The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-22
A BIG STAMPEDE.
The Mad Flight Of -Four thousand Texas
Steers.
Seven Times in as Many Nights the
Beloher Drove stampeded-Musio and
uluminations Resorted TO.


/ Texas Correspondence GIobc-Democrat.
! Last night 1000 of the big Texas steers
f. that SIR. Belcher has leen fattening just
/ outside the city limits OF Baskerville
went on stampede. They had dole so
THE uisht before and the might before that
and The night before that for seven con-
secIuve nights This may not mean
much TO some people. hut 10 a man who
has lived near ucighbor TO that large
herd. it viii mean enough TO make his
blood t'ugle. To such a man il viii suggest
sudden alarms, hair-breadth escapes. tho
maddened uamplng of 1900 feet and the
cool and unpre;entious daring Of the
brave men who kept the catastrophe from
. being any worse than it was. It viii sug-
sest the loss OF thousands Of dollars and
the importing Of scores Of lives.
Ii all started the night Of Dec. Is. dur
ing the severe thunder storm that visited
/ Montague county at that time. Some eli
/ mates might not be able to produce a good
thunder storm at any time in the dead of
winter but the Texas climate can. At
midnight or the 18th the sky over Belcher-
Vile was perfectly clear. and the men go
ing home at that hour from the session
Of the Masonic lodge talked
about the beauty of the moon and Of the
1 night ana about how bad they were need
! ing rain. Not cloud was in sight at
I midnight, but two hours later these same
mon were awakened BY the crashing and
I booming of thunder. The lightning was
] cleaning In long zigzag streaks and
/ flashing in huge, wide-spreadins sheets.
/ Some few of the timid people got up and
went TO their storm houses, the practical
] ones got up to see that the windows and
I doors were well fastened, the pious ones
sIocplly thanked God for the much-needed
I rain that was coming while the sleepiest
! ones Of all merely turned over, did moth
] ing at all and then went back TO sleep
/ again. Suddenly, just as the storm was at
. It's worst there came nolce that could
/ be heard above the thunder. 1t was "a
prolonged. vibrating roar that made the
] earth tremble. Crash whirr boom. Many
az the citizens thought cyclone had
! struck the town-and they were righ-. 1t
I was q living cyclone, and its passage was
I quick. For about two minutes there was
/ the pondgous pound. pound of four times
/ four thousand hcofs; then gradual de
/ minution i'm its volume, then people began
to be aware again of the fact that thun-
/ der storm was raging
/ storm or no storm, Mr.. Belcher and his
/ men had to set up 10 see what had hap
pened. 1t may not be very pleasant to
get up i'm the pouring rain in the middle
OF a winters night, but then one has IL
/ to 40 some times. When a fortune Of
/ nearly 500 900 is galloping wildly over
/ the country, cutting itself on wire fences,
| breaking its legs in bitches, shaking Off
. loose dollars every mile it travels and
| setting out of one reach as fast as mad
dened fury can take it. the best thing
8 -.Ha cd Nsfr
back.
Within half an hour of the time when
the herd stampeded, about thirty men on
| horses had collected at the feed pens
or rather where the feed pens had for
/ merly been. The scene revealed by the
tightening that stnl flashed through the
4 pouring rain was one of desolauon and
destruction The huge nine-wire fence,
with its high oaken posts, had been
| swept away as nothing. The large feed
I troughs, constructed out of 2X4 timbers,
had been smashed almost into kindling
wood. There were only twenty or thirty
steers I'm sicht-and these were dead and
dying ones that had been trampled on
and left behind in the first mad rush.
There was nothing to suggest definitely
the cause Of the original scare Perhaps
the tightening had struck the fence and
killed some of the cattle; perhaps the
thunder frightened them, perhaps the
devil took possession OF lueIilt Us ne u4A "a
the herd Of swine mentioned in the scrip
1 ture.
However. the men that had gathered
/ at the pens in the cold and darkness
of the winters rain did not pause to the
orize as to the origin of the scare They
went after the steers, found them-ol
at least a part of them-and then came
back with what they could find. one
force of men were putting up the fence
again. while another was bringing in the
cattle BY noon the fence was complete
and a large part of the herd was III
the pens once more 1t was sunday anc
that morning Mr.. Belcher failed to come
to Sunday school for once. However
as he had 1900 oxen in the ditch, meta
phorically speaking, and was engaged a.
Sunday school time in pulling them out
l suppose the Lord excused him.
That morning one little group Of about
400 steers found its way to Nocona, flour
ishine little town seven miles east OF
BelchervilIe. one citizen Of the town, sur
prised at the army that had 90 uncere-
moniously invaded the village in the QGiei
of the Sabbath morning, thought he
ought 10 utter a protest. Standing on his
front doorstep, he uttered his protest IL
the form of vOciferous Hey!
The steers had been walking along
quietly enough before, but at this sudden
challenge. they bolted Crash! they Went
over the fence that surrounded one of the
neatest little residences in the town. The
reason they killed no one was that there
was no one in the yard to kill. They
STAYED around Nacona for perhaps hal
an hour demolshing fences, running yards
ana making things lively TO their hearts
/ content Then the strange CONey army
I of COWS took its unlamented departure.
Possibly seVen-eighths of the whole her
were in the pens at Belchville by night
fan. Several men stood guard over then
that night but before morning the who'll
herd was out again. The program of Tho
night before was repeated with incidenta
variation. There was the same hard work
in getting them back again, the same
2 trouble and expense ip repairing the dam
age they had done.
The next night MIR. Belcher introduced
the plan of Citing up with the herd. To
3 I begin with he secured about 100 lanterns
, lighted them and hung them on the fenc,
posts of the pens. He did this not because
he wanted to give the cattle light to see tC
! . run by but because the cattle are gener
! ally afraid of fire and he thought tn,
Nchts would scare them away from the