|
|
Libraries Home | Mobile | My Account | Renew Items | Sitemap | Help |
|
Select a method to view the page:
|
699
small tree and hewed out a head and footboard and marked his grave. Then we slipped back to the herd. This being soon after the close of the Civil War, the Jayhawkers were said to be soldiers mustered out of the Yankee army. They were nothing more than a bunch of cattle rustlers and were not interested about fever ticks coming into their country but used this just as a pretense to kill the men with the herds and steal the cattle or stampede the herds. After rejoining the herd I found that during the stampede I had lost about one hundred and fifty head of cattle, which was a total loss to me. I drove the balance of the herd back to the Neutral Strip, and after resting a day or two, went back to Fort Scott, and reported to Mr. Keys what had happened. Mr. Keys sent a man back to the herd with me to guide us to Fort Scott. On my return to the herd with the guide we started the drive to Fort Scott the second time. The guide knew the country well, which was very thinly settled. We would drive the herd at night and would lay up at some secluded spot during the day. After driving in this manner for five days and five nights we reached Fort Scott about daybreak of the fifth night and penned the cattle in a high board corral adjoining a livery stable, which completely hid them from the public view. We put our horses in the livery stable, and went to a place Mr. Keys had provided for us to sleep and get something to eat, as we had left our chuck wagon a day behind us on the trail. As soon as the cattle were penned Mr. Keys paid me for them. Then we ate our breakfast and slept all day. When darkness fell we saddled our horses and started back over the trail to Texas. I returned to Texas without any further incident worth noting, and continued to drive the trail, rarely missing a year that I did not make a drive.