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60
and King Hennant made some medicine and called for the entire crews of John Smith and "Asa Clark, and told Billie Burke to turn his crew over to Hennant, who was to take charge of the whole drive. I was disappointed, for I did not want to spoil the summer with a two months' drive. They called the men up one at a time and gave them their checks. However, King Hennant arranged with the manager for me to remain with them, and then it was agreed to send me with some of the cow ponies to the company's cattle ranch in the Big Horn Basin later on.
The drive up the South Platte was fine. We traveled for three hundred miles along the foothills of the Rockies, where we were never out of sight of the snowy ranges. We went out by way of La Junta, Colorado, on the Santa Fe`, and then to Deer Trail. We would throw our two herds together at night and the next morning again cut them into two herds for the trail. We arrived at the South Platte River near Greeley, Colorado, about the tenth of August.
The itch or ronia had broken out on the trail and in those days people did not know how to treat it successfully. Our manager sent us a wagon load of kerosene and sulphur with which to fight the disease.
When we reached Cow Creek we turned the herds loose and began building what is known as the Crow Ranch. I worked here thirty days and it seemed like thirty years. One day the manager came out and gave instructions to shape up a herd of one hundred and fifty select cow ponies to be taken to the Big Horn Ranch, and I was chosen to go with the outfit. This was the first time I had seen an outfit fixed up in the North. I supposed we would get a pack horse and fit up a little outfit and two of us hike out with them. It required two days to get started. The outfit consisted of a wagon loaded with chuck, a big wall tent, cots to sleep on, a stove, and a number one cook. We hit the trail, and it was another