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203
One trip I drove for Dewees, Ervin & Jim Ellison. I got the herd at Rockport, in Coleman & Fulton's pasture, and drove to the Millett & Irvin ranch in the Panhandle, camping right where the town of Seymour is now located, and remained there several months helping to round up several thousand head of cattle. Among those who were with me there on the range were Tom Peeler, Billie Bland, Sam and John Wilson, Billie Gray, Charlie Reed and Whit Vick. We started from that point with three thousand yearlings for Major Wolcott's ranch in the Rocky Mountains. Had good luck all the way until we reached Fort McPherson on the North Platte River, where our horses stampeded and ran right through our herd, causing the yearlings to stampede also, going in every direction, several hundred running into the river. We finally rounded all of them up and delivered the herd in fine shape.
I took one herd of cattle up into Colorado for John and Tom Dewees to a man named Cheatem. We killed many buffalo on this trip, but in Kansas in 1874, on the Ninnisquaw River, I saw more buffalo than I ever saw anywhere else. As far as the eye could see over the plains was a solid mass of moving buffalo, all drifting northward. I remember my first experience in trying to kill one of these animals. I did not know the huge hump on their backs was a row of ribs, and that I could not kill one unless I shot below that hump, but I learned that much while trying to shoot my first buffalo. I had an old cap and ball pistol and, taking careful aim at a bull's hump, I began to shoot, but the only effect my shots had was to make him run faster. I kept up with him, firing as we ran. Sometimes all six loads would go off at the