Year: 1879

always liable to run into q 'buHalC


wallow," or break through into some


old burrow. Our Texas ponies were


pretty sure-footed little fellows; but, OF


course, if horse broke into a deep


hole he would go down in heap, and


his rider would go headlong on the


ground. once got a tremendous


"fore-reacher" of this sort. And here


I should explain, perhaps, that a :" buff


falo wallow'' is not a slough, nor pig


mire, but Just dry hole where bison


has got down and dug with his horns,


and rolled and plowed himself into the


dirt, either to get rid of flies or vermin,
or else, perhaps, from some desire to


get the fresh earth into his hair.


The winter after the grasshoppers


came my brother and started a '' bone


team" We were about cleared out in


the way of money; we had land and


lean cattle, bat nothing to eat. So we


rugged up an old prairie-schooner


Qarge wagon) and put our ponies to it


and went into the business ct drawing


bones. Perhaps, too, Ineed to explain


what a bone-team is. On those prairies


where buffalo and deer and antelope


have run so many years, there are vast
quantities of old bones lying about. In
many tracts the ground is fairly COW
cred with them; and in the winter and
spring, when the grass is off and the
sun shining, the plain at distance
looks white as If covered with frost or
ice. The turf is full of bones of all sorts


and sizes; and scattered about are some
enormous buffalo skulls, with the short,
thick horns still in them. ~


These old bones are of some CONNER
cial value. At almost every station of
the railroads across the plains there is
an agency for the purchase of bones.
They are taken East and manufactured
into fertilizers, like superphosphate of
lime. The price paid year ago at the
stations of E. County was five dol
lars per ton. My Hrother and drew
in rather over hundred tons during
the winter. 1t is no great job to pick
up a ton of those bones in many places,
but we had to haul ours nearly twenty
miles; for the most of the land near the
railway has now been taken up, or at
least cleared of bones. 1t was three
days trip to go out on the plains and
get load. With our team of six po-
nies we commonly drew in three tons.
While out on these bone trips we made
account of jack-rabbits;
we had two greyhounds on purpose
to hunt them, and to hunt ante
lopes. did most of the hunting; my
brother was little lame thai season
from a " hoist he had received off q
reaper. We had one of the fieetest
ponies for running have ever seen. In
color she was so light as almost to look
silvery, and had both her fore legs
white. Her hair was very short and
thin. She was slim and trig-oh,
delicate little creature! In weight she
was not much above seven hundred
pounds; but ah, she would skim those
plains like goshawk. We called her
Gilly.


would get up before sunrise, call in
Sport and Grip (the two greyhounds),
then mount Gilly, and start after a jack
for breakfast. One morning we got
after a pretty big jack, and ran him out
past large white-topped " schooner"
where an emigrant party had hauled
up for the night. Two men and
woman were stirring about it; and I
saw two nice. rosy girls peering out of
the back of the wagon. They looked
so inspiring that 1 thought I would
show them q little fancy riding. So I
Gilly and told her to 60. At
that, she Just reached out those white
legs of hers and Strengthened to it. o,
she went like an arrow after the hounds
and past that schooner, and away on
across the prairie. And, right in the
midst of b er keenest run, size broke into
D wolf-hole! Believe it or not, the mare
turned complete somersault! But I
wasn't in the saddle when she turned
It. had gone on, and went on; went
On my head, went on my knees, went
every way. I was more than fifty feet
from the pony when finally stopped!
Sport and Grip pulled up to see me go,
and the jack,-he stopped and looked.
The wolf came out of the ground and
ooked, too. They were all SO interest
ID in it that they entirely forgot each
,ther. And back at the schooner saw
,ix or seven men, women and girls,
standing motionless, with their mouths
,pen. When 1, at length, got up, such
, :" ha! ha!'' came waited on the wind
IS shall not soon forget. 1t hurt me
1 got up feeling as if
we're hundred and one years old. Ar
or the jack he had taken leave; and the
logs were barking into the wolf-hole.


Another young fellow, named Adney
Clark, and myself once ran jack-rab-
bit under settlers house, which stood
,ut by itself on the prairie. The rabbit
vent up to it and crawled under the
ill. The hounds could not get under.
Ne went round the house and then into
t. There was no one at home. We
we're determined to have that jack.
.nyhow. So we pulled up two or three
,oards of the floor, and Ad took the
ire-poker and got down under the floor
O poke out the jack. He had not been
Iown there long when he uttered a
creech and came out at one jump with
great big rattle-snake hanging to his
'oot-leg! l grabbed chair and killed
he snake. Ad was SO weak he could
lot stand alone and could scarcely
peak. I pulled off his boot. But there
vas no mark on him. Fortunately, the
make had only bitten his boot leg. We
hen poked out the jack and the hounds
.rabbed him. @


And at another time, when eight or
en- of us were out racing down jacks,
vith as many as thirteen hounds, we
ii got after one big fellow, and at
sngth ran him into an old deserted
dig-out."


A "dlg-out, OF rOOt-Out, is q


ouse dug in the ground, and the floor
f it is often four or five feet below the
evel of the soil. The door of this one
7as gone. The jack, being pretty hard
un, darted in there. In went the
7hole pack of hounds after him. and
here was no end of a pow-wow.
found and about they went, yelping
nd growing down there in the dark.
We thought there wouldn't be much
eft of that jack when, by and by, out
q came and leaped away, leaving all
he hounds in there tumbling over one
mother, and the end of the business
7as that we had to go in and haul
hose dogs out by the legs.-Wtde-
i,oGke.


The use of whisky for rattlesnake
ites in Texas has increased so enor-
nously during the past wear that the