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CHAPTER ONE

I HAVE ALWAYS been of an enterprising turn of mind, eager for
new experience, and delighting in the adventurous, risky or not.
Indeed, my earliest memory reveals a sort of preview, adapted to
childish size and circumstance, of this tendency. The parlor sofa
--an imposing and monumental restingplace, tufted, ornate and springy;
the very best place in the house on which to bounce when the sentinel
eyes of adults were not on guard, concealing below a wonderful cave
into which a three-year-old could crawl and delight himself with
imaginary terrors and triumphs--over this sofa on the wall was a
small box to which was attached a crank. I had seen my grandfather
on occasion gravely turn the crank handle, but I was too young, and
the interval after turning too long, for me to connect the single
turn and the later appearance of a messengerboy. Nor could I read
the legend which directed one turn for messenger, two turns for the
summoning of the police, three for the firedepartment. All I knew
was that my grandfather twirled the crank and suffered no ill effects;
on the contrary, a pleasant and amusing buzzing came forth.

The crank was a fascination, and so, boldly, when no one was
around, I climbed on the sofa and gave a satisfying twirl. One being
but experimental, I gave it a second swing and then, either bored
by the tameness of the endeavor, or possibly urged by some faint
guilt, retired to the recesses of my cave.

The police arrived much more promptly than any messenger ever
had, big, bluecoated men, with stiff helmets and stern faces.
Consternation among the servants, horror from my grandmother, and
bafflement on the part of the guardians of law and order. Great
excitement all around, not the least of which was my own. I don't
remember what, if any, punishment was visited upon me for my deed;
I do recall that it seemed to be somehow mitigated by the fact that
I had not given the crank a third turn and so summoned the fire-
department. That, I was told, would have been terrible in the
extreme. This must have impressed me, for I didn't experiment
further.

This great adventure took place in the home of my mother's
parents on East 29th Street in New York, the same house where I
had been born three years before, in February 1871. It was a
fashionable house for those days, between Madison and Fourth
Avenues, befitting my grandfather's position. Every afternoon
the coachman drove my grandmother and greatgrandmother up to Fifth
Avenue and Central Park, and when I was visiting them—which was
often— I was naturally taken along. I was always impressed afresh
by the great walls of the Egyptian looking reservoir where the
public library now stands.

My grandfather had bought the house about ten years before I
was born. At that time the uptown terminus of the Fourth Avenue
street cars was at 32nd Street, and there was nothing between it

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and the rear windows of the house but vacant lots, so that it was
simply a matter of watching for the drivers to switch their horses
from one end of the car to the other to be sure of catching it with-
out the bother of waiting.

My parents then lived in Jersey City Heights, but even apart from
frequent visits to New York, my mother's practice was to spend the
summers with her children—I had a brother and two sisters— at my
grandparent's country place at Patterson, in Putnam County, New York,
about sixty miles from the city. My mother's people, the Hayts, had
lived there since 1790.

The trip to Patterson was one of the great highlights of my boyhood. In my earliest recollection the locomotive was an old woodburner, with a smokestack like a balloon, small at the bottom and very wide at the top. Even after coalburners came in, the trains had to be braked by hand, by the brakeman. If the more or less helpless engineer wanted to slow down for a station, going downgrade, rounding a curve, or in an emergency, he blew the whistle a certain number of times and the brakeman hurried out on the car platform to spin the old wheelhandled brakes. There was an element of chance which added to the excitement every time this particular whistle sounded.

When the engineer wanted the brakes released, he blew a different
number of blasts, and the brakemen reversed their previous activities.
I recall that soot, dust and cinders filled the air. My father,
grandfather and uncles wore long linen dusters on the train; indeed,
that garment was the mark of the experienced traveler; the amateur
always emerged from the journey with his clothes soiled and perhaps
pocked by burns from drifting coals. What protective covering, if
any, my mother and grandmother used, I don't recall. I do remember,
however, that my grandfather always wore a stovepipe hat. In the
prosperous days it would be a black beaver in winter and a gray one
in summer, but as the money began to give out he wore the black the
year round.

These Patterson summers in the 70s and early 80s were gay and
happy times. My mother had two brothers and a sister, all younger
than she, and they, together with many other young people of the
neighborhood enjoyed themselves thoroughly on parties, picnics,
horseback or carriage rides. My grandfather had a private bowling
alley on the place and it was a great event for my brother and my-
self when we were allowed to stay up after our usual bedtime to set
up the pins. While we climbed to seats above before the balls
came rolling, we had to be spry to dodge pins which sometimes flew
into the air.

The farm which was part of the place was run by my favorite
Uncle Jim. My brother and I must have been a trial to him, but I
never knew him to lose his temper except once, and then not at me,
the cause, but at fate in general. He had been showing me how to
build a "twitch-up" trap for rabbits. The trap was finished and the

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sapling holding the noose bent over while he fixed the second string from tree to trigger. I held the sapling while he was setting the trigger; suddenly the lithe limb slipped from my grasp and gave him a blow under the chin like a whiplash. He swore, vigorously and decoratively, but not at me for letting go of the sapling.

Boys in 1878 had the same urge toward horses as boys of today have toward automobiles, but the advantage was decidedly with us since we could learn to drive at a much earlier age. Beginning when I was about seven, the men in the hayfield would put me on the back of one of the horses hauling the hay wagon, and I guided the team from one haycock to another with the checkreins and finally to the barn when the wagon was full. Returning to the field was a different matter; one of the men drove the team and, as I became more accustomed to riding, would trot the horses fast as they could go, while I held on to the harness to keep from falling. I don't know how I managed to hang on, with my short legs sticking out straight from the horse's sides. It was good training; later in the West I took to horseback riding without any of the experiences so dear to joke and caricature.

At Patterson also I first encountered education, in the form of Kindergarten class. In 1878 and 1879 we lived in Brooklyn, and there I attended Public School Number 11, but beyond a certificate showing enrollment it left no mark or memory. It was in St. Louis that the business of learning really became unavoidable. We moved there in 1880, my father having become treasurer of the St. Louis Beef Canning Company.

There was a large German population in that city, and German was taught along with English. Unhappily, my grades were based on my English, so I was jumped in German a couple of classes ahead of where I should have been and was supposed to know what I had no opportunity to learn and had a hard time. I cannot remember much about the school itself, or what I learned, if anything. I do recall it as a three story brick building. There was a fire one day, and a girl of about twelve came down the lightning rod leading from the roof, hand over hand, bracing her feet against the wall. The only other memory I have is of the brick sidewalks exuding moisture which froze in winter, so that we skated to school. I was never a student anyway.

The beef cannery had its factory across the river in East St. Louis. My father had a horse and buggy; each day he drove across the bridge to the Illinois side. Frequently I spent Saturdays with him there and watched every step of the process from the unloading of the steers until the finished product left the plant. The steers were nearly all longhorn, direct from the ranches and free grass country; often the horns would measure five or even six feet from tip to tip. On one Saturday, either surfeited with the sight of so much cattle being transformed into meat, or perhaps—as in the case of the crank—just to see what would happen, I climbed to the roof and pulled the whistle cord. The men all stopped work.

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We lived on Locust Street, between 34th and 35th, which was almost at the city limits. Locust Street was popular with bicyclists, and I saw the high wheels for the first time. These high wheels, gliding along so magically, were always my favorites; I never cared for the "safeties" when they came in many years later. There was an element of risk with the high wheel lacking in its successor, and I rode one until I went West. When I came back they were all gone and finally about 1897 I bought a safety.

The St. Louis markets of 1880-1883 often sold bear and buffalo meat, while prairie chickens were common as stewing hens today. This vestige of a frontier swarming with game and clouded with the dust of buffalo herds made a nice contrast with the sedate farm at Patterson where, after one unbearably hot season, we went back each summer.

That of 1882 at Patterson was climaxed in the best tradition of melodrama. About three quarters of a mile from the house, the New York and Harlem Railroad--now part of the New York Central--crossed the Mill Brook on a wooden trestle, 75 to 100 feet long. Below the trestle there was quite a pool where we used to fish. This particular summer day my brother and I had had no luck there, so we moved further down the railroad to a pool on another stream close to the track, where we had better luck. While we fished, a freight passed. The fireman was evidently cleaning out the clinkers from the engine's fire box for he aimed a shovelful of red hot clinkers at our pool.

A little later, since it was nearly dinnertime, we started for home. As we approached the upper trestle we saw smoke rising, but a curve ahead cut off our view of its origin. As soon as we rounded the curve we saw the trestle was on fire--evidently from other hot coals disbursed by the jocose fireman. I knew the Pittsfield express, which went roaring through Patterson, was about due, and that without warning the engineer could not stop the train between the curve and the burning trestle.

I was not sure of the proper procedure for stopping trains, but I decided to stand in the middle of the track with outstretched arms and not budge till the train was almost on me. Having made this resolution, I put my brother safely to one side and took my place in the curve, from where I could see both the fire and the train. Just as the train appeared, a man rushed through the smoke and flame of the burning trestle, waving first one arm and then the other up and down. I imitated the gesture, and as the engine came abreast of me I had the tremendous relief of hearing the screech of suddenly applied brakes and seeing a stream of sperks spraying from the rails as they took hold. Brakemen leaned startledly out from the platforms and passengers gaped inquiringly from the windows, but all they saw was a small barefoot boy wearing only knickers, a shirt and large straw hat making him look like a mushroom. My greatest trial in the summers at Patterson was my mother's rule that we put on shoes and stockings before meals.

The train crept up to the trestle and the crew put out the fire. While the rails were somewhat warped, the express was able to make

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its way cautiously across. The man who had come over the burning
ties was my Uncle Jim. He knew we were down there fishing, and
seeing the smoke, imagined we were somehow responsible for the fire,
ran to intercept the express. His hair and clothes were badly singed.

It was long before my family left off teasing me about stopping
the train, but if my efforts were belittled at home, they received
the appreciation I thought proper from the train crew. Our residence
in St. Louis terminating when Armour, the largest of the meat-packers,
won a suit against the St. Louis Beef Canning Company for a patent
infringement in the method of sealing cans, and they decided to go
out of business, we came back East to live and spent the next summer
in Pawling, three miles from Patterson. Whenever I wanted to go from
one place to the other the engineer let me ride in the engine.

The last train at night went no further than Pawling. The engineer
then turned over his cab to the firemen who switched the cars around
for the morning trip. Every night all summer I climbed into the fire-
man's seat and rang the bell as he switched the cars.

I spent two winters in Patterson. My brother, a future Dakota
banker, and I had two lines of rabbit traps, one in the swamp to the
south, the other to the north. We baited the traps with apples as
soon as we got out of school in the afternoon, but we had to get up
long before daylight and make the rounds to forstall poachers. We
got fifteen cents for each rabbit.

Toward Christmas in 1882 or 83 the teacher let four of us out
early to gather pine for school decoration. In the middle of the
swamp, about a mile from the village was a rocky upthrust covered
with pine trees, known as Pine Island. Ground pine was plentiful
there, but at this season it was difficult to reach except by boat
since the swollen Croton river, running through the swamp almost
isolated it. We overcame this difficulty by borrowing someone's
flatbottomed boat and collected our greenery.

The December darkness fell suddenly; we hurried to the boat,
but it was not there. It may have been insecurely tied and floated
off; more likely in the dusk we missed the particular bend in the
stream where it had been left. We thought of spending the night in
one of the island's caves, but we had no matches, and the rapidly
increasing cold vetoed that idea. There was nothing to do but try
to make our way home through the swamp.

I maintained the village was in one direction; another boy argued
it was in the opposite quarter. We were thoroughly frightened and
held an impromptu prayer meeting; then we climbed a tree and saw the
lights of the village. Happily, after going a short distance through
the woods we ran into an old wood road; that is, though there was no
indication of the road beneath our feet, we could see the nick in the
woods where the trees had been cleared. The surface was covered
with thins ice through which we broke at every step, wetting and
plastering ourselves with quickly freezing mud to our waists. We
could hardly walk in our stiffly frozen clothes, and it was not till

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sale drygoods commission house of Lawrence & Co. My job was keeping the total yardage in each case of goods manufactured each day by the Pacific Mills, the yardage in the cases sold daily, and the yardage on hand each day and whether located at the mill, the store, or the warehouse. They only sold by the case, and at the end of the month I had to balance the yardage on hand with the yardage on hand at the beginning of the month, plus the output of the mill, less the monthly sales of each style of goods--as if it were dollars.

There were no adding machines then, and with thirty or forty proof sheets of six or eight columns to a sheet, each covered with nothing but figures, I certainly had to learn to add. My weakness with figures has always been to transpose, writing 75 for 57 and so forth; if my difference could be divided by nine it indicated a possible transposition. Once I had a difference of 900 yards. I checked and checked for a transposition but I couldn't find it, working for ten days until ten at night. On the tenth night I dreamed I saw where the error was, even to the number of the sheet. In the morning I was delighted to find the dream had been accurate: an eyelash had fallen and stuck on the paper, making a zero look like a nine when footing the sheet though still appearing as zero when checking back the figures.

After I had been with Lawrence a year, my father accepted an offer to become cashier of a St. Louis bank and I reluctantly gave up my job. We were all ready to go--the furniture vans were at the door--when he apruptly changed his mind. My job having been filled, I once more started answering ads.

When I left Lawrence & Company one of the partners, an elderly gentleman and quite a martinet, remarked, "Patterson, I know you will succeed; you aren't one of those very bright fellows who go up like a rocket and come down like the stick." I knew he intended to be complimentary, but the slightly equivocal wording left me for a long time with the impression that he did not consider me overly intelligent.

The new firm I went with was Minot, Hooper & Co. in much the same line of business. I was now eighteen and I signed a three year contract with them at ten, twelve, and fourteen dollars a week as bill clerk. After I had been there a year and a half they jumped me to cashier and head of the office, demoting the former cashier to my job. I was always ambitious from the day I started to work and made it a point to be familiar with the work of the man ahead of me. I took on the cashier's job at the contract salary of twelve dollars and didn't ask for more, glad to learn the advanced work.

In Plainfield there was an Englishman who was probably one of the best of the early electrical inventors, builder of the first electric light plant in New York City. It is still operating, which explains why part of the city is still on direct current while the rest is on the more modern alternating current. He also built the first trolley line in this country and kept as a curio the first nickel fare ever taken in. (He had an affidavit to prove its authenticity.)

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looking young Englishman with rosy cheeks, of about my age. With truly characteristic English demeanor, he said nothing about himself but he did not seem to have any business and I judged him to have been sent out to see the world by a good, well to do family. A few hours after leaving Seattle we landed for about half a day at the town of Victoria on Vancouver Island. It was a truly English town with walls surrounding each house and a profusion of roses showing over the walls. The Englishman and I strolled around the town together and as we were congenial we saw quite a little of each other during the next few weeks. After nearly sixty years I have forgotten his name. The day the storm was at its worst the young Englishman and I spent most of the day on the boat deck where we found a fairly comfortable roost between the tarpaulin covering one of the lifeboats and the straps fastening it to the deck.

About noon I decided to go below for some food to carry up and as a result nearly lost my life. There was no inside stairway from the boat deck, only an outside one ending at the stern of the deck below, from where it was necessary to follow the deck to a side door. Just as I descended, a big wave came over the stern, knocking me off my feet and carrying me across to the side rail. Then, before I could grab and hold on, the ship lurched the other way and I was washed clear across the deck to the opposite rail which I managed to grasp at last. Had the wave been any bigger I don't see how I could have stopped from going over the rail on the first surge.

The Pacific can produce some big waves when it wants to, and when the small ship was in the trough of the sea nothing but walls of water could be seen fore and aft. The stern also had an unpleasant way of sliding sideways off the waves, giving a corkscrew motion. During the day on which the storm was at its worst, a couple of small sails were set which were supposed to steady the steamer.

As we looked back after entering the Golden Gate we saw the sun setting even with the center of the strait. When it was half down a full-rigged ship crossed in front, making an unforgettable picture. The rest of the scenery I found unexciting, just smooth, rounded hills, barren of foliage, coming down to the bay. - Now all built up.

I rented a furnished hall bedroom on Geary Street for four dollars a week. Food was cheap; I could get a good breakfast for fifteen cents. Lunch usually consisted of dried purple figs, not only delicious but filling—for five cents. Dinners were the most remarkable, as excellent course dinners could be had for ten cents a course, or three courses for a quarter. A course was soup, bread and butter, a second was fish or meat with two vegetables, and a third, dessert. And this was in no hash house, but in good restaurants patronized by nice people with the food served on silver dishes. I was much impressed by the silver dishes, a symbol of the uniqueness and opulence of the old San Francisco. I was also impressed by the number of white-haired men in the restaurants. Of course white hair was no novelty, but I had never before been conscious of so many at one time and place, and concluded that Californians lived to a ripe old age.

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CHAPTER FOUR

From San Francisco the Southern Pacific ran to El Paso with a
stopover for a day in Los Angeles, then a very small place compared
to San Francisco. In my limited experience it seemed to me a frontier
town, but I had yet to become familiar with the genuine article. There
was another stopover at El Paso, where part of the day was spent across
the line in Mexico. I wandered around with all the dutiful curiosity
of a tourist, and in the course of my explorations stumbled into an
old Spanish fort garrisoned by Mexican soldiers.

Like every other American of that day I was convinced that
civilization stopped on the north bank of the Rio Grande, and I saw
in the brown, barefoot soldiers with sloppy uniforms but keenly
flashing bayonets, some sinister menace. The smiles--perhaps of
greeting, perhaps of puzzlement at the gringo sightseer--seemed to
me to be sneers, and their looks of inquiry or amusement I translated
as malicious threats. I beat a hasty retreat and felt much more
comfortable as soon as I got outside the walls. In my youthfully
romantic view I reasoned that no one would have known what had become
of me, had I vanished behind those old walls.

From El Paso I took the Texas Pacific to a town names Weatherford,
450 miles away and about thirty miles west of Fort Worth. Since there
were no tourist sleepers on this line, I rode and slept in the day
coach.

The Craig ranch was about twenty miles southwest of Graham,
county seat of Young County, seventy miles north of Weatherford.
At Weatherford there was a branch railroad to the small town of
Mineral Wells, where I spent the night. Graham was fifty miles from
Mineral Wells, and reached only by stagecoach.

When I heard the word stagecoach I immediately pictured a relic
of the past, with rounded body supported by leather straps in place
of springs and the driver on a high seat in front. The reality was
prosaic, but much more comfortable: a strongly built vehicle, with
cross seats all on the same level, supplied with curtains at the
sides and back which could be lowered in bad weather and raised in
good. As this particular day was cloudy and cool the curtains were
down, and when I crawled into a seat inside, with no outlook, I
anticipated a gloomy, uninteresting fifty mile drive.

We left Mineral Wells about eight in the morning, due in Graham
late in the afternoon. We were not far on our way when a strong,
icy wind began to blow, followed by a cold rain which changed quickly
to sleet. Since we were driving north and the storm was directly
in our faces, we got the full benefit—if that is the proper word—
of a Texas "Norther", bad medicine for man and beast, always striking
with lightning speed, and varying in its final form between sleet and
snow, but miserably uncomfortable in either case.

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Accustomed to a warm climate, the natives are sensitive to the sudden change, and it wasn't long before the stage driver complained that he was frozen. I asked if I could drive for a while since I was used to cold weather. I must admit I was not entirely altruistic; I was not enjoying my enforced idleness, nor the dank, clammy atmosphere inside the coach. Driving would not only give me something to do, but afford a chance to see the country.

He cheerfully agreed to give me the reins, and I climbed out the side of the coach and up into his seat, driving the rest of the way to Graham. My spontaneous act of helpfulness, restlessness and high spirits I later found gave me celebrity as the "tenderfoot who drove the stage to Graham in a norther."

The horses were changed three times during the trip, the change at noon being made at Christian, a halfway place consisting solely of a small hotel, famous all through that part of Texas for its chicken dinners. The delicious fried chicken we ate during the stop did nothing to diminish this reputation. At Christian we also met the southbound stage from Graham to Mineral Wells.

Years later I met a former congressman and prominent lawyer at a dinner in New York. Knowing he had originally come from Weatherford, I mentioned I had first landed in Texas at his old home town. "What in the world were you doing there?" he asked, and when I answered, "I was on my way to Graham," he said, "Why, I used to drive the stage to Graham when I was a young man."

The Craigs met me at Graham, together with some other young fellows from back home who had also bought ranches in the vicinity. They all shared a large room in a house in Graham which they used as their headquarters during visits to town. Here they had trunks in which they kept their "storeclothes". We spent a day or two in Graham outfitting me with boots, sombrero and proper ranch clothes. I also had my first taste of hot tamales, to which I have been addicted ever since, as well as the sometimes unconventional methods of the West as exemplified in our landlord who wakened us every morning by opening the door and yelling, "Git up, git up, the Yanks are coming!"

All Graham was in a great state of excitement over a trial about to take place in the United States Court there for attempted lynching. Four years earlier, in 1888, five brothers, Charlie, George, Albert, Boone and Llewellyn Marlow had been indicted on the charge of stealing horses in Indian Territory and bringing them into Texas to sell. Released on bail, the sheriff of Young County went to Boone Marlow's rented farm to arrest him on an old charge of homicide up in the Panhandle; in the attempt the sheriff was killed. Boone escaped but was later killed by supposed friends seeking the reward for taking him dead or alive.

His brothers were arrested and lodged in the Graham jail. A mob, composed of some of the undesirables of Graham, possibly with the

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connivance of the jailer, unlocked the Marlow's cell and called on them to come out. This one of them did, and with his fists killed the mob leader while the others beat off the rest of the would-be lynchers. As a result the United States Marshal in Dallas ordered the prisoners transferred to Weatherford for protection, but on the way the party was ambushed.

In making this transfer the four brothers, shackled together in pairs with leg chains, and the driver, were in the first vehicle. Llewellyn and George were shackled together, so were Albert and Charlie. The second vehicle contained guards armed with shot guns and rifles.

At Day Creek, some two miles from Graham, in a dark ravine where the brush was thick, about forty men suddenly attacked the convoy. At the first shot the driver of the prisoners' vehicle disappeared and the Marlows went over the side of the wagon, and running awkwardly because of the shackles, headed for the rear vehicle where they found the mob disarming the guards.

Attacking silently and unexpectedly the Marlows managed to wrench guns from the mob and opened fire. The mob returned it, the battle raging furiously for a few moments. Then it ceased as the mob with no hankering to suffer bloodshed of its own, suddenly withdrew, leaving three dead and five badly wounded.

The Marlows also lost heavily, with one of each pair dead and the other badly wounded. While Charlie was wounded in many places, his hands were intact. Laboriously dragging his dead brother along, he made his way to the body of one of the mob from which he secured a knife. Getting a flat stone he put Albert's foot on it and severed it at the ankle, thus freeing himself from his dead brother. He then moved over to George, who was shot in the hands and leg, and repeated the process on Llewellyn, thus freeing George.

Charlie and George then managed to get back into the wagon and made their way home.

The United States Marshal sent a heavy guard and the two were taken to Dallas, but it was not until five days after the battle before their wounds were treated by a doctor. Subsequently, the surviving Marlows were returned to Graham under heavy guard, tried and acquitted of the horse stealing charge, but were then placed under bond to appear against the mob, many of whom had been indicted. This was the trial about to take place when I arrived and one can understand the intense excitement prevailing in the small community and it forcefully brought home to me the fact that life was still pretty wild in the country I had come to, but I had not the faintest thought that in less than three months I would be a Deputy United States Marshal in this very frontier territory.

The shackles worn by the Marlows and the flat stone with the dark blood stain were kept as evidence and as late as 1893, were

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in a box in the Marshal's office, to satisfy the curiosity of
visitors.

Leaving the scene of the Marlow's ordeal, we drove the twenty
miles to the Craig ranch. The trip was over dusty roads through
rather flat country. The spring wild flowers carpeted the prairies
except in the shade of the many live oaks and mesquite trees rustling
in the dry balmy air. Half way to the ranch we forded the Brazos
River, normally about twenty feet wide and perhaps a foot deep at
the ford; but after a heavy rain far to the north, a wall of water
rushed down and makes it a raging torrent an eighth of a mile wide
in places and impassable except by rowboat, and then only with
difficulty.

The ranch house was simple, built of boards nailed upright with battens covering the cracks between. Like most rural houses in Texas, it rested on posts driven into the ground, permitting free circulation of air underneath--fine in summer, but no good during a "norther". There were only two rooms, bedroom and combined dining-room and kitchen. The furniture was plain: some cots, a few chairs, and a chest of drawers, but the fellowship and freedom made it seem like paradise to me.

Two others from back home were also guests at the ranch and we took turns cooking and dishwashing. We had enough dishes for three meals, so we let them accumulate till night when all were washed. There was no ice anywhere in that part of the country so the fare was limited to food which could keep without it, the meat consisting largely of salt pork. In place of butter we had what was known as egg or molasses butter, made by heating molasses to the boiling point, then stirring in either egg yolks or whites—I have forgotten which—and some cinnamon, which made an excellent substitute for butter.

One day—I may have had a touch of the sun—when I was running quite a temperature, I had an irrational longing for a glass of milk. As the Craigs only fattened steers for market, there was none, but one of the brothers offered to try at a neighboring ranch and after a couple of hours returned with the coveted liquid. I reached eagerly, but alas, it was sour and I couldn't drink it. No ice; consequently no sweet milk unless there was a cow on the place.

The Craigs had about twenty-five hundred acres of fenced land onto which they turned the young steers they bought to fatten. There was not much work to do except "ride fence" a couple of times a week, a necessary chore since irresponsible cowboys, taking the shortest way, cut the barbed wire to let their horses through. This was a serious offence. However, when a "Norther" struck it meant work for everyone because the steers would drift south with the storm until they came up against the south boundry fence when they could go no further. If it became cold enough to freeze the wet snow and sleet on their backs and sides they would stiffen up and freeze to death and they had to be kept moving.

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The brothers also raised Shetland ponies. One young colt, about as large as a good sized dog, was a great pet, and had the run of the house much like a dog; when he came in he always put up his hoof to shake hands.

A horse was supplied for me; when I mounted, my friends had their first laugh. To guide a horse I had always pulled on the right rein if I wanted him to go to the right, and on the left rein to go left. But when I guided him, as I thought, to the right he turned left, and the more I pulled on the right rein the more he went to the left until he was going around in circles and getting somewhat impatient, I was bewildered and the spectators highly amused. The cause of the misunderstanding between the horse and me was that all western riding horses are bridlewise; that is, to go leftward the right rein is laid lightly on the right side of the neck, and the left rein on the left side for a right turn. In pulling on the right rein I touched his neck that side, consequently he moved to the left.

The bridle reins were long; when a rider dismounted he threw them over the horse's head so the animal could not walk or run without stepping on them. However, some horses learned to hold their heads sideways so the reins would trail out of the way of their hoofs; such horses had to be tied.

Some simple and useful instructions were given me about saddling and handling horses. First, it is well to stroke the horse's neck a little and speak kindly to him. Then insert the bit gently in his mouth and put on the bridle. Examine the saddle blanket to see no burrs are attached. In putting on the saddle, draw up the cinch firmly, but not too tight; when the horse has been ridden a little way, dismount and tighten the cinch. After saddling, before mounting, the horse should be led a few steps to see that no burrs or other foreign substances are rubbing against him. One's back should always be toward the horse while leading him; many horses will not lead if one faces them, walking backward, and get ugly.

The stirrups used by cowboys were made of wood and fitted under the arch of the foot: the high-heels on the boots prevented its slipping through the stirrup. The proper distance from the stirrups to the saddle was usually determined by the distance between the tips of the fingers and the armpit, when the fingers were placed where the stirrup strap joined the saddle.

The high-heeled boots made walking difficult, and on a trip to New Mexico in 1942 I saw cowboys in Santa Fe, probably from adjacent Dude Ranches, with the smaller heels slanting forward, with room apparently only for iron stirrups, so I judge the boots and stirrups now are different from those of years ago. The boots with the slanting, lower heels doubtless make walking easier.

Most cowboys were very particular about their appearance. My recollection is that the hat was of the first importance, then the

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driven up to Indian Territory for fattening. Part of the route was
along the old Chisholm Trail, famous for the hundreds of thousands
of steers driven from southern and central Texas to Wichita, Kansas
in the old days before the railroads. The trail consisted of many
irregular, parallel ruts from six to eighteen inches deep, worn into
the prairie by countless thousands of cattle.

Driving cattle was a dirty job in the air dust filled by many
hoofs. When we reached the Red River which separated Texas from
Indian Territory I had a forcible demonstration of the utility of
the cowboy method of halting a driven herd. Instead of stopping
those in front, the drovers slow down and halt the cattle in the
rear first and then work forward. The river was up quite a bit
and the cattle refused to enter the water. We drove them back
from the river a little distance, turned around, and stampeded
them toward the river. Again the vanguard balked at the water,
but those behind pushed them resistlessly forward. Once in the
river they swam for the opposite shore and the rest followed.

After I had been at the ranch for a while, I was spending one
weekend alone. On Sunday morning, an orphan boy of about sixteen
who worked on a neighboring farm and was well liked by the Craigs,
came running breathlessly and asked me to hide him from a bunch
of cowboys. I asked why they were after him, but he said he
didn't know. I told him to go through the mesquite trees back
of the house, which was more practical than trying to conceal him.

Shortly after, six or seven cowboys with drawn revolvers
galloped up and demanded the boy, saying that he had been seen
heading for the ranch. To my questions they answered that he had
insulted a girl and they intended to kill him. When I said the
boy wasn't there, they wanted to search; I told them to go ahead.
Had I seen him? Yes, but he had gone on, and I indicated a direc-
tion different from the one taken by the boy. After some dis-
cussion they grudgingly moved off, throwing threatening looks at
me. I was uncomfortable for a while, but I finally came to the
conclusion the whole thing was a frame-up to get the goat of a
tenderfoot.

I had my laundry done at a farm about a mile away from the ranch
house. One evening when calling for my clothes there was a deluge
of rain, so I stayed there for supper, waiting for it to let up--
which it failed to do. The farmer pressed me to spend the night,
but as the house had only two rooms in which he, his wife, six
children and four cowboys were to sleep, I decided to head for the
ranch. I put on my slicker and started off.

Mud is slippery; Texas mud takes on the superlative quality
Texans attribute to most of the natural features of the state. My
horse slipped and slid all the way home, getting increasingly
nervous all the time. A little way from the Craig ranch house I
had to get off to open a gate. I had my laundry covered with the
slicker under my left arm, with the ends of the slicker hanging

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almost to my feet; between the two handicaps my style of remounting
was rather cramped. In throwing my right leg over the saddle I
leaned more forward than usual and as the horse threw back his head
and gave me a stunning blow on the forehead, and then bolted. Al-
though nearly knocked out, I managed to hold on and I was finally
able to stop him just before he ran under a low shed which would
have swept me from his back.

An uncle of the Craigs, Colonel P. B. Hunt, had a large ranch
about five miles away, which I often visited. In addition to cattle,
the colonel raised pinto or painted ponies used in circusses. Every
year a trainer taught the young ponies tricks, finally selecting the
most proficient for the big top. The trainer's method was to flick
a particular muscle with unerring accuracy with the tip of his long
whip, at which the pony would reflexively kneel, or perform whatever
trick was desired. After repeating this many times the trainer
needed only to aim at the spot to achieve the wanted result.

Colonel Hunt was a lovable man, admired and respected by everyone
who knew him. Originally from Kentucky, he had served in the
Northern Army during the Civil War; later he was appointed Indian
Agent in Indian Territory, where he remained for a number of years
before acquiring his ranch in Texas. About two months after my
arrival at the Craig ranch, the colonel was appointed United States
Sheriff for the Northern District of Texas, with headquarters in
Dallas, and he asked me if I would like to organize his office there
for him. I gladly accepted, feeling it would give me an opportunity
to look around and get permanently located.

My family had originally been disturbed at my being in such a
wild country as Texas, but when I wrote that I had been appointed
a Chief Deputy United States Marshal, they never expected to see me
again. I got a telegram from my grandfather —COME BACK AT ONCE
IF YOU HAVE NO MONEY DRAW ON ME.

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CHAPTER FIVE

Texas was such a large state it was divided into three Federal Districts, Northern, Eastern, and Southern. The Federal Court mostly sat in Dallas which then had a population of about forty thousand, headquarters of the Northern District of which Colonel Hunt was United States Marshal, but there were also shorter spring and fall terms held in Waco, in the southern part of the district and in Graham, approximately in the center. The Judge, District Attorney, Clerk of Court, and Marshal moved with the sessions.

My recollection is that there were eighty-two counties in the Northern District, and it took as long to travel by railroad from the southern border of the district to the northern border as to go from New York to Chicago. True, western trains were more leisurely, but even if they moved only half as fast as eastern ones, the Northern District covered an immense area.

The Marshal is a presidential appointee, likely to be changed with the administration in Washington. Some of the Deputy Marshals confined their operations to the part of the district where they lived, but the majority had their headquarters in Dallas. They naturally had to be a rough and ready bunch to do the work required of them. I remember two whom the Marshal deputized at my suggestion, who were so tough looking I wouldn't have cared to meet them in a lonely place at night, but they made excellent deputies.

Besides the United States Marshals and County Sheriffs, there were state police known as Texas Rangers. The Rangers were a splendid, highly trained, fearless body of men who spent much of their time in the saddle. They were undoubtedly better qualified, more experienced, and better marksmen than the Deputy Marshals, whose tenure of office was no more certain than the Marshal's. While the Rangers were greatly feared by outlaws, I think the out-laws feared the Deputy Marshals even more, not because they were more efficient, but because of the magic attached to the name of the United States. As a consequence, the Rangers led more hazardous lives.

My duties were to keep the Marshal's accounts, manage his organization, and be in charge when he was absent. For this I was paid eighty-three dollars and thirty-three cents a month, which was later increased to a hundred. Because of my inexperience, I was not expected to do any of the rough outside work. This part of the agreement did not always work, nor was I sorry that it didn't. On May 12, 1892, at the age of twenty-one, I was appointed Chief Deputy United States Marshal for the Northern District of Texas.

The Marshal's accounts were quite complicated, and as his predecessor had taken away all of his records, I was thrown on my own ingenuity to work out a system. The Marshal was custodian of six separate funds: the Marshal's fund, the fund for the Payment of

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Jurors, Payment of Witnesses, Support of Prisoners, pay of Bailiffs and so forth, and the fund for Miscellaneous Court Expenses.

The Marshal's fund and his accounts with the deputies were the most involved. The Marshal was compensated on a fee basis, and he passed on to the deputies half the fees earned by them except in my case, since I was on a fixed salary. The fee for serving an ordinary subpoena was a dollar, with six cents a mile travel allowance. As the railroads supplied the Marshals with annual passes, the mileage was all profit except when the deputy was obliged to buy meals or hire a team, in which case these expenses were deducted, the Marshal received half the remainder and the deputy the other half, plus his out-of-pocket expenses. Serving a warrant for arrest was still more profitable because the Marshal was allowed six cents a mile to serve the warrant, two dollars for making the arrest, and ten cents a mile on the return trip for the deputy, the prisoner and a guard, a total of thirty cents a mile on return trip.

The deputies did not take kindly to having a young tenderfoot from the East put in charge. One in particular did everything he could to disrupt my attempts at organization, obviously hoping that with my incapacity revealed he would be appointed Chief Deputy instead, but when I was able to prove he was mutilating my records and tearing pages from my account books the Marshal kicked him out and I became firmly established.

In Dallas I lived in a remarkable boarding house, run by Miss Smith, a fine, distinguished looking middle-aged lady. She came of a family which had been wealthy before the Civil War and she herself had been the fiancée of a Confederate officer killed in that struggle. Hers was no ordinary boarding house, but a real home, filled with charming people who considered it a great privilege to be one of her guests, over which she ruled with a firm hand and in which she spoke her mind fully and freely.

Many of those later became prominent, like Frank Trumbell, later Chairman of the Board of the Chesapeake & Ohio, Charles Cluberson, Attorney General of Texas, Governor and United States Senator from Texas, or Delos Cooke, later director of the Cunard Line as well as one of the largest New York banks. While several young men lived in the house there were a number of others who came only for their meals. They were an ambitious, hard-working lot—if they hadn't been, Miss Smith would not have taken them in. From my association with them my viewpoint broadened, I had the rough edges knocked off, and I learned the spirit of sportsmanship. It was the only college I ever attended, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to Miss Smith and her boarding house.

My room was very small—just large enough for a single bed, wardrobe, washstand, trunk and one chair—but with care it was possible to navigate between the furniture. It was in a cottage back of the house itself, originally the slaves quarters. There were three other rooms in the cottage, two fairly large, the other

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the size of mine. But despite its smallness my room was comfortable and I was very happy.

No matter how hot the days were, the nights were always cool; about eleven the "gulf breeze" sprang up to making sleeping comfortable. During two summers in Dallas I remember the breeze to fail only twice.

While my salary was small, I don't recall ever being hard up, as there were neither automobiles nor golf courses and little to spend money for in the way of entertainment. I could get free admittance to the theaters by showing my marshal's badge. True, this didn't entitle me to a seat, but what did standing matter to a young fellow full of life?

I distinctly recollect hearing the operas, "Martha", "The Bohemian Girl", and "Fra Diavolo". "Martha" appealed especially, for I used to stand by the piano when my chin was not much higher than the keyboard and have my mother play certain passages from that opera over and over, but I had never seen a performance before.

One of my extravagances was going downtown in the evening for a plate of chili con carne which was made better in Dallas than any other place I knew. One of the young fellows in the house played the mandolin very well; often after supper we sat on the porch while he played, and the music seemed unusually beautiful in the soft night air.

What about girls? There were many, attractive and beautiful, whose soft, melodious southern accents were fascinating to a northern yank; unfortunately those with the most appeal had already been discovered by other men. In those days the etiquette was very strict, and as there were no movies or automobiles, one called on a girl only by appointment. Both wore their best clothes and sat out the visit in an old-fashioned parlor. Occasionally there were parties or receptions, but if a girl were taken to the theater she must have a chaperone, and she couldn't go buggy riding with a man unless they were engaged.

Most of the young men at Miss Smith's were southerners and still talked about the Civil War; in fact I heard more about that conflict during my two years in Dallas than all the rest of my life. They were too young to remember the former grandeur of their families as described by their parents, but I was impressed by their fairness in holding no malice against contemporary Yankees-just sadness for what had been lost. It brought a realization to me of what war meant to defeated people.

Not long after I had gotten settled, a Negro shot a white man, and that night a mob stormed the jail in an attempt to lynch him. They battered the front door quite a bit, but didn't get in. Some two hundred shots were fired without anyone being seriously hurt, and this broke up the mob. One afternoon, about two weeks later,

-38-

Many parts of Texas then had two kinds of time: "Sum time" and "Railroad time", half an hour earlier. My watch was on railroad time; it was possible the sale would begin on sun time to avoid any possible objections. I told the driver to keep going as hard as he could. The last half mile he had the horses on a run, and we pulled up before the Court House just two minutes before ten, sun time.

The men I had come after were grouped on the steps ready to conduct the sale, and as I called out the various names they stepped meekly to the buggy and I handed each his injunction. Then we drove to a hotel where I ate and went to bed, sleeping until evening. None of the men had realized that the injunctions were ineffective, and the sale did not take place. Our ride of sixty-five miles in nine and a half hours in a severe norther had not been in vain.

When I got up the severe cold showed its effect; every muscle in my body was so sore I could hardly move. Dimmitt was then a little town of a dozen houses, a small hotel, store, Court House, and a twenty-two thousand dollar school building. The following day we drove back to Amarillo in four inches of snow.

-43-

John Doe and a number of cowboys had cut the fences to adjoining
properties and scattered all the steers they could find onto the
adjacent land. There were about thirty steers they missed in the
dark; these had been rounded up in the morning and driven along a
road to the west about an hour before I arrived.

Campbell had a saddle horse for me and we took after them. After
riding about six miles we caught up with them; Doe and a cowboy
driving the steers as fast as they could. Doe, who was reputed to
be a tough customer, stopped when Campbell told him who he was and
that he had an attachment for the steers, but he made no effort to
halt the animals, simply sitting on his horse with his hand on his
holstered revolver.

He made no move either to interfere or to help us as we rode
ahead of the steers, finally turning for home when we began driving
them back to the farm. The road was dusty and the steers were pretty
well exhausted, having been pushed hard for some seven miles with the
thermometer at 106 in the shade.

On the way back we came to a small church with some trees around
it, and the steers immediately broke for the shade. That is, all
but one, which made for the open door of the church. I jumped off
my horse and followed him in. About halfway down the aisle the
animal stood, shaking his head from side to side. The startled
congregation were on their feet, while the pastor hollered and
waved his arms frantically from the pulpit, trying to scare the
intruder out.

Eventually I induced the devout creature to join his more secular--
minded fellows and we finished the trip back to the farm.

The next day William Doe calmly walked into the office with a
proposition. He would round up the two hundred and seventy steers
which had been scattered and put them under my control on the farm
along with the thirty already recovered until all were properly
fattened and ready for market. Then I was to sell them, deduct the
amount of the judgment and interest, together with the cost of
feeding them, and turn the balance of the price to him.

At first glance this seemed to be a pretty nervous proposal; under
the attachment I could immediately sell enough steers to satisfy
the judgment. However, as a practical matter it was not so out-
rageous since I doubt if it would have been possible to identify
and round up the missing steers, especially as the surrounding
farmers would undoubtedly connive with Doe to keep them from us.
I therefore made the deal with him and it turned out satisfactorily
for Mr. Smith.

Among the judgments obtained by Smith was one for a thousand
dollars against a certain Theodore Pinkham. Pinkham was the editor
and presumably the owner of a small newspaper, but I had been unable
definitely to pin the ownership on him. One night, on a New Orleans

-44-

bound train, I met a talkative young man in Pinkham's employ.
"Oh," I said, "you mean Theodore Pinkham who edits the Texas
Bluebonnet? It must be quite a chore, editing another man's news-
paper."

"I don't know what you mean. The Bluebonnet is Pinkham's
property."

That was what I thought; I decided to prod the incautious young
man a little further. "You must be mistaken," I said, "I've heard
on very good authority that Pinkham doesn't own the smallest part
of it."

"I don't know who your authority is, but I can tell you it's
all wrong. The paper is actually owned by the Bluebonnet Publishing
Company and all of the stock is in the name of various members of the
Pinkham family."

"Oh, then instead of working for a stranger the poor fellow works
for his relatives. That's even worse."

"Nonsense, I said the stock was in their names. That's just a
technicality, for legal protection. Pinkham is the real owner all
right."

This was exactly the data I had been looking for; as soon as I
got back to Dallas I secured writs of garnishment against Pinkham's
interest in the publishing company and the company's bank account.
Next day a rival paper came out with a good-sized headline, SMOKING
HIM OUT, with a detailed account of the case. This was followed
later by another story headed, PATTERSON SUED BY PINKHAM FOR $50,000.

This action didn't worry me, since I had nothing on which he
could collect even if he won. In fact I was rather pleased, for
a fifty thousand dollar suit seemed to give me a pretty high credit
rating. The suit may still be on the records of the Dallas Court
for all I know; in the meantime Mr. Smith recovered the amount of
the judgment.

Other recoveries were made, and I was so successful altogether
in collecting for Mr. Smith that his Dallas lawyer offered me a
partnership. That is, he offered to take me into his office and pay
me a salary until I was admitted to the bar and then make me a partner,
but I did not accept.

Whether this episode gave me an overinflated opinion of myself or
not, I soon had occasion to take a more modest view of my capabilities
for I involved myself in an idiotic blunder, from the consequences
of which I was only extricated by luck.

The constable of a small town west of Fort Worth sent word he was
holding a Negro for passing a counterfeit dollar; a warrant was issued
and I went to bring in the boy. He was a tall lad of sixteen or

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seventeen, named Hutton, and apparently in no way connected with
the manufacture of the counterfeit, but unfortunately he had tried
to pass some of it and landed in the Dallas jail.

Under the laws of Texas and many other southern states railroads
were obliged to provide separate cars for whites and blacks. As the
prisoner was a Negro I naturally took him into the Jim Crow car;
however, before long the conductor informed me that the Negroes were
protesting against a white man riding in their car, and I would have
to get out. I was quite willing and proposed moving to the car for
whites, but the conductor insisted that the Negro could not ride there.
I told him he could not separate me from my prisoner, and we finally
compromised by sitting in the white smoking car.

Hutton was tried, found guilty and sentenced to a term in the
reform school at Cheltingham, near Baltimore, Maryland. The job of
transporting convicts was one which the deputies liked, even though
there was no monay in it, for it gave them a chance to travel and
see the country. At that time the United States did not have suffic-
ient penitentiaries for all its convicts; it placed some of them in
state institutions.

Early in March, 1893, besides Hutton, we had three convicts for
the penitentiary in Detroit, Michigan. Three guards went along,
making eight in the party including myself. The tickets for the
trip were about a yard long and the route to Cheltingham, picked out
by the Dallas ticket agent, ran from Detroit through Canada. The
agent was indeed much impressed by this excursion into Canada, but
I said airily, "Oh, it's nothing to me; I've been there a number
of times already."

We took the early morning Texas Pacific "Cannon Ball", arriving
in St. Louis the following morning. There we changed for Detroit,
getting to that city in the afternoon, and delivered the convicts
to the penitentiary. I also lodged the colored boy there overnight.
Among the convicts were our old acquaintance, Cox the moonshiner,
one of the poor cowboys caught making counterfeit money, and an old
lag whom I saw lockstepping to breakfast next morning when I called
for my prisoner, winking at me as he passed.

I was always sorry for the counterfeiting cowboys, and especially
for dupes like this one. He asked me to speak to the authorities at
the penitentiary to request them to put him to learning some trade
which would be useful on his release. I did this, but they set him
to making pearl buttons—a fine trade for a Texas cowboy.

Two of the guards—not regular deputies, but a couple of young
men out for the trip—returned to Dallas. The other guard and I
took Hutton on a Michigan Central train for Buffalo. From Detroit
to Buffalo the Michigan Central runs through Canada, but though the
station agent at Dallas had mentioned this idly I paid little
attention at the time and the significance slipped my mind entire-
ly.

-46-

In those days there was no bridge across the Detroit River; the
railroad cars were run onto a float and ferried across. The Pullman
conductors, wearing winter overcoats with red lined blue capes, stood
around on the float during the passage; as the wind blew the cape
around the shoulders of one, he had the momentary appearance of a
red-coated soldier with blue trousers—the British uniform. He might
have been a Canadian soldier, and I realized for the first time that
I would out of the United States—with a Federal prisoner in my
custody.

It is difficult now, looking back, to reconstruct the attitude
of carelessness which led to this blunder. Had the station agent in
Dallas said Mexico instead of Canada I would have been alert to the
danger immediately; Canada just didn't register as a foreign country.
I was overwhelmed with consternation; who would ever believe anyone
could be heedless enough to deliberately take a prisoner out of the
United States? In a flash I saw my whole carrier ruined.

To attempt to return to Detroit would only focus attention on my
predicament, and as we were on an express which made only four stops
between Detroit and Buffalo, I decided to try to run the prisoner
through. I remember thinking that if anyone attempted to take my
prisoner from me I would pull my gun and endeavor to bluff them off.
Of course, it was a foolish idea, but I was only twenty-two and
desperate.

I told the guard to take the handcuffs off the boy so that they
would not be noticed and put on the less conspicuous leg chains.
Then I had him sit in the seat with Hutton while I placed myself
immediately in back, in order to prevent anyone from getting in
conversation with him.

Although feeling all the time as though I were sitting on a
keg of powder, all went well until we neared Buffalo, when two men
approached and asked if they could speak with me. They led the way
to the rear of the car and courteously informed me they were Canadian
officers. Had I a prisoner with me?

Obviously the question was a mere formality; they knew the answer
as well as I did. I explained my predicament as well as I could,
and if my explanation for the blunder was lame it was perhaps some-
what relieved by my very visible anxiety. Fortunately for me the
Canadians were not only polite but extremely cooperative. They were
not anxious to have convicts from the United States at large in the
Dominion; they were quite ready to help me avoid the consequences of
my heedlessness. This they did, shepherding us back across the
boundary at Buffalo, but my troubles with Hutton were not yet over.

Safely back where I was once more a law-abiding official, I asked
Hutton if he knew where he'd been. "Oh, sure; in Canada. That's one
of the states, aint it?" How he knew he had been in Canada was a
mystery to me; I'm sure no one spoke a word to him during the entire
trip.

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(Having stayed one night in jail and another in a reform school, I would be in a nice situation if I were ever obliged in court to answer only "yes" or "no" to a question as to whether I had ever spent any time in a penal institution.

In Washington, while waiting for the guard to show up, I had doughnuts and coffee. They cost a quarter, and I entered the item in my expense account which had to be rendered to the Treasury Department in great detail. After finishing my coffee I met the guard, and we had a real breakfast together, my share coming to seventy-five cents. This I also entered on my expense account. The expenses of the whole trip, including those of the convicts left at Detroit and the return of all the guards any myself to Dallas, came to $543.65. In due course this was submitted to Washington, but it was disallowed because I had put down two breakfasts in one morning.

If I had lumped the two sums together and entered one breakfast for a dollar it would have passed without question; on the other hand, had either the quarter or the seventy-five cent breakfast been disallowed and the balance been passed, I would have understood; but to disallow the entire $543.65 until the two breakfasts could be explained stuck in my crop and has been there every since.

From Washington I continued on to Plainfield. This homecoming, even though it was just a flying visit for a week, gave me both elation and uneasiness. I was truly a man now; I had proved myself and I had no reason to be disquieted by any possibly censure from my father; still, the antagonism between us persisted, even though it lay dormant. However, during the week there no friction developed; as it turned out, there was neither time nor occasion for any.

Telephones not being in general use yet, the trifling social communications we now so casually make many times a day by that medium were then carried out in person, and younger members of the family were sent with messages which today would be relayed by picking up the phone. Thus when the prospective employer of a maid formerly in my mother's service wanted a reference, it was a matter of course for her to send her daughter over to make the inquiries.

I had known the young lady, whose name was Louise Depew, for some time; Mother, evidently filled with the fond maternal notion that there was but one topic of real interest, remarked that I was home from the West on a short visit. Miss Depew very naturally and politely said she hoped I would call on her. While we had seen quite a little of each other in the past and had been out together a few times, it was all so casual it hadn't occurred to me to call.

I did, however, and we got along quite pleasantly, possibly

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except for some land around the ranch buildings, in which were
kept horses and sometimes a few milk cows. The amount of such
fenced land might be a few acres or a thousand, depending on the
requirements of the number of cattle owned. The rest of the
country was government land; herds belonging to the various
ranches roamed and fed at will. Cattle of different owners were
mixed together as though they belonged to one ranch, but were
scattered in small bunches over areas large enough to provide suf-
ficient food and water; consequently a group of thirty or forty
head might contain animals from five or six ranches.

To the novice such an easy-going system might seem to present
great difficulties in marking calves or collecting cattle for
shipment, but all the animals had the brands of their ranches
on their sides, and a well-established system was in operation
for gathering them for market. Under this method, each ranch
was supposed to send out on the range a number of cowboys
proportionate to the estimated number of cattle owned by the
ranch.

The cowboys would be grouped into outfits, usually eight to
ten cowboys to an outfit, each outfit also having a boss, cook,
and horse rustler, together with a chuck wagon. However, each
outfit would not be manned exclusively by cowboys from one
ranch, but were composed of those from several, which not only
enabled each ranch to watch its interests all over the range,
but saved the expense of duplicated effort by each ranch covering
the vast territory.

While cattle were free to roam, they were not apt to stray
far from the ranches to which they belonged as long as feed and
water were plentiful or they were not driven too far by storms.
Each outfit moved according to prearranged schedules and con-
verged on various shipping points on the fifty mile stretch of
the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad where it crossed the north-
east corner of New Mexico, which was the only line then available
for that whole section of the Territory of New Mexico.

As outfits neared each other out on the range or when con-
verging near the railroad, cattle in trail herds belonging to
other ranches would be shifted and gradually worked into the
proper group. By the time the railroad was reached, all would
be sorted and separate.

In addition to brands on the sides of the cattle, all animals
were also earmarked. Each ranch had its own way of cutting a
nick or nicks in the ears of their cattle for ready identification.
This allowed quicker picking out in a roundup, where the cattle
were often crowded so close together it would have been hard to
see the brands on their sides. The term earmarking is of course
in general use today, one of the many expressions which have come
into the language from the days of free grass.

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would be at least one black one among the strays and the herder could judge whether his flock was intact or not by simply counting the black sheep.

The herders were mostly Mexicans. Their occupation necessitated their being alone on the prairies for months without ever seeing anyone except when their food supplied were replenished. They didn't seem to mind their solitude, in fact they didn't seem to want to talk to anyone. I often saw herders from a distance, but when I approached, they were nowhere in sight, having hidden in some hole scooped in the prairie. Their only companionship was with the well trained shepherd dogs who kept the sheep from straying and drove them nightly to the sheep-folds, of which there were many scattered over the plains.

Sheep would follow a leader, but it was hard to get them into cars for shipment to market. At Clayton a Chinese had a trained goat which he rented out for fifty cents a day to the sheep shippers. The goat would walk into the car, the sheep readily following him. Still leading the way, he made his way to one end, then along the far side to the other, then back to and out of the door which was promptly closed with the sheep inside.

Wandering about in the dry, bracing air, was not the sole occupation during my visit to L. Cross F. Rabbit hunting was suggested and Foster proposed to take Mr. Randolph and me on some ridges up beyond the top of the canyon where there was California quail also. A team and a light, two-seated wagon seemed a proper means of transportation and Foster went out to hitch up the horses.

For some reason he decided that one of the team should be a horse previously harnessed but once, and it took the combined effort of himself and a couple of helpers about an hour to get this horse into harness and the team ready to start. When it did, it was with a bang. The new horse behaved badly, trying to bolt, but Foster curbed him sharply and by the time we reached the foot of the road up the canyon side, about a mile away, he was somewhat subdued. The long pull up the canyon made him so tame we had no further trouble till the return trip.

The hunting didn't amount to much. We saw no rabbits at all, and while the quail were plentiful, instead of rising when flushed, they ran through the sagebrush and hid. The only way to get them to rise at all was to hold the gun in one hand and throw stones at them with the other, as awkward a way of hunting as can be imagined, requiring an instantaneous shift of gun in order to aim and fire.

Going home the new horse seemed tame enough till we began descending the canyon. Then, without the slightest warning, he bolted, and the other horse with him. Down the canyon they raced at a mad run, bouncing and jolting, swaying and swerving crazily. Foster shouted, "Hold on, boys!" and then devoted his entire efforts to steering clear

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of the rocks and around the many bends in the narrow road, for it
was obviously out of the question to check the wild flight.

The admonition to hold on was superfluous; nothing less than
dynamite or the wrecking of the wagon would have pried our grips
loose as we careened downward. A number of times it seemed as
though we would be smashed into the boulders or upset over the side
of the canyon into the depths below, but Foster's capable driving
steered the runaways clear of disaster and brought us safely, though
considerably shaken, to the foot of the road. On less dangerous
ground the team gradually lost its frenzy and the horses trotted
the last bit of the way quite as if erratic behavior was unthinkable
to them.

I began to look regretfully forward to the termination of my
visit when Mr. Randolph asked me to become assistant manager of the
ranch in charge of finances. While the compensation was small—
twenty-five dollars a month and board—the wonderful air and the
carefree life appealed to me greatly. I accepted with the under-
standing that I would first break in someone to take my place with
the Marshal.

This was in June 1893, and on my return to Dallas the Marshal
consented to my leaving, on condition I retain my commission as
Deputy and occasionally go down to Dallas and look over things
and see that his office was running properly. In return for this
I was to keep my annual railroad passes which were good on about
two thousand miles of railroad.

In spite of my happy excitement in departing for New Mexico it
was not without some regret that I packed to leave Miss Smith's
boarding house which had become home to me. I said goodbye to
Miss Smith and did not see her again for many years after leaving
Dallas, though we occasionally corresponded. As the years passed,
one of the brothers of her fiance, whom she had brought up and
educated, became fairly well to do, and finally persuaded her to
give up the boarding house and live at his home. Unhappily he
subsequently lost his money, so three of her former guests, who
had become quite successful, clubbed together and contributed about
five thousand dollars a year to her support so she could live in
comfort, travel in Europe and spend her last years in happiness.

She was so independent she would never have accepted the money
as a gift, but she was told it was income from a trust created out
of her savings in former years. When I saw her again it was in
New York and I think she was about ninety, but her mind was clear
as ever and she was able to bring me up to date on the lives of
those I had known in her house. She was a remarkable lady.

-59

because he fixed the time for my participation just thirty days
later.

The meeting point was on the prairie, at a spot without permanent
landmarks. There was no trail to the place, and as I had never been
in that part of the country before, my instructions were to ride over
the open prairie in the general direction of Mount Dora until I
reached a small creek about forty miles away, where I would find the
camp, or where they would be that particular night.

Foster was a likable, quiet, efficient man whom I never knew to
lose his temper or say an unkind word. He was of medium height,
stocky build, with a full beard slightly tinged with gray. To me
at that time he seemed an old man, but since I have become an old
man myself I conclude he was in his forties.

The operating arrangement between him and Mr. Randolph provided
that the latter should have a representative at the ranch, although
this was really unnecessary since Foster was exceedingly competent
and one of the most honest men I ever knew. These representatives
were young men, and there were a number before my time, but few had
remained long, either because they were misfits, got into scrapes,
or were just plain homesick, and the arrangement—with numerous
changes—must naturally have irked Foster considerably. However
he never indicated it; in fact we became great friends and later
he used to look me up on his trips east.

For several years there had also been at the ranch a young
fellow, Sam ——; a year or two older than I, whom I had known
and liked back East. Sam's father was wealthy, but Sam was a
lover of the open who couldn't stand the restraint of office and
city life, so he had drifted out to a life he thoroughly enjoyed.
He was very good natured but too excitable for a good cowboy; he
worked instead as a general handy man for a dollar a day and bunked
with the cowboys. Since his father made him a monthly allowance
and since he never left the ranch, he had more ready money than
anyone else in that part of the country and did quite a thriving
loan business.

Sam's greatest joy was playing a mouth organ; more than once
I've known cowboys to ride over to the ranch and rout him from his
bed to supply music at some impromptu dance from which he might not
return till the next morning. The ranches were so far apart that
dances were usually all night affairs, to save participants from
riding long distances home in the dark. Sam never djected to being
drafted for this function; he was, I think, flattered to be called
upon.

We had another ranch, called the Perico Ranch, about eight miles
out of Clayton, which we used as a halfway house when we went to
that town for supplies. The driver, team and wagon would leave the
L cross F in the morning and lay over that night at the Perico. The
second morning they would continue to Clayton, returning to the half-

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way house the second night. The third morning the outfit would
leave for the home ranch, usually arriving in the afternoon.

While I went once or twice for supplies, it was usually Sam who
made the trip, and it was not unusual for him to get back long after
dark on the third day; once it was nearly midnight. He never seemed
to know what caused the delay and was as much puzzled as we were.
The mystery was solved when a visiting cowboy mentioned having seen
Sam on his way home, sitting on the wagon playing his mouthorgan with
the greatest concentration, totally oblivious to the fact that the
team had stopped still far out on the prairie. The horses must have
stood for hours until hunger started them going homeward again of
their own accord.

In addition to serving as a halfway house, the Perico ranch was
occupied by a Mexican who looked after a thoroughbred herd owned by
us. He had a bed of a kind on the floor, a cook stove, and a few
pieces of crockery; otherwise the ranch was entirely unfurnished.
When we used it we put a blanket down, rolled up in another, and
slept on the boards, which were plenty hard. It would not have
cost much to have a cot or some kind of mattress, but everyone was
accustomed to roughing it and I don't believe it was ever given a
thought.

The herd there consisted of between three and four hundred
Herefords; their function was to provide young thoroughbred bulls
for the range each year to improve the stock. With cattle of other
ranches mixing with our own on the range, they naturally benefited
as much as we, but this could not be helped.

The original cattle of the Southwest were scrawny, with very
long horns measuring three to four feet from tip to tip—in some
instances considerably more—thus accounting for their name, long-
horns. By this process of turning better bulls loose, the grade
of prairie cattle had gradually improved until there were few long-
horns on the range when I was there, although as a boy I had seen
many of them in the St. Louis stockyard. With its Herefords the
L cross F was endeavoring to improve still further the grade of
range cattle, and eighty young Hereford bulls were turned out the
year I was there.

The actual work for the ranch which I had undertaken occupied
but little of my time; I spent much of it in the saddle. For the
first time in my life I now had an untrammelled opportunity to
exercise my singing voice. At home in my teens I had been slandered
as flat and unable to carry a tune, and such times as I burst out,
doors would be first rattled and then banged, until finally I was
asked point blank to stop the noise. But here on the wide open
prairie in a short time I crammed the singing career of my whole
life, riding along and singing, with no one to hear except the
horse, and he did not seem to mind. Perhaps he was musical. Or
deaf.

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Riding, I always took along my rifle in a scabbard strapped to
the saddle, not for protection, but for a chance shot at antelopes,
wolves or ducks, there being quite a number of the latter in the
prairie water holes. I was not too successful, for it was hard to
hit a duck's head with a rifle at long range as it swam around,
while on the open prairie an antelope could see me as soon as I
saw it, and the only time I was within range of some lebo wolves
I was without my rifle.

However I did manage to shoot one antelope. I had been to
Clayton for a load of supplies and on the return trip in the late
afternoon, a little before reaching the Perico ranch, I sighted a
feeding herd of the game. The prairie at that point was undulating,
and I thought that with care I might get within range. Tying the
reins to the wagon wheel, I crept out of sight along the lower ground
as far as I could and then ran in on them. They immediately started
off, but I managed to shoot one as they ran. As it was getting dark
I was afraid I would have difficulty finding the wagon, so I left the
antelope till the next day and I was lucky the wolves didn't find it
meanwhile.

The home ranch had a fine garden, for the ground was very fertile
when it could be irrigated. I particularly remember the watermelons
which were not large, but very sweet and juicy. As we had more than
we could currently use, we dug a hole in the ground, covered the
bottom with dry alfalfa, filled it with melons, and then put more
alfalfa on top. The melons lasted in good condition until Christ-
mas.

I became much attached to my horse, who was both knowing and
stupid. When going to saddle him, if I went to the corral with
the bridle showing in my hand, he would not let me near and I would
have to get a rope and rope him. On the other hand, if I held the
bridle behind my back he would stand perfectly still and let me
walk right up to him, then with a quick movement I would throw the
long reins over the top of his neck. Once he felt the reins he
made no protest as I put the bridle on, for he mistook the reins
for a rope and knew what it meant to have a rope around his neck.

Once, in order to get a shot at some ducks, I dismounted, throw-
ing the reins over his head. When I went to remount I learned for
the first time that he knew the trick of holding his head sideways
so as not to step on the reins. After trying for some time vainly
to catch him as he kept moving off just out of reach, I decided he
was afraid of the rifle. As soon as I put it down, he stood perfect-
ly still and after mounting him I rode back and picked up my rifle.

A cowboy, calling at the ranch, with a horse who also knew this
trick, took the precaution of tying one end of a rope around the
horse's neck and threw the rest on the ground so the animal could
not avoid stepping on it, no matter how he turned his head. After
a while another boy rode up, but not bothering to use his own rope,
put the loose end of the other rope around his own horse's neck.

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This nearby Mexican village was but one of several within the radius of some thirty miles, and the inhabitants relaxed occasionally with a fiesta or more frequently with a dance. One day my harmonica playing friend Sam told me there was to be a Mexican dance that night and suggested we go to it. After an early supper we saddled our horses and rode some fifteen miles to an adobe house, rather bigger than the average Mexican home.

The dance was already under way when we got there. In a fairly large room about fifty men and women moved sedately to music coming from one end where a kitchen table substituted for a podium. On this improvised platform were three chairs on which sat one man playing a violin, another an accordion, and the third a guitar.

Along the walls were benches where the women sat, smoothing their skirts, chatting, or just watching, when not dancing. Some of the girls were quite beautiful, but the drudgery imposed on second class citizens by our American civilization was hardly conductive to keeping the fresh, untroubled look of youth well into middle age, and after bearing a child or two these Mexican women showed their years unmistakably.

In a small room immediately adjacent there were some eight or nine babies laid in a row on the floor, when any of them cried during the evening its mother brought it to the bench and suckled it until the wails ceased; then it was returned to its place in the small room. The custom of taking babies to a dance was novel to me, and rather astonishing, though in retrospect I cannot find anything particularly wrong with it.

The floor was of hard dirt, and the gyrations of the dancers-- moving in a circle with a kind of side step--filled the air rapidly with dust. Every so often a man brought out a pan of water and sprinkled the floor; whether this facilitated or hindered the dancing by creating mud I don't know.

The men drank all they took a notion to, but the women were strictly rationed. At intervals between dances a man with a demi-john and glass walked in front of the women and gravely measured out a portion which was immediately swallowed; then he passed to the next customer. I don't know what they were drinking; I presume it was some form of pulque.

Around midnight I suggested to Sam that we head for home, but he was reluctant to leave; these dances he said, always ended in fights and he wanted to stay and see the fun. Since I'd seen all I wanted to I left him to his pleasures and rode home. Later I heard his prophecy had been fulfilled and a free for all had started about four in the morning which resulted in several casualties, including one of the musicians, who got a wound in the head.

The time having come for me to join the roundup, I had an early

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noon dinner and started off. After going some distance, in riding
up a little rise, I saw a lone antelope running hard a little to
my left. This seemed odd; usually they travelled in numbers.
Looking around I saw eight or ten more in full flight to my right,
which added to the mystery. However, when I reached higher ground
the explanation was apparent, for down below there were three large
lobo wolves which had somehow been able to cut the single fugitive
from the herd and were chasing it till it became exhausted and they
could close in. Antelopes had greater speed, but the wolves had
staying power.

The wolves were spread out in a fan and within easy range; un-
fortunately this was the one time I had left my rifle at home, for
it would have only been a nuisance on the roundup. As soon as they
saw me they slunk off and the antelope could easily have joined
his companions, but, badly frightened, he continued on his course.
Helpless except to play the usual human role of busybody, I could
only sit and watch the wolves re-form at a safe distance and resume
the chase till all disappeared in the distance.

Late in the afternoon, from another rise, I saw a brown mass on
a mesa a long way off. The cluster moved slowly, like thick molasses
oozing along, and as it crept over the edge of the mesa I realized
it was cattle in the trail herd being driven to the meeting place.
So systematically were roundup operations planned and carried out
that Foster knew thirty days before exactly where the outfit would
be at that particular time.

It was well for me that everything did work so precisely to
schedule, because I had no food with me and no protection against
the cold nights except an overcoat and slicker tied to the back of
the saddle, and there was no habitation of any kind for miles around.
Foster may not have thought I would be much help in the roundup,
but he evidently gave me credit for being able to find my way around.

When I met the outfit I found another had joined up with them
as they converged toward the railroad, the better to handle the large
trail herd which amounted to some two thousand head by the time we
reached the cars, a month hence. These were not only L cross F
cattle, but included many with the Triangle Dot brand, which Foster
had a contract to collect.

Each outfit was made up of ten or a dozen men, including the cook
and horse rustler. Each had its chuck wagon, with canvas covers
supported by hoops like prairie schooners, and in them were kept
the tents, bedding, and food supplied. At the back of the wagon a
large cupboard contained the dishes, pans and utensils, while a
water barrel was fastened on the side.

The tents were eight feet square, slanting from the ground to the
top, and four men slept in each, except that Foster and I had one to
ourselves and so were not wedged in as tightly. The bedding was a
mattress about an inch and a half thick, laid on the ground, and some

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was in identifying and catching them that the cowboys had a lot of fun with me. When horses were to be saddled, the rustler drove them into a compact bunch and the men walked in and roped the particular horse in their mount whose turn it was for duty. To walk into a large group of horses may appear risky, but they were all trained not to kick.

I would walk in with the rest of the boys and rope what I thought was my proper horse and lead him out. From the laughter of the spectators I would know I had roped a horse belonging to someone else, and after turning the error loose, go after another, with possibly the same result, until either accident succeeded where design failed or I gave up and got the rustler to catch my horse for me. My inability to get the right horse right off was very amusing to those raised on the plains, to whom it seemed a simple matter—as indeed it was to them—but to me most horses looked pretty much alike, and seven of my mounts I had never seen before joining the roundup.

My regular horse I knew, of course, but with him I had other troubles. If I threw a rope and missed, he led me a merry chase, dodging among the others, hiding by putting his head under the belly of some other horse, using all kinds of tricks to prevent me from roping him until I gave up and got the rustler. After a couple of such experiences I always called on the rustler if I missed the first try.

One of the horses in my mount was "locoed", that is, he had been poisoned by eating loco weed and was apt to go crazy any time without warning. While he never flew off the handle with me I was always alert when riding him. In fact, I was never thrown while in the West, but after returning East, when riding a vicious horse, he suddenly shied, squatted and turned. Reflexively I braced as I would in a cowboy saddle, but I was on an English one, with nothing to brace against and I went over his head. I had never realized how easy it is to fall off a horse.

Every morning all the hands not occupied with the trail herd, spread out in tangents on both sides of the camp, riding for approximately five miles. They then angled back ahead, gathering up and driving before them all the cattle they came across. Meanwhile the cook had driven the chuck wagon five miles ahead and begun dinner preparations. When the boys arrived with the cattle, the animals would be rounded up on a relatively flat place and surrounded by the cowboys, spaced at regular intervals. Then the cutting experts mounted their ponies and cut out from the bunch those beeves wanted for market, the remainder being turned back toward the country from which they had been collected.

In this operation earmarking was valuable because the men doing the cutting could quickly distinguish the cattle wanted. Cutting ponies were specially trained; all the rider had to do was put the pony up against the steer he wished to cut out, press the sides with

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his knees and from there on the pony took charge, chasing the steer as he dodged and turned until he finally got him clear of the rest of the cattle. Whereupon the cutting pony returned to the bunch and repeated the process with another steer.

Such steers came out of the herd as if shot from a cannon, but finding they were no longer pursued, attempted to dash back. Then the cowboys stationed in a circle around the outside kept him from his object and drove him to the trail herd. This appears simple, but a steer can run faster than a horse with a man in the saddle, making it necessary to cut him off with shorter turns as he dodged and twisted. From long practice the horses knew what was expected of them, so all the riders had to do was stick. To me this was one of the greatest sports I ever enjoyed, coming nearest to polo. From their actions the horses also seemed to enjoy it.

After such a roundup we ate and then repeated the process in the afternoon, the cook again driving the chuck wagon five miles on, where camp would be made for the night. Thus an area of ten miles long and ten miles wide was covered daily on an average, though the character of the country, abundance of food and numbers of cattle made variations.

While a man on foot might be attacked by the more or less wild prairie cattle, a man on horseback was safe, except in the case of bull fights. These were quite a spectacle: the bulls put their foreheads together and tried to push each other backward, amid a great bellowing and digging up of sand. Spectators kept at a safe distance because the bull getting the worst of it would suddenly back off and charge at anything in his line of vision. Foster told me he had once been too close to a bull fight and a charging bull had made for him so suddenly he was unable to get out of the way. He saved himself by slipping off the far side of the horse, sacrificing the animal which was so badly gored it had to be shot.

There was not much variety in our menu: meat three times a day, potatoes, beans, soda biscuits without butter, tea or coffee, and always stewed dried apricots. I got so tired of this wrinkled fruit that I have never been able to eat it since. As we neared the railroad we ran so short of provisions we were down to meat, apricots, biscuits, tea and coffee without sugar. The meat was always cooked to the toughness and aridity of sole leather. I have seen a heifer walking on the prairie and within half an hour part of her would be cooking in the pot. It was a pity, for in that cold dry weather meat could have been kept in the wagon and allowed to become tender. Cowboys used to boast that one thing they had better than anyone else in the world was good meat, which was certainly true, but they didn't know how to cure or cook it. However, there was no point in saying anything for they were used to what they were getting and wouldn't have liked anything else. Anyway, no matter what the food was like, the exercise and bracing air produced an appetite capable of eating anything.

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We were to ship the cattle from what was known as Currumpaw pens
west of Clayton, which was nothing but a railroad siding, with a
number of cattle pens so the animals could be loaded in several cars
simultaneously.

Reaching the railroad we went into camp for a few days to separate
the cattle in the trail herd according to ownership, and also to
give them some rest before shipping. For two or three days before
loading they were not allowed to drink, so the floors of the cars
would be kept dry as possible, minimizing the danger of cattle
falling because of wet, slippery floors. While we were in this
camp a number of us were sent to bring in any cattle we could find
on the lower slopes of Mount Dora, as that territory hadn't been
covered for a couple of years. We found quite a bunch of steers,
and a young black stallion got mixed in with them and driven into
camp. There he was roped and after a lot of hard work by several
of the boys they managed to get a saddle and bridle on him. While
some of the boys held him, another mounted and the fun began. Such
rearing, bucking and pitching I never saw in Buffalo Bill's Wild
West Shows, but the boy stuck and added another horse to his mount.
There was a large band of wild horses roaming the prairie and this
stallion had strayed from them.

While we were camping there, Sam drove the wagon in from the
ranch with sorely needed supplies and he also brought along my grip
containing my store clothes, as I was going to the Chicago World's
Fair after the cattle were sold.

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CHAPTER NINE

When we went into camp near the railroad, Foster asked me if I
would like to ride to Folsom the next day to arrange for two trains
for our cattle and that of the other outfit with us. Folsom was the
nearest town, some thirty miles from the arroyo in which the camp
was located where it was more protected from the wind and consequent-
ly warmer than on the open prairie.

"I guess I'll move camp while you're gone," he said, "About a
mile further up the arroyo. Pasturage's better there."

"I imagine I'll be able to find it all right."

"I don't very well see how you could miss," he answered.

Early the next morning I left on my regular horse, and after
making the arrangements in Folsom and having dinner there, started
back. I hadn't got out of town before I met a man who had a ranch
close to where we had been camping. He had business in Folsom and
suggested that if I felt like waiting for him we could ride back
together. The prospect of company for the long ride was preferable
to a solitary journey, but, since it was fall, it was dark by the
time we reached the fence surrounding his ranch, short of the arroyo
where the camp had been.

"Ride straight along the trail, Patterson," he said, "it will
get you to the camp."

"Foster's moving the camp a mile further west in the arroyo and
this trail seems to run north and south."

"I know, but it'll get you there. I know this country like
the palm of my hand."

Well, I could not say as much, so I started off. But I was still
doubtful, and when I got to the arroyo I dismounted. By the light
of a match I saw the print of wagon wheels turning south on the trail
in the direction I was headed. Thinking I must have somehow misunder-
stood Foster, I kept on going southward for four or five miles be-
fore I became convinced the camp was not that way.

Returning to the arroyo, I looked westward, where the camp should
have been, but I could see no fire. After debating with myself a
few moments, I decided to continue along the trail until I came to
the ranch fence, then follow it to the ranch house and spend the
night there.

I had reached the fence, when off to the west I saw a small light.
I immediately headed across the prairie for it. After riding a short
distance along lower ground I came up on a rise and perceived that the
position of the light had changed and was now much more to my left.

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Stopping to look at it I saw it was moving and realized it was the headlight of a train a long way off, coming around the foothills of Mount Dora. Whereupon I turned back and began riding along the fence again.

After a little while I again saw a light to the west. Determined not to be fooled a second time, I sat still in the saddle watching it for perhaps five minutes; it did not move, so I started for it. Each time I came to a rise the light was still in the same place, but I was puzzled at apparently getting no closer to it. Finally, after a mile or two I saw a second light move up and pass the first. I had again been deceived by a headlight, this time the stationary one of an engine on a siding, waiting for the other to pass.

By now I had come too far to have any hope of finding the fence again in the dark as I had nothing to guide me but the stars and I was not sure of the exact direction I had taken. Remembering that there was a section house a few miles down the railroad from where I was heading, I kept on to the railroad and rode along the track till I reached the section house about nine o'clock. Waking the section gang, I bunked in with them for the balance of the night. The section house was within a few feet of the track, which didn't allow for sound sleep in one unaccustomed to the trains roaring past, thundering and shaking.

I estimated I had ridden my horse between seventy-five and eighty miles that day, but he seemed none the worse for it, possibly because I traveled most of the way at a slow, steady trot. Next morning I found that at one point I had ridden within a couple of hundred feet of the camp. The reason I had not seen the campfire was simple: it was out.

Neither Foster nor the others were concerned over my failure to show up, nor indeed had I expected them to be. They were all capable of taking care of themselves in an emergency, no matter how cold it was and naturally counted on anyone else to do the same. This was very different from the north woods, where, if a hunter fails to return to camp at night every available guide will be out looking for him.

When the two empty cattle trains arrived they were loaded and we got away in the early afternoon. Our train was of twelve cars, nine filled with steers, one of old bulls, and two of old cows. The other outfit's train consisted of ten cars, the Triangle Dot cattle not being shipped that day. Our train was in advance and the other followed.

Excepting the crew, Foster and I were the only ones on our train. We all rode the caboose, which had leather cushions—which made comfortable beds at night—on the benches fastened along the sides of the car. The caboose had a cupola extending about two feet above the roofs of the cars; on the platform at the bottom of the cupola

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the range-fed steer of 1893 weighed less, around 700 pounds, which would bring the comparative price of today's market-fattened steer down to $280. Also the 1949 quality was undoubtedly better; but even so the difference between $17.40 and $280 is startling.

In Denver I learned that Carter Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, had been shot, and the world's Fair closed as a consequence. I therefore postponed my visit for forty years--until 1933--and returned to the ranch with Foster.

A letter was waiting for me from Mr. Randolph, saying he was sending out a wolf hunter from Canada, and enclosing a letter from the hunter, setting forth the terms of the arrangement under which he was coming to New Mexico. Mr. Randolph made no mention of his ability or experience, merely saying he was a wolf hunter from Canada.

Wolves were a serious problem to ranchers in that part of New Mexico, killing half the calf crop every year, which meant the difference between operating at a profit and loss. There were two kinds, the large timber or lobo wolves, and the smaller common coyotes. The coyotes were no problem except in conjunction with the lobo wolves, for when the lobos made a kill and had eaten what they wanted, the coyotes finished what was left, with the result that every time a lobo wolf was hungry he made a fresh kill.

Foster had a generally poor opinion of wolf hunters; those previously coming from Texas, Indian Territory, or Colorado having accomplished little or nothing. He saw nothing in the letter from this one to make him change his mind:

86 Howard St., Toronto
October 6, 1893

Lewis V. Fitz Randolph, Esq.

Dear Sir:

I have decided to accept the offer you kindly made at our last meeting--and will be ready to start for your ranch on a two months wolf-hunt in about a week. To repeat--I am to go out to your place in New Mexico for two months--and during that time am to do what I can to kill off the wolves myself--as well as influence the ranchmen of the neighborhood to begin some sort of organized war upon these pests.

I am to have the skins of what I kill and also the bounties. You are to pay for my ammunition and poison and meet my railroad expenses between here and New Mexico and return; also provide me with a horse while there, and with my keep while on the ranch.

As I think it will be advisable to take a large quantity of poison than I can use myself--so as to be able to provide other ranchers--I may have to make a considerable outlay here--perhaps ten to fifteen dollars. I shall not take much ammunition as it is not of much account among wolves. The railway ticket

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great happiness with his charming wife and bright four-year old daughter. His death, four years later, was an unexpected shock.

To go back from 1946 to 1893, it was in the latter part of December in 1893 that I was about due to look over the Marshal's office in Dallas again. There was some business to be attended to for Mr. Smith in New Orleans, so I decided to continue east and spend Christmas back home. Foster drove me to Clayton; on the way we saw, going at right angles to us a considerable distance off, what looked to be a runaway team attached to a buggy with the top up.

We knew there was no trail or road in that direction and were quite mystified until we saw a steer slowly walking across the trail about two hundred feet ahead of us. On the steer's shoulder was a dark patch moving up and down as well as forward as he walked. This produced the appearance of a runaway team, while another dark patch on his side had the shape of a buggy top. The rest of the steer was supposed to be white, but was so dirty it had the color of the prairie; as a result we saw nothing but the dark patches until we were close. Hence the illusion.

Although the one daily train didn't leave till four the next morning, we arrived in Clayton by noon so Foster could have his dinner and return to the ranch that afternoon. I kept a trunk at the hotel with my store clothes, so after dinner I shaved and prepared to kill time by walking around. On the street I met two cowboys I had spent a month with on the roundup, but they failed to recognize me, and I had some difficulty in making them realize I was the same person. This I considered an indication that I had filled my role as cowboy pretty well; had they met me first in store clothes they would not have accepted me as easily or fully as they did on the roundup.

Cowboys were an important factor in the development of the country, making possible an abundant supply of cheap meat; without them the vast herds that swarmed the free grass of the prairies could not have been. They were proud of their calling, which required skill, a quick eye, agility, endurance, and accurate shooting at times. Like most men living much in the open, they were fair-minded and polite when treated courteously, but quick to resent real or fancied wrong or insult, for they felt they were the equal of any man.

Even seeing them throw a rope made it look easy, but to throw it properly required great skill and endless practice and patience. To demonstrate his ability, a cowboy might ask you which leg of a standing steer you would like him to rope. The selection made, the rope was swung around his head a few times, then the loop flashed out and the next instant the rope was around the leg indicated, the steer standing on all four feet, apparently without having made any movement.

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The explanation was simple, but not the execution, which required
skill and perfect timing. To accomplish the feat the rope was thrown
so that the upper part of the loop hit the steer's leg first, which
made him give a quick little kick; in the split second the foot was
off the ground the bottom part of the loop slipped under the hoof
and the thing was done, but so quickly that the eye couldn't follow
the operation.

They also had their own way of shooting revolvers, since taking
deliberate aim was too slow. Quickly raising the gun higher than
the head, bending the arm at the elbow, they then as quickly brought
the hand down in the direction of the target. In bringing the hand
down the whole arm automatically straightened out and the entire act
took less than a second. The advantage of this method is that one
involuntarily points with unconscious accuracy at a target.

Some of the boys filed away the spring holding back the hammer
for even quicker action. In such cases one cocked the revolver
as it was raised, keeping his thumb on the hammer till the gun was
brought down on the target. Taking the thumb away let the hammer
snap down without any time lost in pulling the trigger.

To me one of the beautiful sights of the West of sixty years
ago was seeing a cowboy riding. Loping was probably the most graceful,
but no matter what gait was used, the man and the horse always
seemed one. The pace, lope, or singlefoot were the easiest gaits
for short distances, but the trot of foxtrot were the least tiring
for long rides.

Sixty years ago, people unfamiliar with the cow country generally
believed cowboys were a lot of wild, hard-drinking bad men, shooting
at the toes of tenderfeet to make them dance and raising hell
generally. Judging from those with whom I came in contact, both
in Texas and New Mexico, this was an entirely wrong impression.
I never knew a more loyal, decent, hard-working class of men.
Certainly there were ruffians and cattle thieves among them, but
I believe the percentage of really bad men was less than among
other callings.

The distorted picture probably came from visits by cowboys to
town in the fall, at the end of the roundup season. When pay-off
time came, those with families, and those trying to save money rode
home. But they had been out on the range for at least six months,
working hard from sunrise to sunset every day in the week, with
perhaps not a single day off all that time. It was natural for
husky, high-spirited young fellows with a craving for the society
of women and such excitement as could be found in cow-towns to make
a bee line for the nearest settlement, and very likely, when nearing
the town put their horse to the gallop, race into town, yelling and
firing their revolvers into the air. Townspeople understood this
outlet for their exuberant spirits and viewed it with no more alarm
than a college town looked at the celebration after a football game.

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True, sometimes some drank more than was good for them and there
was trouble—though seldom serious trouble. The worst that could be
said of these celebrations was that the boys usually lost all their
money, and were obliged to do odd jobs for their keep during the
winter. A contributory cause was the custom of not paying off till
the end of the season, which meant that all their money was carried
on the person. Even had banks been available it would hardly have
seemed worthwhile to open an account for such small amounts; the
average wages were twenty-five dollars a month; for the entire season
a cowboy got a hundred and fifty or possibly two hundred dollars, less
whatever was drawn on account during the season.

At the time of these celebrations the cow towns were invaded by
drabs and card-sharps; to them went the bulk of the boys' money.
It was a foolish way of squandering hard earned money, but the re-
sult of existing conditions, rather than viciousness. They were a
colorful, daring rugged lot and belong alongside the frontiersmen
and pioneers. To the cowboys there were just two kinds of women:
good and bad. I know of no class of men who were more polite and
had more chivalrous respect for one they classified as good than
the cowboys; such a one could travel alone with them from one end
of the country to the other without the least hesitation. I liked
them and gained much from my association with them.

I always disliked being waked in the middle of the night and this
was one time I devoutly hoped the four A.M. train would be late.
However, in spite of my wishes, it wasn't, and as soon as I boarded
it I crawled into a berth and went back to sleep. Later in the
morning, when I was up, the conductor came along and noted the
number of the annual pass on which I was riding.

In the afternoon he came back and asked, "Aren't you a deputy
marshal?" I said I was. "Well, there's a drunk in the smoking
car shooting all the window lights out. I wish you'd come up and
arrest him."

I had left my gun back on the ranch for my eastern trip and I
was afraid if I told him I was unarmed he would think I was an odd
kind of deputy marshal and take up my pass. "I'm not a peace officer,"
I said; "I can't make an arrest without a warrant, but I'll go and
talk to him if you like."

The conductor looked disgusted. "No, I've been talking to him,"
he said with emphasis; "I guess we'll just have to let him shoot."

A little later the drunk came back into the sleeper and began
making a racket. I got up and sat beside him. "My friend," I
informed him quietly, "I'm a Deputy United States Marshal; the next
stop is Wichita Falls, where there's a United States Commissioner.
If you don't get right back in the smoker and behave yourself I'm
going to arrest you and take you before the Commissioner."

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He looked me over, then slunk out of the sleeper, making no further trouble, thus illustrating again how everyone then had a dread of running afoul of Uncle Sam. Perhaps I had this in mind when I made my bluff to arrest him.

But later in the trip to the east another disturbance arose-- not to the ears, but to the nose. Seton had given me four coyote skins, two for Mr. Randolph and two for me. The hides had been salted, but were green and plenty smelly, tied up in an innocent-looking brown paper package. I had had the porter put them where they would not smell up the car. Storing them in the parcel room during my three day stay in New Orleans didn't help them any, but again I gave them in the porter's charge on the sleeper for Washington.

At Washington I changed to the H&O daycoach. By that time the skins were very ripe, not only with the smell of uncured hide, but with rank, animal scent of wolf. I took a seat in the rear of the car and observed that the passengers quickly moved to the front end or out of the car altogether. I couldn't blame them; I could hardly stand it myself. I anticipated that the conductor would at any moment order me to throw the bundle off the train and I am not entirely sure that the relief would not have compensated for the loss. However, I reached Plainfield--and another phase of my life-- without this happening.