For the trip each man was expected to furnish his own accoutrements.  In saddles, we had the ordinary Texas make, the housings of which covered our mounts from withers to hips, and would weigh from thirty to forty pounds, bedecked with the latest in the way of trimmings and trappings.

Our bridles were in keeping with the saddles, the reins as long as plough lines, while the bit was frequently ornamental and costly.  The indispensable slicker, a greatcoat of oiled canvas, was ever at hand, securely tied to our cantle strings.  Spurs were a matter of taste.  If a rider carried a quirt, he usually dispensed with spurs, though, when used, those with large, dull rowels were the make commonly chosen.  In the matter of leggings, not over half our outfit had any, as a trail herd always kept in the open, and except for night herding they were too warm in summer.  Our craft never used a cattle whip, but if emergency required, the loose end of a rope served instead, and was more humane.

Either Flood or Lovell went into town every afternoon with some of the boys, expecting to hear from the cattle.  On one trip they took along the wagon, laying in a month’s supplies.  The rest of us amused ourselves in various ways.  One afternoon when the tide was in, we tried our swimming horses in the river, stripping to our underclothing, and, with nothing but a bridle on our horses, plunged into tidewater.  My Nigger Boy swam from bank to bank like a duck.  On the return I slid off behind, and taking his tail, let him tow me to our own side, where he arrived snorting like a tugboat.

One evening, on their return from Brownsville, Flood brought word that the herd would camp that night within fifteen miles of the river.  At daybreak Lovell and the foreman, with “Fox” Quarternight and myself, started to meet the herd.  The nearest ferry was at Brownsville, and it was eleven o’clock when we reached the cattle.  Flood had dispensed with an interpreter and had taken Quarternight and me along to do the interpreting.  The cattle were well shed and in good flesh for such an early season of the year, and in receiving, our foreman had been careful and had accepted only such as had strength for a long voyage.  They were the long-legged, long-horned Southern cattle, pale-colored as a rule, possessed the running powers of a deer, and in an ordinary walk could travel with a horse.  They had about thirty vaqueros under a corporal driving the herd, and the cattle were strung out in regular trailing manner.  We rode with them until the noon hour, when, with the understanding that they were to bring the herd to Paso Ganado by ten o’clock the following day, we rode for Matamoros.  Lovell had other herds to start on the trail that year, and was very anxious to cross the cattle the following day, so as to get the weekly steamer—­the only mode of travel—­which left Point Isabel for Galveston on the first of April.