and go down to Texas together. I had written
home to have the buckboard meet us at Fort Worth on
October 1, and a few days later we were riding the
range on the Brazos and Clear Fork. In the past
there never had been any market for this class of
drones, old age and death being the only relief, and
from the great number of brands that I had purchased
during my ranching and trail operations, my range was
simply cluttered with these old cumberers. Their
hides would not have paid freighting and transportation
to a market, and they had become an actual drawback
to a ranch, when the opportunity occurred and I sold
twelve hundred head to the Illinois distillery.
The buyer informed me that they fattened well; that
there was a special demand for this quality in the
export trade of dressed beef, and that owing to their
cheapness and consequent profit they were in demand
for distillery feeding.
Fifteen dollars a head was agreed on as the price,
and we earned it a second time in delivering that
herd at Fort Worth. Many of the animals were
ten years old, surly when irritated, and ready for
a fight when their day-dreams were disturbed.
There was no treating them humanely, for every effort
in that direction was resented by the old rascals,
individually and collectively. The first day we
gathered two hundred, and the attempt to hold them
under herd was a constant fight, resulting in every
hoof arising on the bed-ground at midnight and escaping
to their old haunts. I worked as good a ranch
outfit of men as the State ever bred, I was right
there in the saddle with them, yet, in spite of every
effort, to say nothing of the profanity wasted, we
lost the herd. The next morning every lad armed
himself with a prod-pole long as a lance and tipped
with a sharp steel brad, and we commenced regathering.
Thereafter we corralled them at night, which always
called for a free use of ropes, as a number usually
broke away on approaching the pens. Often we
hog-tied as many as a dozen, letting them lie outside
all night and freeing them back into the herd in the
morning. Even the day-herding was a constant fight,
as scarcely an hour passed but some old resident would
scorn the restraint imposed upon his liberties and
deliberately make a break for freedom. A pair
of horsemen would double on the deserter, and with
a prod-pole to his ear and the pressure of a man and
horse bearing their weight on the same, a circle would
be covered and Toro always reentered the day-herd.
One such lesson was usually sufficient, and by reaching
corrals every night and penning them, we managed, after
two weeks’ hard work, to land them in the stockyards
at Fort Worth. The buyer remained with and accompanied
us during the gathering and en route to the railroad,
evidently enjoying the continuous performance.
He proved a good mixer, too, and returned annually
thereafter. For years following I contracted
with him, and finally shipped on consignment, our
business relations always pleasant and increasing in
volume until his death.
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