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544
encountered a colony of grangers who made it a rule to charge every herd fifty dollars for permitting passage through their community. I rode into the village and consulted with their chief leader who informed me that the charge was made to pay for inspecting herds for contagious diseases, etc. I told him I had no money but would give him a draft on Captain Lytle, which he said would be satisfactory as Captain Lytle's check was good anywhere in the world. He asked me to kindly add another ten dollars to the amount for tobacco for the villagers, which I did, and then put my herd through. The first telegraph station I reached I wired Captain Lytle that I had been buncoed out of sixty dollars and to refuse to pay the draft. Those fellows were skinning us and I figured that turn about was fair play.
I am glad George Saunders took the lead in the organization of the trail drivers of the early days, for such an association has long been needed to preserve the history of the rugged noble men who made the cattle industry. I hope to live to see the day when that monument suggested by Mr. Saunders is placed on the old trail as a tribute to those who have gone their way and a reminder to oncoming generations that we "blazed the trail" and vouchsafed unto them peace, happiness and prosperity.
I went up the trail the first time in the spring of 1881 with a Crouch Brothers' herd from Frio county, in charge of George Wilcox. We had the usual experiences of driving and stampeding, and at Doan's Store on Red River a near-shooting. Fortunately the bad man's pistol hung in the scabbard and as he was well covered by