I was on my saddle when the Indians made the raid, but I was nodding. My horse, however, instantly realized the situation and made a spring forward, throwing me behind the saddle before I roused myself sufficiently to know what the trouble was. It happened, however, that I succeeded in grabbing the horn of my saddle, and I finally managed to regain my proper position.
It was impossible to control the cattle, as the Indians had so badly frightened them. All of them got away from us that night except fifty head, and it took us two weeks to gather them all up, as they scattered for miles over the country. When we got them rounded up we took them on to Kansas without further trouble and sold them.
The Indians captured in their raid on our herd about one hundred head of cattle in all, and I imagine they had quite a feast.
IV
A Thief
While I was in Quanah, in 1896, helping to hold court in the George Isaacs ease, four hundred beef steers were brought into town one day from the Spur ranch. Eighteen cowboys came in with the cattle, and before they left town one of them stole a suit of clothes and a gold watch from a Mr. Greathouse, a merchant of Quanah. Bob Dawson came to me while I was in court helping to guard Isaacs and told me that he wanted me to assist them in running down the thief. I told him that I would, so we got our horses and started out after the cowboys.
We followed them fifteen miles to a place where they had stopped for dinner, and we arrested them and told them that we wanted to search the whole outfit for the clothes and watch.
They said, “all right,” and we made the search and found the stolen articles; so we took the boss out and told him that he had better advise the guilty party to “own up,” or we would have to take the whole bunch back to town. He failed to get a confession from any of them, so we arrested the whole bunch, boss and all, and escorted them to Quanah.
In the party there was one man, who weighed about 260 pounds, who kept edging around me, trying to get hold of my six-shooter, but I stood him off, and we made him hitch up the wagon and take the others back to Quanah. They had a hundred head of cow ponies, and they took them back with them. When we marched into Quanah with the men and ponies, everybody yelled out, “Yonder comes Coxey’s army.”
About dark one of the men, by the name of Sloane, plead guilty. His brother had begged him to confess, which he did. He was lodged in the Quanah jail, and was charged with stealing enough property to land him in the penitentiary, but the state made it a finable offense, and his companions paid it out and they left together for their ranch, a happy set of cowboys.
V
Ben Hughes
While trying to capture Ben Hughes, who was wanted for train robbery in the Indian Territory, the officers had a fierce battle with him, during which Deputy Sheriff Whitehead, who was a Cherokee Indian, was killed. Hughes was tried for this, but was acquitted, as the killing occurred at night and no one saw him shoot Whitehead, and it could not be proven that he was responsible for the officer’s death.
I carried Ben Hughes’ wife from the Union depot in Fort Worth to the Windsor Hotel, with instructions from Grude Britton, who was sergeant at that time, to make a thorough search for money. Mrs. Windsor, the proprietress of the hotel, assisted me in making the search on Mrs. Hughes’ person for the money which we thought her husband had gotten and turned over to her. I got Mrs. Windsor to help me in searching the woman, because I felt a delicacy in making a search on the person of a lady. I had the respect for her that any gentleman should have for a lady, even if I was searching her for stolen money. I only found about twelve or fifteen dollars on her, and she said that was her own money; so I let her keep it. Mrs. Hughes looked to be about twenty-five years of age.
Sam Farmer and Sergeant J. M. Britton took Hughes to Dallas and placed him in jail, and Mrs. Hughes left that evening for Palo Pinto County.
VI
A Buffalo Hunt
E. N. Waldrup, Bob Gunn and I left Logan’s Gap, Comanche County, February 1877, for Tom Green County on a big buffalo hunt, intending to make Jim Criner’s ranch our headquarters. Criner was a brother-in-law of Bob Gunn.
After reaching Tom Green County, I saw about a mile ahead of me a bunch of buffalo, and remarked to one of the boys that I was going to rope one of them. I dismounted, tightened my saddle girths, and mounted again and made for the bunch of buffalo. They were traveling east. The morning was very cold, as the wind was blowing from the east. As soon as they discovered me they started in a run for their life. There were about one hundred and fifty in the bunch. I ran on to a three-year old bull, threw my lariat, but it failed to catch, as I was throwing against the wind, which was very high. The second throw I put him into my loop. The high, fast bucking and pulling came off then and there. Birch, my horse, was not thoroughly trained and didn’t like the scent of buffalo at all. I had a hard time controlling him with this raging, rearing beast tied to the horn of my saddle, as this was about the first bunch of buffalo Birch had ever seen, and the only one he had ever been tied to. Birch and I were like the man that bought the elephant—didn’t hardly know what to do with him. I made two runs around the buffalo and got his legs tangled in my lariat. I then made a straight run on him, “busting” him against the ground. When he got up he discovered our horses and wagons and took the outfit for his brother bunch of buffalo. He then made a run for horses and wagon, and when we got to the wagon I decided to take him to Jim Criner’s ranch, which was about ten or twelve miles distant, and neck him to a steer. I tied him to the hind axle of the wagon, and he led as docile as any horse for about three hundred yards, and all at once he took a notion to stop, and the horses pulling the wagon took a notion to stop also. We started the horses up again, and they kept pulling until they led him over, at the same time jerking his right shoulder out of place. I had him to kill then, and lost my buffalo. This was a grand old hunt, and proved very profitable to us. The buffalo in that country were as thick as cattle and went from three to ten thousand in a bunch. There were also thousands of antelope, and wild turkeys were so thick that they would hardly get out of one’s way.
VII
A Stolen Herd
I was employed in 1877 by Bill Yoakum, a cattleman to help him drive a herd of three hundred cattle from his place in Comanche County to Clear Fork, on the Brazos River. While in his service, Yoakum told me that he and Jim Gregg, who was Yoakum’s partner for several years, had stolen these cattle and burnt their brands out and put on another brand. He told me that he had stolen the cattle out of Tarrant, Johnson, Collins and other counties, and that he never took over five head out of the same range. He also said that he had made it a rule to steal only from men who were not able to prosecute him heavily if he was caught.
One day Yoakum asked me to join him, saying that we would make a fortune stealing cattle, but I told him that I would let him know about it later on.
Near Yoakum’s place lived a Mrs. Holt, a widow, who had bought a milk cow from Yoakum, paying him a good price for it. Yoakum laughingly remarked to me one day that he had stolen the cow which he had sold to Mrs. Holt from her range and that she didn’t know the difference.
I