Evening star., 1927-05-08

DA w I'LL . hLAN.NEn1.
TIME days of the great open
spaces, where men are men, u
and where cowboys in chaps
i and sombreros hit the trail
with thousands of cattle strung
out for miles, drive them through
| canyons. swim them across swollen
rivers and eat at the almost extinct
chuck wagon, are not past. For Rep
resentative Claude E. Hudspeth, one
of the big cattlemen Of the great
Southwest. and one OF the largest
ranchers. has just made an old.time
cattle drive. riding the herd himself.
for 255 miles, through wild, open
country, and achieving the unprec-
edented feat of bringing his / 400 head
Of registered Hereford cattle through
without the loss Of a single COW.
And so modest is Hudspeth and
SO accustomed has he become to such
exploits, having engaged in some
100 drives. that very few OF his COL
leagues in the House are aware that
when he returned to his legislative
duties he had just brought up to
date a bit of early Texan history,
awakening recollections of the older
cowmen regarding the dim period
of the "Old Chisholm" and other
days.
Here we find a real live member
of Congress. one of the most popular
among them, cultured and society
broke. donning buckskin chaps and
all the other picturesque cowboy re-
gala, and personally supervising the
drive"
In the old days, when cowboys
were more real than the movies show
them. and lived the dashing. dan
gerous, vigorous. vaquero existence
that puts colorful pages in the his
tory Of the development of the West.
the big cattle drives were a regular
occurrence. a necessary part of get
ting to market the product of the
cattle raiser because there were no
railroads to transport them. But
now, when the entire country is
criss-crossed with network of rail-
roads, such a cattle drive as Hudspeth
has just made seems an anachronism.
Yet. it was not taken as a movie
stunt. but as a hard-headed business
proposition.
Mr.. Hudspeth had closed a deal
through his old friend and fellow
cowpuncher of earlier days for a
15,000-acre ranch, known as the
"Altuda Ranch," near Alpine, in
Brewster County. for $9S,715. For
years he has specialized on regis
tered Hereford cattle. He had a herd
Of 400 head at his Del Rio ranch,
55 miles from the railroad, which he
wished to move to his new ranch.
SO he asked the railroad to give him
an estimate on the cost of trans
would be $4,000, and at that he would
bava n driVa. than * miles fo the
railroad.
He figured out that when he was
driving them at all he might as well
drive them the whole five-fifths of
the distance, which he did, at a
cost of exactly S492. or a saving of
more than $2,700 in cold cash, on
three weeks work
You see, Mr.. Hudspeth is used to
dealing in big figures when it comes
to cattle or covering large sections
of his native State, for he bashfully
confesses to ownership OF four
ranches with an aggregate area OF
more than 100000 acres. which are
valued at we'll over million dollars
So, having decided to make the
drive. Hudspeth, with his wide eH-
perience as a cowboy. although he
knew the rigors and dangers, never
for a moment doubted his ability TO
bring the herd through safely. Ills
outfit consisted of five white cow
boys, a Mexican horse wrangler' the
cook and chuck wagon. Although
Texas, through the Federal.aid policy:
has developed an extensive system or
good roads, Mr.. Hudspeth could not
use these great highways because the
frequently passing automobiles would
scare the cattle and scatter then'
perhaps never to be recaptured. so
he mapped a route through Howard
Canyon and the great open ranges,
crossing Pecos River, which. count.
ing all of it's meanderinss, is called
the longest river in the world, and
thence up the Big Canyon TO the
Brewster range.
They started from the old Del RIO
headquarters ranch on November ~
and drove the 60 miles to the Pecos
River in four days. He found the
Pecos was swollen from recent rains
The cattle had never been in the
water, and it took two hours to get
them in and two hours to swim them
across, just as the old trail drivers
would have done in blazing the way
a half century before.
So wild is the country through |
which Mr.. Hudspeth made his drive |
that during the three weeks they were
in the saddle they met but two auto
mobiles on the entire trip Of 255 miles.