn't trouble about him," was the sarcastic suggestion ; and it is a fact it did not hurt him. I know one fellow who was so lazy that he became the laughing-stock of the outfit ; he, however, always de- nied the charge. At one time the boys got him up for a phrenologist to examine his head. The moment the 170 27 YEARS A MA VRICK, professor put his hands on him he remarked, " Here is a man who will never lie in the corner of the fence and let the hogs eat him up." The fellow looked 'round at the boys, as much as to say " I knew I wasn't lazy," but the next words of the professor cooked him. Said he: " I do believe he would let them eat off one leg before he would hollo * Suey! > w UFE 02^ A TEXAS RANGE, 171 CHAPTER XTTT. pJSUUiJARTTIES OF THE COW-BOY. Some very amusing things occur even in a court of justice. Once in the history of our range the Indians made a raid through the country and took several horses from our outfit , the boys followed and overtook them, whipped the rascals out and recaptured every horse we had lost except one belonging to a Mr. T — . Among the bunch retaken was a little mule which the boys, after consultation decided that T — should take as he was the only loser. He kept the little fellow for, perhaps, a couple of years, then traded him off. He had a neighbor who had in his general make up instead of the milk of human kindness the bitterness of demoniacal cussedness, who when his neighbor T — lold the mule, appeared in the role of a lover of justice and had Mr. T— indicted for theft. Thit neighbor, like many of his stripe, when the Indians were in the country never stirred outside of his own little cow-yard. I don't think this fellow ever saddled his horse to go on a raid. If he did he didn't intend to go when he saddled up. One thing that was pecu- liarly noticeable among such liberty-loving, law-abiding citizens, when the occasion presented itself to go out and fight ioft the protection of their families and property, they took very suddenly ill with cramp, colic or something worse. In fact^ the mention of an Amer- ican Indian would make their knees smite one against the other, and like Belshazzarof old they seemed to 1 m 87 YEARS A MA VRICK. see the handwriting on the wall. No wonder, as a rule a mean contemptible charaeter is as cowardly as he is mean. However, it may be that they were going on the principle that they had lost no Indians and therefore were not hunting them. When T — was brought to trial his companions in the raid were summoned as witnesses. The prosecuting attorney, a young lawyer from " back East, " was par- ticularly anxious to prove himself equal to the occasion, therefore made himself very officious. They put one of the boys on the stand, a real bright young cow-fel- low, but one who was a type of his class. The attorney for the defense had asked the question if the men of the scouting party had agreed for T — to take the mule, to which he had received an affirmative answer. When the attorney for the prosecution took the witness, the first question he asked was " Did I understand you to say that you all agreed for Mr. T — to take the mule? " The witness answered " I don't know. " The attorney flew up and said ^^ Yes, but you did say it. " " I know I did and, it is so, '' replied the witness. " You just now said you did not know, what do you mean by that? " •' I mean that I don't know what you understood me to say as I am not the guardian of your understand- ing. " After some gerrymandering the lawyer again put the question, this time, " Did you say, etc., " and received an answer in the affirmative. After several questions in which there was more or less bantering the lawyer asked " Did you all tacitly acquiesce to T— taking the mule?" The witness hesitated fof moment and with the light of mischief written |)lau»*^ ^SmjExe. tts VQO%, sa *• -^'t-Xitmy^m 'Ss^ ^^ ^ UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. 175 on his countenance said "Partner, you will have to chew it finer than that, " at which the lawyer fairly turned red and tore his hair and insisted that he should have an answer to his question. The judge whc had not gotten the full run of the questions and answers, as there were twelve jurymen to hear it, turning to the witness commanded him to answer the question. "Well " said he, "say it again." " Did you all tacitly acquiesce to T — taking the mule? " came the question. Turning to the judge the witness said '^ Judge, I don't know what he means by that but I am willing to do what is right about it. " SuflBce it to say the question was changed. Sometimes one will run across a diamond in the rough on the range as in any other country or sta- tion in life. Such a one was found in the person of the cook " Miss Sallie, " or more properly designated as " Jimmie, the Cook. '* Jimmie was, indeed, a phil- osopher and his deductions were beyond appeal, his logic would admit of no contradiction. The boy had a rule of his own for arriving at a conclusion. He was an incessant worker ; you could hardly find him idle at any time, and while preparing a meal he would work so hard and stand so closely over the fire that the per- spiration would collect on his face and run down like a spring shower. "When Jimmy was about to make a report those who were familiar with his manners and customs always knew it. He had a habit of raising his arm and wiping the perspiration from his brow with his sleeve, usually he had a shovel in one hand and a poker in the other and when he turned to the 17« S7 YEARS A MAVRICK. boys, or any one of them, in this way they knew h« was going to say something. There was one of the boys in the outfit that Jimmy had a special liking for and while he was not a demonstrative fellow he did not try to hide hia admiration for this man, but would call him to one side and confide to him his secrets and ask his ad vice. In fact, he was Jimmie's counselor, and it is to him that I owe the little scraps of story that go to prove Jimmie a philosopher. One of the boys had been to 8t. Louis with cat- tie, and on his return for some tizne the outfit heard nothing but St. Louis. He WDuld no more than strike the ground in camp unti] it was St. Louis. It was St. Louis for breakfast, St. Louis for dinner and St. Louis for supper until it became a little monotonous to the boys who had not been to St. Louis. One day Mr. Owen, Jimmie's counselor, came into camp a little in advance of the boys. When he had located himself comfortably under the shade of a tree close to the camp-fire where Jimmie was at work the boy turned to him, drew his arm across his brow and said: " Mr. Owen, John Morgan is always talking about St. Louis this, and St. Louis that, and St. Louis t'other and I don't suppose there's a man in this outfit that * ain't' been to Waco, Texas, and I have an idea that it's four times as big as St. Louis." After a hearty laugh at the boy's way of putting it, Owen assumed a sober, earnest expression and said 2 " Yes, Jimmie, you are right about it, and if I was yoii the first time J ohn Morgan branches out about St. I«Qlit^ UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, HI Fd tell bim of it. I would give him a piece of my mind, and if you will do it I'll back you in it In fact, I have been thinking that I would do it myself, but it would be better for you to. It would hack him to know that the cook knew more than to swallow all of his gags about St. Louis." " I'll do it," says Jimmie, and returned to hig work, but the next time John came into camp it was the same old song, St. Louis, St. Louis and nothing but St. Louis. By-and-by Jimmie turned to him and draw- ing his hand across his face said : " John Morgan, you are always talking about St. Louis this, St. Louis that, and St. Louis the t'other just like nobody had ever been anywhere but you, and I don't reckon they's a man here that hain't been to Waco, Texas, and it's four times as big as St. Louis," and turning to his friend, said : " Ain't it, Mr. Owen? " To which he readily received an answer in the affirmative. It completely raised the camp, every one in the outfit agreed to Jimmie's proposition and turned it on poor John, after that, when he accidentally mentioned St. Louis some one would call out, "Go to Waco/* until the boy was afraid to say St. Louis. Jimmie was satisfied, the boys carried the joke for him, and unless he has learned better since, he holds the city of Waco, Texas, in awe as among the natural wonders in the way of cities, in the great free State of Texas and the world. Some of the boys had been to the New Orleans Ex- position and had a great sight of information on their return. On one occasion when Jimmie caught bis m ff YBASS A MA VRKS. ^Torite alone he said to him: " Mr. Owen, they talk a heap about this New Orleans Exposition and from what I can find out it is nothing on earth but the same thing that was up at Philadelpby a few years ago and they called it the Centennial, and I have an ide they will have it somewhere else next time and call it by some other name, don't you think so?" After a hearty laugh Owen told him that he was right about it, that he had known it all along, but did not think about anybody else catching on, that it was only a dodge of the owners of the thing to fool people and get them to come and see it. And sure enough Jimmie was right, for here we run right up on the thing in Chicago only by another name. ;it is now the World's Fair or the Columbian Exposition, so you ^see Jimmie is still ahead. The cow-boy is the»roughest character on a stale joke you will find in a week's travel. In fact, it mat- ters very little how new or spicy a story may be if the outfit wish to hack a fellow they will guy him in a hundred different ways. When the subject they wish to hack tells anything, some one will start it by saying : " That sounds to me," then every man in the outfit usually takes it up and carries it 'round "that sounds to me '' and when it has gone the rounds some one will turn to another and say : " What do you think of that % " First one answer and then another will be given, one heard it in '47, another wants a little evidence on it, says that it would look real nice with a little evidence, another don't believe a word of it, still another believes part of it but can't swallow it whole. UFB ON A TEXAS RANGB. Hi In this way thej test a man's metal, if he takes his medicine and does not get angry, it is much easier ; when they seo that he is disposed to stand the test they are not nearly so hard on him. But if he gets mad and sulks he is a very unfortunate man. After they have tested a man, if anyone tries a second time to hack that one, they turn the tables on him. Sometimes a joke follows a fellow for years. There was a young man some years ago who had quite a nice start in cattle and a nice farm, he had a very severe case of sore eyes, in fact, it had run on till it was chronic. He was courting a young lady and proposed to her (so the story goes). He told her that he knew he was not pretty, but he had the spondulix all the same (spondulix is one name for money in Texas). After he was gone his sweetheart told her mother what he had said, being a new-comer she did not know what spondulix was, so she said: "I wonder if that is what's the matter with his eyes?" The boys often told it on him whether there was a word of truth in it or not, but he was one of the best natured fellows on earth and usually took it in good humor ; in fact, that was the best way for a man to do, it saved him a great sight in the long run. Many people go to Texas, or did so in the early days, expecting to sit down and grow rich ; in fact they come out there to grow up with the country, and many of them go up before the country does. Of all countries in my knowledge, I do not know of one that has so little use for a lazy man, while a man with a small capital can start easier and live bet- 180 S7 YEAR^ A MA VRICK, ter there than anywhere I can mention, provided he has energy and pluck. Still, a poor man who is lazy and thriftless might just as well be in Hades with his back broke as in Texas, especially in the western part. The easiest place in the State for him is down in the piney woods of eastern Texas, where he can chew pine rosin and dry up, making it easy for the wind to blow him away. The discovery of iron in Cherokee and other por- tions of eastern Texas will one day make that section unhealthy for a lazy man, or the man who comes there merely to ventilate himself; or, in the characteristic language of the cow-boy, *' to pile on dog." There i^ a story told of a young fellow riding along m an old ex wagon, when the steers took fright, ran away and turned the wagon ov^r, throwing the young fellow under the bed. It was so heavy that he could not turn it alone; hearing a man coming along the road, he called to him to come help him out. It so happened that the youn^ man imprisoned under the wagon-bed was just at tha>^ age we call the gosling when his voice was changing and he had no control of it ; once very fine and again very coarse. He called out in a very fine voice : " Mister, I wish you would come and help me out." The gentleman said : " All right," and dismounted ; but the youn^ fallow spoke again, this time in a coarse bass voice : "Be quick about it." The man who had volunteered his services said : " If there are two of you, you can stay there," and so saying climbed on his horse and rode away. There came a " Jim Crow " circus to a little town LIFE ON A TEXAS RAN'GB. 181 in the West and of course everybody went, among the rest an outfit of cow-boys in full uniform. The ring-master had a little mule performing some very interesting tricks ; among them he could turn him a^ will from going in any one direotion around the ring to the opposite. He offered any man in the audience $50 who would ride the mule 'round the ring three times without stopping. Several of the boys tri^ it and failed ; they didn't hesitate to try it as there wa» nothing at stake, but the mule would lie down, roll over, turn suddenly on his hind feet — any way not to go 'round — all in obedience to signs made by the ring-master. By and by a big fellow, who was nearly as large as the mule, came out and said he didn't want the showman's money for nothing, but would bet him $50 that he could ride the mule 'round the ring three times. The boys all knew him and were satisfied he would do it, so several smaller bets were made. When everything was ready, Frank, who had on his spurs and leggings, jumped on the little miile, jerked off his hat, put the spurs to the mule's flanks, at the same time bringing his hat down over its head, and before you could have counted ten had that little animal spinning 'round the ring at a two-forty gate ; and he did not stop at three times, but ran him 'round five or six times, the ring-master the while making signs and cutting all sorts of capers, but Frank had that mule so scared and excited that the master was nowhere to be seen. It was the attraction of the evening. The master did not want to give up the money, but he had to. 182 27 YEARS A MA VRICK, You may call the cow-boy horned and may think him hard to tamt ; You may heap vile epithets upon his head, But to know him is to like him, notwithstanding his hard name ; For he will divide with you his beef and bread. If you see him on his pony as he scampers o'er the plain, You would think him wild and woolly to be sure. But his heart is warm and tender when he sees a friend in pain, Though his education is but to endure. When the storm breaks in its fury and the lightning's virid flash Makes you thank the Lord for shelter and for bed, Then it is he mounts his pony and away you see him dash. No protection but the hat upon his head. Such is life upon a cow ranch, and the half was never told. But you never find a kinder-hearted set Than the cattleman at home; be he either young or old, "He's a daisy from away back— don't forget." When you fail to find a pony or a cow that's gon« astray. Be that cow or pony wild or be it tame. The cow'boy, like the drummer (and the bed-bug, too), they saj, Brings him to you, for he ''gets there just the same." N«l muck of ft day for rabbits either. (See page 18«=> see UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. 185 CHAPTEE XVI. THE PEAIEIE DOG AND COTTON TAIL BABBIT. I have read a great many extravagant stories about the ptwirie dog and his systematic way of laying ofl his town, etc., one writer goes so far as to say tJbat in every town yon could find a public square or plaza, where all the older dogs gathered to regulate the affairs of the city, and that the little dogs could be seen march- ing up and down the streets like sentries and at regu- lar intervals they would rise on their hind feet, look all around and if everything was not exactly right, would give a warning signal upon which every dog in the town would run to his hole, and on arriving, give a return signal, as good as to say " All right here." Now to an unpolished cow-puncher this story " sounds." It would not be polite in me to say that the gentleman lied, but one thing I can say, the story was very much tinctured with the element we breathe, in other words, it sounds like a big wind pudding. The prairie dog is a very interesting little animal in his manners and cus- tom, but more interesting to the adventurous farmer, until he has* been exterminated. It is no difliculty however, to rid a farm of the little pest. I knew one faruier to kill every dog on a three hundred and twenty acre farm in three days. He simply poisoned them with strychnine. It is an easy matter to fence against them, as they will seldom cross a twelve-inch board. The prairie dog, like the buffalo and the cow-boy, as well as the uncivilized Indian, has had the sentence passed, and 186 S7 YEARS A MA VIRCK, his days are numbered, especially in the farming d!» trict, and he seldom burrows where the land is worth* less. The cotton tail rabbit is a constant companion of the prairie dog, not in his personal association while feeding, but in the prairie do^ town will always be found the rabbit, the prairie owl, and often the dan- gerous rattle snake. In the accompanying illuitration may be seen the results of an hour's hunt in a dog town. This picture was taken from life at Merkel, Taylor county, Texas. In the background may be seen the little dog town, the dogs playing around the mouth of their den. The jack-rabbit is another interesting resident of Texas. They are very easy to kill, but when on their pins are not so easy to catch. About two things could be mentioned as the only way to catch a jack-rabbit : one is a greyhound and the other is a well directed bullet. An interesting story is told of an old drunken fellow who was one day talking to a minister. He was just about as full of red eye as he could well get along with. It is possible that he might have been able to hit the ground with his hat, but it would have been all he could have done. The conversation, judg- ing from the parties interested, was, of course, of a religious nature. A large, blue greyhound came up* The drunken man discovered the dog and called him ; laying his hand upon the dog's head he said : " Good doggie ; " turning to the minister he asked : " Pars'n, dishe ever see a greyhoun' run rabit?" The preacher admitted that he had. The drunken man continued : A Chicago Lawyer In cow-boy costume. (Bee page 18^4 LIFE ON- A TEXAS RANGE. 189 " Well, pars'n, fore these wire fences come to this coun- try you ought seen ish dog run a rabbit ; when 'er got started out cross the prairie you could see for half a mile behind 'im nothing but a blue streak of dog." In closing this short sketch of life on the range I wish again to say that I have left out much that would be interesting, some of which I would not record in this book, as I wish to send this little story on a special mission. The object I will leave for surmise until you see my next, which will come before the public as *' Shoe String Joe," You may ask if my real motive was not to make money. If I did not want money I would not be a true type of the American. I will not be hoggish, but will be satisfied with ten thousand dollars the first year and don't expect to grumble if I never make a sale. It is some satisfac- tion to know that a cow-puncher can write a boc^, whether it ever amounts to anything or not. The subject of the accompanying illustration is not a real cow-boy, but a young man whom I met in the picture gallery, who, upon seeing my leggings, ex- pressed a desire for his own picture in cow-boy cos- tume. I agreed to let him have the outfit. He was dressed in the height of fashion, had on tooth-pick shoes, high standing collar and a silk hat, which the sow- boy never wears. If I had not been tender- lieartedt ho woui 1 have put on my leggings and posed ««« a coT^'^.boy wil ii those human togs on ; but I let the snilk of human kindness in me overbalance my better businoss judgment. I fiisj^^ him up and made a first> dass cow-bcj of him in appearance. Tou notice he 290 m YEARS A MAVMiOC. unfortunately has bnt one arm, and yoo may think he Gonldn't be a oow-boy in reality, but it is there yon make a mistake. One of the best hands I ever knew had bat one arm ; he conld catch a cow or horse as well as any of the boys, and on a roimd*iii> he got there in fine ahape. UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE, 19,. CHAPTER XVII. LBCrrUBE TO CATTLEMEN. Founded on Matt. 24-31 : "And He shall send fait angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Boys, I come to you with an announcement of the round-up which takes place in the springtime of eternity. There is not, per- haps, a single cow-man who has not experienced the glad emotions caused by the announcement of the date and locality of the opening of the spring round-ups. After a long dreary winter of inactivity there is nothing so enervating, no news so welcome as the announcement of the first round-up. When a fellow has blown m all his cash, borrowed all the boys could spare and run his cheek to its last cent's worth, when his old boots are beginning to run in at tLe heels and his hat, too, looks seemly, he longs for the free, wild life of the range, where no wash-bills trouble his slumbers and where he is monarch of all he surveys. Yet, when the time comes for the round-up there is plenty to do before one is ready, everything must be in good trim about his saddle, hopples, blanket, quirt, spurs and leg- gins. It is not a simple loll 'round until ready to mount and hie away, but there is preparation to make. Just so it is to be in the round-up of the universe, which takes plaqe on the eve of time in the early daws 194 f7 YEARS A MAVSICK. of eternity. He who, we are told, owns the cattle od a thousand hills, unlike the great herd-owners of this, our lovely Lone Star, who indiscriminately lay the lit- tle tug on everything that has not the ear-mark or the brand of a neigh oor — this great King of cattlemen never brands a mavrick unless the mavrick is His own. He never clips the ears of a stray until that stray is " bought with a price ; " or, in other words, there must " first be a preparation before becoming one of the great round- up." " Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such hour as you think not the Son of Man cometh." When we have each been assigned our lay, we round to one common center, where,as you know, the herd is cut, separating to each his own^ Just so it will bo in that last great round-up, the difference being that you and I will take the place of the range herd and there we are to be rounded up and the herd cut. Hear what the great herd book says. I refer you to Matt. , 2oth chapter and 31 and 32 verses, which reads like this : " When the Son of Man (or the great herdsman of life) shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, He shall sit upon the throne of His glory and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." Now,when the herd is cut and those whoee owners are present have taken their own, the tailing? are allowed to drift at will and to be the prey of the cattle thief, or, in other words, they are allowed to drift out into the great range of uncertain protection, because as §trays. But the cattle which have ac UK O^r A TEXAS RANGE, 105 owner will be cared for, taken into green pastures and fed through the eold, stormy weather. The good oat- tlmnan prepares a place for his cattle and they are not Wt to take chances with the common herd. Hear the groat stock owner, this Cattle King : ^' Then shall the King say to them on His right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father (or ye of my Father's brand), inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But hear what is to become of the tailings of that great round-up : " Then shall He say unto them on his left lend, depart from Me ye cursed into ever- lasting fir© prepared for the devil and his angels " (or the great thief of the human soul). God has made the neoeasary {reparation for this great round-up, and we fflfe now to choose the pastures in which we are to gnyise. The Lord's pasture is a very promising one. Hear the testimony of one of the Lord's fiock or herd who has been feeding there: ^^The Lord is my ^sa&i^s^&cdL^ I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.^— Psalm 23, 1-2. " For the Lord is good, a ttoronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him." This precious pfomise may be fulfilled in your life, you need not wait until the great herd is cut before coming under Ihe supervision and ownership of the great and good r. Many who have accepted him have found I have said to be true. You say that many who daim His brand are strays ; true, I grant it, but unlike yon or me, when some animal passes as ours, the ^eat 196 if ¥&dJR$ A MAVMOC. Iierdsmau claims nothing that is not in His own legiti» mate ear-mark, and when the great separation comef they will be turned out through the left hand gate with the tailings. Yes, there are some of those who are now running on his range that have not passed under the great Inspector's eye, have never been recorded in the great tally book of life, they have by some carelessness of the herders slipped in and are try- ing to appropriate the sweets of the Master's pastures, but the eye of the great Kight "Watchman is upon them and He is crying in tones of compassion and love " Ck)me unto Me and be ye saved " (receive My brand), and the terrible proclamation has gone forth, " Be not deceived, God is not mocked," and again *' Woe unto you, hypo- crites, like whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful, but are within full of nncleanness, ye alsof outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.'* So you see, boys, no stray will ever be tolerated in the great classification or final round-up. There are those of you^ boy% who remind me of an old steer we once bad in oi&r range, which we called old Twist-horn^ because his horns twisted right out nearly straight from his head and they were measured after he was killed and found to be six feet from tip to tip; yo^j ask how I can find any resemblance between you and this old steer ; it is not, I assure you, that you are as some people in the East would make believe, a horned set. Ko, it is in this, that old steer was raised a gentle calf, his mother was one of the best and gentlest milk cows on the ranch, but after LIFE ON A TEXAS kANGE. 19T he got up to be a steer of his own out from under the influence of old mother he went "hog wild." It is true when one found him he would pretend to be the gentlest steer in the range ; but by and by he gathered a bunch of young cattle 'round him and made them very unruly ; still, you could ride all 'round him, and even after his class of youngsters had taken to their heels he would stand or lie and chew his cud as good as to say, ** You needn't bother about me, don't you see I am the best old steer in the range ?" but just start him to the pen and then he taught you what his horns were made for. Sometimes he would move along at the bead of the herd until he got nearly to the pen and all of a sud- den make a break, and half the young cattle would go with him. He was so much concerned for fear he would be corraled he never ventured into good range very far and he took up so much time educating his fol- lowers in cow devilment that he was never fat, he never enjoyed the fullness of good grazing and when he was killed he made the very poorest of dog meat, even his hide was full of grubs and was no good, his beautiful horns were too snarly to make good combs or knife handles. i^ow comes the comparison. You, like the old steer, was reared in a Christian home by a kind, and maybe an indulgent, gentle and loving mother, who taught you to bow at her knee and say, " Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake., I pray the Lord my soul to take ; this I ask for Jesus sake,*^ and J'^i Vt YEARS A MA VRICK, th^ you would kiss that precious mother good night, and after she had tucked you snugly in your little bed, that mother would kneel by your bedside and ask God to bless her precious child. After a time you grew to manhood, you began to roam out into the range for yourself and like old Twist, became a man of our own ; then you became wild and though you are not out- breaking when approached, you refuse to be corraled in tho great pen of God's loving invitation. Besides, you have gathered 'round you a following of young people, who are more skittish than you, in that they will scamper away on first approach, and you, feeling secure in your own heft, will stop and argue the case, and one who had nothing but your word for it would think you were certainly very good indeed. You wil^ sit back and chew the cud of self-satisfaction and im- portance, and when approached by a Christian will begin at once to expatiate on your excellent qualities. One would have decided, if not acquainted with old Twisty, that he was one of the most pious steers on eartho You, like him, begin to tell how you pay your honest debts. That is right. How you never lie and steal. That is good. You do unto others, as you would have others do unto you. Now you may think you do, but to a close observer of your life yoxy. are not doing that ; besides, you are refusing God's overtures of mercy and by your ungrateful example, you are leading others astray. There is no sin that I can conceive to be greater than the sin of ingratitude. Suppose some man had taken you in, given you shelter and m?'*^** '* m LIFE ON A TEXAB J^^sVGM ^01 possible lor you to open a ranch in this range, by and by he asked you to give him dinner ; to allow him to come in and eat with you, you know you would do it ; you would consider it the grossest ingratitude to refuse him. ]^ ow, the great proprietor of this range of th© universe sustained you ail these years, has made it pos- sible for you to open up and operate a ranch here, he has surrounded you with all that is pleasant, a wife and children, some of you, gives you sunshine and rain, all this beautiful earth to enjoy, has en- dowed you with reason that you can know your own from another man's (although you make some fearful mistakes) and all he asks in return is that you open the door of your heart and allow Him to come and eat with you and you with Him ; in other words, to divide your blanket and grub. Hear Him, " Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice and open the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me." Old Twist-horn was never worth a cent and was a drawback. You have never added one iota to the moral sentiment of the community where you live. Some of you never enjoy the good green valleys of spiritual life and keep many others off them and when you die, ^ . , what can be pointed to as the moral fruits of your godless life? The great Herdsman comes to you and is not unrea- sonable in his demands in asking you to let Him change your mark and brand. Hear Him, " Come now,'' not to-morrow, next day or a year hence, but " come now and let us reason together." God is reasonable. "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white S0» $7 YEARS A MA VRICK, as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." By this means y^ou may quit bush- whacking and leading so many of the young ones astray. Many of you have taken or claim to have taken whis Great Shepherd of the sheep as your pro- tector aiii matter. Some of you have been breaking into the Devil'i pasture. Now that is too bad ; you all know the character of an old fence breaker. If you have one in your herd you try to sell her to some one for beef, as she is a nuisance and always giving trouble. Did you ever notice the terrible consequences to the fence breaker % You will see them going 'round with a board flopping over their eyes. That must be very mortifying even to a cow. They are thus blinded to a certain extent, can see a little, but it is only side- ways. Now suppose they wish to move along toward good water and grass with this obstruction to theii sight, you can readily see the consequences. They stumble over this stump, that log, step in a ditch and all such difficulties are theirs. But it is no worse than the fence-breaking professor to that extent that he is infringing on the rights of the Devil. He is a trespasser and the old pasture man is too clever to allow that to be done without remuneration, so he just puts a board over your eyes, the board of self-condemnation. If you try to go to green pastures and still waters as long ag you are in the devil's grounds you run up against the stumps of contempt, the bushes of sarcasm and criticism and so you go stumbling along. The old fe^ce breaker cow is no good for beef or milk and UFB ON A TEXAS JRANGM, 901 never raises good calve*. Why? Because she receives such severe treatment she never gets fatj never enjoya good grazing. Neither the old break of a professor*, they never enjoy a good solid feast with the Lord They are always poor spiritually, never rear their children as they should in " the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The Devil's pasture is very - easy to get into anyhow. It is smooth on the outside, but as cer- fcain as you get in and attempt to get out you get your beautiful white garments spoiled. The Devil, like the cow thief, is not very particular about the older cattle. The cow thief allows other people's old cattle to run in his pastures and c rives them in sometimes and he may not try to steal the old cow, but works after the increase. You may be a real Christian and be so weak as to creep into the Devil's pasture through a saloon door, a gambling den, a race-course, through the gate of avarice, tattling, back-biting and many others. The wily old stock thief keeps them open. He don't care just so he can keep you in, he is satisfied with your increase. You can go on to glory with nothing but pin-feathers in your wings, just so he can secure your children. His fence has very severe barbs on the inside and the only way you can get out is to shut your eyes and tear through. It will leave scars they may heal up after awhile, but the marks of a fence breaker will go with you through life, will impair your usefulness and stand out as a continual menace to your own moral worth, for God has said, " What ye m fEAMB A MA Vmcitc, ^ SOW that also shall y® reap.'' But you had better got out now and save your children. Boys, if you are in the old thief s pasture just take a run, and jump right through, out into the sunlight of God's own pastures green, for He invites you now. Hear Him, " Only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou has transgressed against the Lord, thy God, and hast scat- tered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree and ye have not obeyed My voice, saith the Lord, for I am married unto you."— Jer. 3, 13-14. " I will heal their backslidings. I will love them freely, for mine anger ij turned away from him."— Hos. 14, 4. And again the Lord says, " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ail unrighteousness."— 1st John 1, 9. You know there is quite a difference in the dis- poi^ition of horses. Some horses you never can tame. They have to foe broken every spring. When you first pen him he is wild as a buck. You lay your tug on him and he chokes down, but, by and by, he becomes bridiewise and makes an excellent cow-pony as long as you keep him at work, but just let bim out of hand ten days and he will snort and rant 'round like a real broncho. There are some old Spanish professors that are all right, just as religious as can be through the rounding up and herding season, the sum- mer camp meeting months, but they need only two or thiee months to go wild, and after they have two or three months on the Devil's range you just try to round them up and they prance round equal to any old white-eyed Spanish pony on the range. If any old UFE ON A TEXAS RANGE. 305 broncho reads this let me beg you to put on the whole outfit of the Lord's harness and knowing your weakness for growing restless and unmanageable simply keep in harness all the time and don't go out among the mus- tangs without your harness on. Hear the instructions of the Headquarters Boss : " Come out from among them and be ye separate, " saith the Lord, " and touch not the unclean (join not in a mustang stampede) and I will receive you."— 2nd Oor., 6,17. And He gives us a complete inventory of what to put on. " Put on the^whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the evils of the Devil." Put on the sinch of truth, martingale of righteousness, shoes of peace, sa.ddle and blanket of faith, bridle of salvation, sinch for the loins, martingales for the breast, saddle and blanket for the back and bridle for the head. You know agood, strong, broad girth is better than any other, martingale keeps the head and neck in proper re- lation to the breast, blanket serves to keep the back from hurting, the bridle for the rider or guide to turn the horse and keep him from running into wire fences or brush thickets, in fact it is protection, for if the head is kept right the body will not go far wrong. Now take this outfit and don ever}- article and then take the weapon, this grand old herd book, as your lariet, go out and try your hand on mavrick sinners, keep the iron hot and the old sword sharp, and if you will do something every day to try to catch some of the Devil's strays and put them into the green pastures of com- munion with the Master of Calvary, then you will not 206 27 YEARS A MA VRICK. have to be so closely hoppled when the revival comes again. The Mexican broncho has the hardest time oi any other horse in the outfit and the Spanish or bucking Christian has the hardest time of any other, for " The way of the transgressor is hard/' The Devil's claim on some of you boys is very nearly established by the statute of limitation. He has had you so long that nothing but a lawsuit can reclaim you. You may jump out of his pasture and go into the hospital to have your wounds treated, but just as soon as the great Physician pronounces you convalescent the Devil will have an outfit round you up audit will take all the fores of your nature to slip away, in fact you can't do it if you are alone. They would heel you, throw you, tie you down and if you did not resist with all your might they would drag you back bodily. I never will forget how hard and how often the Devil's outfit has rounded me up since I was marked and branded. He always tries to cripple you first, fie will shoot you and sometimes have half a dozen of his minions after you shooting at onetime. The first volley that was ever fired at me was a set of small fire« arms. The Devil never wastes his ammunition, he is a most economical character. He never uses a cannon when a popgun will answer and, strange to say, the* are more people crippled with popguns than any othei way. There were seven or eight hands in the outfit that rounded me up first and the first volley was from the little popgun of ridicule, the little shafti stung tremendously* You see I was young and ten* UFE ON A TEXAS RANGB. m der, not long in the new pasture. I finally got so weak that I saw I would faint without help, so I began to call for help ; by and h-^ I heard a loving voice in the distance calling : " Fear thou not, for I am with thee.'' I felt better at once and again I heard the same loving voice closer, now crying out : " Resist the Devil and he will fiy from thee." You ought to have seen me, boys. I began to kick and scratch and bite with all my strength. I just drew out my little sword and began to slash 'round with it. I didn't know very well how to use it, but I did the best I could, and though I got bruised up in the fray " I came out more than con- queror through Him that loved us." Yes, more than conqueror, because I captured one of the boys in the battle and changed his mark and brand. He is now on the list of those who will be ready at the great roll- call to answer " Here am I." Kow, boys, some of you have in days gone hj sat with me 'round the same camp-fire ; we have laughed at the same stories, eat our beef and TQ(i pepper from the same pot, and to tell you that I love you is putting it tamely. I loved you then, I Jove you now. You and I know what it is to need a friend, one who will stand \iY J^^ ^^ ^i°^6 ^^ trouble. I have found Him. ' I bring Him now and call on you to stand up and let me introduce you to Him. He has stood by me when it seemed the Devil and all his out- fit had joined to catch me; but, bless the name of the Big Boss, at such times, many of which it seemed that I w^s hog -tied hand and foot. He always came to the rescue, for " He's a friend that sticketla closer than a brother ; " for when we were all in the possession of 208 «7 TEARS A MAVRICK, the enemy of souls, He stepped right up and purchased as with his own dear life. When we stood, as it were, in the great slaughter-pen of death, the hand of execu- tion raised above us, the packing-house doors open ready to receive us, the loving Christ stepped in and opened the door through which we might escape, and with blood-stained hands and bleeding side He stands holding it ajar calling to you, dear boys, calling to all who will hear to walk out of the shute of condemna- tion into the light and freedom of God's own pardon- ing love. Hear him calling to you. '^ Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abun- dskutly pardon." " Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will ^\m% you rest." " The spirit aud the bride say come, and let him that heareth come, apd let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let biiB take the water of life freely." Nowj boys, you have His pleading. Will you not mount your steed of good resolutions, and with the quirt of determination and the spur of moral courage, strike right out for the great headquarters ranch of God's eternal salvation ana reward. " It is only a step to Jesus. Why not take it now ? " March out through the gates of \m eternal grace, and with the blood-drops falling on your heart to-night, be made to rejoice in a new-born hope, take up your march to the shelter, ** He has gone to prepare." He will guide you with his watchful eye, and when the last great round-up shall come, you will have his road brand as a seal of Qrecn^horn trying to be a cow-boy and drink from a gow track* Lt^£ OH A TEXAS RANGE «ll four right to enter into the eternal habitation, green ^eids, and living fountains of sweet deliverance. Start to-day for a better life. It may be that temp- tations and privations may beset your pathway, but re- member that " they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come agam with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." And when the last cow has been tied, when the last horse has been hoppled, when the last camp fire has been made, when the last watch has been called, and when the cold, icy fingers of the grim monster shall begin to encircle your shivering limbs, in that hour of sorest need you can trust our Leader to stand by you, and when you come to step down into the chilly waters of the river of deathj He will be there to guide you safely over, for He has crossed it and knows every foot of the way ; then, when the angel shall come " with a great sound of a trumpet '' to round up the herds of the universe, the great Inspector will be there, and running his eye down the list of the great tally book of life, if you will, he may note that on the— day of ^you took on you the ear-marks and the brand or seal of the blood washed of the lamb, for " he sealed our redemption with His own precious blood.^ Then, when the herd is trimmed, you will be one^of the number to whom it is said: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, enter the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." So let my closing admonition be: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found ; call ye upon Him while He is near;" " For God so loved the world that 212 27 YEARS A MA VRICK, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlast ing life." " Now, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you, may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." When I think of the last great round-up On the eve of Eternity^s dawn, I think of the host of cow-boys Who have been with us here and have gone^ And I wonder if any will greet me On the sands of the evergreen shore; With a hearty *' God blesB yon, old fellow/* That I\e met with so often befor®, I think of the big-hearted fellows Who will divide with you blanket and bread, With a piece of stray beef well roasted. And charge for it never a **red/* I often look upward and wonder^ If the green fields will seem half so Uxt\ If any the wrong trail have taken And fail to ** be in '* over there. For the trail that leads down to perdition Is paved all the way with good deeds; But in the great round-up of ages. Dear boys, this won't answer your neede. But the way to green pastures, though narrow^ Leads straight to the home in the sky; LIFE ON A TEXAS RANGE 213 And Jesns will give you the passportt To the land of the sweet by-and-bye. For the Savior has taken the contract To deliver all those who believe, At the headquarters ranch of His Father, In the great range where none can deceive. The Inspector will stand at the gate-way, And the herd, one and all must go by; The ronnd-up by the angels in judgment Must pase 'neath His all'Searching eye. No ms^vrick or slick will be tallied In the great Book of Life in His home. For He knoT7s all the brands and the ear-marks That down through the ages have come. But along with the strays and the sleepers The tailings must turn from the gate; Ko road brand to gain th«m admission. But the awful sad cry " Too late I ** f et, I trast in the last great round-up When the rider shall cut the big herd; That the cow-boys will be represented In the ear-mark and brand of the Lord^ To be shipped to the bright, mystic regions Over there in green pastures to lie And \%^ by the crystal, still waters. In thftt home in the sweet by-and-bye. Famous Books FOR BOYS These are new and superior editions of these famous authors' books for boj^s. They are printed from new plates on an excellent quality of paper while many are profusely illustrated. Each book is sewed, thus making a flexible baci<, so that it opens easily, rnaking its reading a pleasure and a comfort. The covers are printed in two colors from appropriate designs on a heavy coated enameled paper in assorted colors. From the Modern Authors' Library By G. A. Heoty 260 Boy Knight, A 271 Comet of Horso 280 Facing Death 285 Final Reckoning 295 In Freedom's Cause 296 In Times of Peril 297 In The Reign of Terror 299 Jack Archer 317 One Of The 28th 318 Orange and Green 319 Out On The Pampas 337 IVue To The Old Flag 340 Under Drake's Flag 348 With Lee In Virginia By J. Fenimore Cooper 170 Last Of The Mohicans, The 178 Pathfinder, The 179 Pioneers, The 180 Prairie, The 187 Spy, The 254 Deerslayer By Victor Hugo 36 By Order Of The King 272 Cosette 283 Fantine 106 Hans Of Iceland 37 History of a Crime 300 Jean Valjean By Victor Hugo— Cont'd 308 Marius 38 Ninety-Th-ree 39 Notre Dame de Paris 331 St. Denis 40 Toilers of The Sea By Emile Qaboriaa 284 File No. 113— 287 Gilded CHque 108 Lecoq, The Detective 109 Lerouge Case, The 312 Mystery ot Orcival By Jules Verne 245 Michael Strogoff 219 Mysterious Island 189 Tour Of The World In 80 Days 121 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea By H. Rider^Haggard 153 Allan Quartermain 223 Allan's Wife 160 Cleopatra 100 Jess 167 King Solomon's Mines 112 Miawa's Revenge 244 Mr. Meeson's WiU 186 She PRICB. POSTPAID 25c EACH OR ANY FIVB FOR $1.00 All books sent postpaid to any address in the United States, Canada or Mexico upon receipt of price in currency, stamps, postal or express money order. 407-429 DEARBORN ST. M. A. DONOHUE & CO., y«2^''7^ .^MEUKIVER% ^lOSiANCElfj^ o <5!AtUNIVERy/A 5 4^^ ^lOS|ANCElfx^ '^i'inawsoi^ ^^OJIIVDJO^ 1/ r~ Wat rr^ -—1 ^^OJITVD-JO^ "^OJIIVDJO^ ^OFCAlIFOff^ ^OFCALIFOi?^ 3 » ^'in ^ ^\WEUMIVEW/^ ^lOS '^J'iHONVSO]^ .\WEUNIVERS'/A '^mmm^ ^5MEUNIVERy/^ ^lOSAKCEltC^ ^J5i33Nvsoi^ '^/yaaAiN(i]WV^ .^WE•UNIVER«^ ^lOSANCElfj^ ^.OFCALIFO«»^ ^.0F( 'VAavaawj*' 'VAOvaoiri^' ''JUJnv'jur '•'iOJAinir; <;^tUBRARYac; ^ -^illBRAR^ mi\mi^^ ^^mmy ^\WfUNIVEW/4 ^10SANCEI% ^OFCAllFOi?^ ^OFCAIIFC ^^Awaaiii*^ '"^o-mmi ^IIIBRARYQ^ ^ -^nN^UBRARYO^, ^HIBRAR^ ^ %a3AiNrt]wv^ "^-j/ojiivjjo^ ^^m\m ,\WEUNIVER% /^ ^lOSANCEl^^ ^OFCAllFOfti^ ^OFCAIIFC