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977
time Houston Street was only a road through mesquite and huisache brush. In 1864-65 I attended the St. Mary's College and here I was taught those Christian principles that ever remained with me and encouraged me to overcome many temptations in after life. In 1870-71 I again attended this college after my return from my "spin" over the range in the Southern and Eastern States as mentioned, and on this "spin" I rode with the Klu Klux Klan in Tennessee when there was no other law to protect Southern homes against the ravages of freed Negroes urged on by the carpet-baggers and protected in their nefarious practices by Federal bayonets. In 1866-67-68, when not attending school I was working cattle for my father in Live Oak county branding, gathering and driving to Bexar county, where we were then living on the Olmos Creek, five miles north of San Antonio. In 1876 I left Dimmit county, where I owned a small bunch of cattle, which I sold, and started to Arizona, stopping awhile in Menard county where I had a sweetheart and here I joined Thomas W. Swilling to go with him to Arizona.. We left Menardville early in September, 1876, and pulled out via Ft. Concho, fifty miles north, where we laid in a supply of grub, enough to last us until we reached Roswell, New Mexico, and again "hit the grit" for Arizona, every mile of it over an uninhabited country, infested with hostile Indians. At Centralia, which was a stage station on the high plains guarded by negro troops, we left the stage road and followed the old Butterfield route to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos; thence up east of Pecos to New Mexico. The Indians were raiding the country when we left and we saw their trails and camped on them quite often from Fort Concho until we got to Seven Rivers in New Mexico. About twenty-five miles west of Ft. Concho we met a company of cavalry escorting the telegraph operator at Ft. Concho, a Mr. Milburn, who had been out repairing the line between