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1006
downeaster, whose name I have forgotten, had been employed. He was about thirty years old and weighed 230 pounds. Aside from being a greenhorn he was really too heavy for trail work, and the bunch wanted to get rid of him, and set about to do this very thing, while I was made the "goat." The boys began to carry news to him of talks I had made about him, and from him they brought yarns to me. Of course neither of us had said anything about the other. We all carried the old style cap-and-ball navy pistols, as was the custom in those days. One evening while I was holding the cattle, the evening relief came out and this big 230-pounder made straight toward me, saying that I had talked about him long enough and he was going to put a stop to it. I had been told by the other boys that the trouble was coming, and to open up on him when it started, which I proceeded to do. I shot at him six times as he was coming toward me, aiming at his paunch, but he did not fall. Now mind you, the boys had previously extracted the bullets from my pistol, and I was shooting only wads, but I did not know it. The wads set his clothing afire, and also the sage grass, and it took us several hours to put out the prairie fire. The "wounded" man ran off, left his horse, went to camp, got his time, and quit, just what the bunch wanted him to do. The boys told me that I would be arrested when we got to Fort Worth, and advised me to go to the boss and get a horse and leave the herd, scout along in the neighborhood for a few days, and fall in again. I took it all in like a sucker, until I asked Sam Driskill for the horse. Sam told me then it was all a put-up job, and to pay no attention to them. From that time on I got along very well. When we arrived at Hayes, Kansas, 500 beeves were cut out and left there or driven to Ellsworth and held for a time. John Driskill was left in charge of the beeves. He now lives at Sabinal, Texas. There were twenty-three men in our outfit, but I can remember only the following : Orland Driskill, Sam