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513
1912, then commenced working for the Cattle Raisers' Association, and have been engaged in this work ever since.
I left Frio County on the 20th of March, 1886, in company with eleven Pearsall boys, headed for the Pena ranch to take charge of a herd of 1,100 one and two-year- old Mexican cattle belonging to Blocker, Driscoll & Davis, which were to be driven to Deer Trail, Colorado. We went by rail to Laredo and on to Hebbronville, and from there out to the ranch, where we found Mr. Blocker waiting for us, and when' we had the herd ready to start he told us to go to the Catarina ranch in Dimmit County, where I would be given 1,400 more. Some of the first herd were very poor, and those we received at the Catarina ranch were big, fat, strong fellows, and I remarked to Mr. Blocker when I saw them that I would either have to drive the poor ones to death or starve the fat ones, to which he replied that I could graze them. We pulled out with the herd and passed near Carriza Springs, on to Eagle Pass, and out by Spofford Junction, where we came into the Western Trail and went up the Nueces River by Kickapoo Springs. There the hard road began to get harder, and we found no grass and but little water, therefore I did not "graze them through," as Mr. Blocker had suggested. The first rain that fell on us was at Vernon, on the Pease River.
This herd belonged to Driscoll, Blocker & Davis, who at the time had about 20,000 cattle on the trail in different herds. On account of the exceedingly dry weather that had prevailed for a good while it was a very hard year for trail men, and many of them sustained heavy losses.