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1033
however, he succeeded in getting into the service, and a few days after his enlistment four of the companies at Camp Verde were transferred to South Texas, leaving only a few men to garrison the post and look after the camels there. Henry Ramsey was in charge of the camels at the time and young Walker was put to herding them. He says the animals, numbering about 75 head, were a source of great annoyance and trouble. They ate but little grass, and could not get up the rough places to get to brush which they had to eat. Through the winter they were fed on corn that had to be brought from San Antonio. Mr.. Walker now has a bell which was used on those camels, and prizes it very highly as a relic of those frontier days.
At the outbreak of the war between the states, Camp Verde was taken over by the Confederate forces under Gen. Ben McCulloch, and remained under the Confederate control until the war ended, when the post again passed to the United States, and a small force of Federal troops were placed there.
In 1869 Mr. Walker went to California with a herd of 1,500 mixed cattle belonging to Damon Slater of Llano, Mr. Slater being his own boss. Those who went on this trip were Jim and Charlie Moss, Jim Walker, Alf Anderson, Bill Denison, a man named Perryman, John Dupont, John and Riley Billings, Billie Click, a German named Mahaley, Jack Hamilton and Damon Slater. They took a route up through the Concho country to the Pecos and crossed at Horsehead Crossing, out by old Fort Stanton, through Tularosa Valley, across Sacramento Mountains to the Gila River, crossing the Colorado River, passing Tucson and Fort Yuma, and went on to the Winters Ranch in California where they delivered the herd. On the trip they had some trouble with the Indians, particularly with some of the Pima tribe who were trying to run a bluff and secure some cattle from a herd belonging to a man named Crockett Riley.