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535
sold on contract to J. F. Ellison, Sr. We delivered 500 cows and had to take them to Fort Sill, Indian Territory. Mr. Lyons delivered them and left me with the big herd. I was two or three days getting away from where we cut the cows from their yearlings ; we moved like a snail climbing a slick log, so far up in daytime, slipping back at night. Gus Staples, one of our boys, was a fiddler and we had music all the way. Gus saw his first antelope on this trip, thought it was crippled and tried to catch it, but the longer he ran it the faster it got. Monkey John, the negro cook, spent a half a day trying to drown a prairie dog out of a hole, but nothing doing.
Captain Ellison finally sent us word to cut all cows above three years old and take them on towards Powder River, catch up with the herd and turn them over to his boss, who he said was waiting for us two days ahead. With five men I pulled out, ate up all of our grub the second day at noon, and were four days catching up with that herd. For two days we had nothing to eat but boiled Irish potatoes without salt. ,Vt1'e delivered the remainder of the herd as soon as I got back and checked up. I found we had about the number we started with and a few over which we picked up along the trail, which of course, if no one claimed, we did not point out.
In 1881 I left Martindale, Caldwell county, with a herd of 1,500 cattle and went to Travis county, where John R. Blocker gave me 1,500 more, making 3,000 cattle belonging to Jennings, Blocker & Co. This herd was sold to Ike T. Pryor and delivered to him on the north side of the Washita River in the Indian Territory. Rufus Fuller then took the herd to Fort Sill, while Mr. Blocker and I went to Dodge City on horseback. I left Mr. Blocker there and came home.
In those days I received $30 a month, furnished three horses and had money at the end of the trip. Our way back home was paid by those who employed us. We came back as immigrants, all dressed up in new suit, boots and