Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1913-08-05

ceded us and in few minutes our
teams were surrounded with men
with pans, pillow cases, ETC., to get
some flour. We could not accommo-
date them for we had no means of
weighing out the flour but Walter
Wilson solved the difficulty by
emptying out sack of -four and
dividing it up among those who
were waiting and handed me a ten
dollar gold piece for the 100 pounds
he had SO distributed.
Making inquiry about the road to
Fort Dodge we were told, that We
couldn't make the trip, that the first
bad slough we would strike was
called Little He'll" We might get
through that and we might drown
horse or two in it, but If we got
through it we would come to an
other, called big He'll and we'd
all drown in that. My men all de-
clared they would go no further and
struck a bargain with w. G. Will
son for $S.75 hundred in gold, ex-
cept 1 was to take two yoke of cat
tie. One pair of these cattle were
Texan steers and were in pasture
some miles down the river.
Mr.. Titus agreed to stay and help
me take back the oxen, and the 9TH
er men taking all the horses and
leaving us two wagons, started on
the return trip. When those Texan
steers were brought in they were
sight to behold! They had horns a
yard long, were wild as deers and
could outrun race horse. We yok-
ed them up with some difficulty but
could not drive them. We tied the
two wagons together, and strung out
the four yoke of cattle, but the Tex
an steers were no go that way, so
we finally tied them behind the
wagon and one of us walked behind
them and kept them going. In this
way we got on pretty well till we
came to a creek within five or six
miles of Eldora. Here we camped
for the night and the next morning
one of the Texans broke his chow
key and got away. I ran after him
for an hour or two and then finding
a man with a team, I hired him to
help me catch him. That steer could
outrun the horses and we chased
him until he finally got into Skunk
Grove where the stage-coming in
with half dozen men in 1.-THE
men got out and helped me to get
him into a pen. l paid Uncle Bon
ner $3.50 for well rope and we
lassoed the steer, and hired man
to help me lead him back. 1t was
night when l got back to camp, and
found Titus sitting on the wagon
crying and declaring that if he ev-
er got back to Boston you'd never
catch him in this wild country
again. We had hitched up that
morning before the steer got away
and that fellow had sat there on the
wagon all day and never unhitched
the cattle.
We went into camp near the creek |
that night and tied the Texan steers
behind the covered wagon. In the
night storm came up blowing a |
gale right in at the front end of |
the wagon. 1t loosened the cover |
and blew it over onto the steers
soaring them almost to death. They
ran away with us, and running near
the bank of the creek, the wagon
tipped over into the creek where we
found ourselves in water up to our
necks, and the hind lex" coming
loose, the steers ran away with 1t.
We got out of the water and when
daylight came, found the wagon box
a few rods down the creek lodged
in the willows; the oxen and hind
wheels of the wagon we found fur
Their down the creek. We had lost |
all our provisions and without
breakfast, we got our traps togeth-
er and started on. 1t was noon be-
lore we reached Eldora, where laid
in a new supply of grub"