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224
The morning we started this particular drive I ate breakfast at daylight and the next meal I ate was at 10 o'clock the next day.
For the next day or two we grazed along the stream, so appropriately named Stinking Water. When crossing the Frenchman the cook broke down the wagon tongue, and we fixed it by wrapping it with ropes so that it held out for the balance of the trip.
After leaving Stinking Water for Ogallala everything went nicely. Leaving Ogallala we went up the south side of the Platte River to Julesburg Junction, where we delivered our cattle to Governor Rout and ex-Governor Brush of Colorado.
Going up the river our only trouble was to keep our stock off the farmers. They had no fences and it took very careful watching to keep them out of those patches. To let your stuff get on those patches meant the highest price grazing that a Texas horse or steer ever got. One night I woke up and heard the horse bell and I knew it was in the wrong direction, so I got up and found them grazing on one of those high-priced corn patches. I quietly drove them to camp, woke up everybody and moved everything away that night. I believe that corn actually did the horses good; at least they seemed that night to travel stronger than usual.
After reaching Julesburg Junction we crossed the Platte and began delivering.
I was then sent to meet Gus Withers, who had not yet come up with us. I had three horses, riding one and leading the others. When crossing the Platte my horses were so weak from the trip from Texas, and the quicksand so very bad, they could not carry me, so I led them, wading water up to my chin. After crossing the river and about the middle of the evening, I met with something entirely different from anything I had ever before been up against. I had thought up to this time that I knew what a Kansas storm was, but that evening I was