The Indians were still giving trouble along the Texas frontier.  A line of government posts, extending from Red River on the north to the Rio Grande on the south, made a pretense of holding the Comanches and their allies in check, while this arm of the service was ably seconded by the Texas Rangers.  Yet in spite of all precaution, the redskins raided the settlements at their pleasure, stealing horses and adding rapine and murder to their category of crimes.  Hence for a number of years after my marriage we lived at the Edwards ranch as a matter of precaution against Indian raids.  I was absent from home so much that this arrangement suited me, and as the new ranch was distant but a day’s ride, any inconvenience was more than recompensed in security.  It was my intention to follow the trail and trading, at the same time running a ranch where anything unfit for market might be sent to mature or increase.  As long as I could add to my working capital, I was content, while the remnants of my speculations found a refuge on the Clear Fork.

During the winter of 1871-72 very little of importance transpired.  Several social letters passed between Major Mabry and myself, in one of which he casually mentioned the fact that land scrip had declined until it was offered on the streets of the capital as low as twenty dollars a section.  He knew I had been dabbling in land certificates, and in a friendly spirit wanted to post me on their decline, and had incidentally mentioned the fact for my information.  Some inkling of horse sense told me that I ought to secure more land, and after thinking the matter over, I wrote to a merchant in Austin, and had him buy me one hundred sections.  He was very anxious to purchase a second hundred at the same figure, but it would make too serious an inroad into my trading capital, and I declined his friendly assistance.  My wife was the only person whom I took into confidence in buying the scrip, and I even had her secrete it in the bottom of a trunk, with strict admonitions never to mention it unless it became of value.  It was not taxable, the public domain was bountiful, and I was young enough man those days to bide my time.

The winter proved a severe one in Kansas.  Nearly every drover who wintered his cattle in the north met with almost complete loss.  The previous summer had been too wet for cattle to do well, and they had gone into winter thin in flesh.  Instead of curing like hay, the buffalo grass had rotted from excessive rains, losing its nutritive qualities, and this resulted in serious loss among all range cattle.  The result was financial ruin to many drovers, and even augured a lighter drive north the coming spring.  Early in the winter I bought two brands of cattle in Erath County, paying half cash and getting six months’ time on the remainder.  Both brands occupied the same range, and when we gathered them in the early spring, they counted out a few over six thousand animals.  These two contingents were extra good cattle, costing me five dollars a head, counting yearlings up, and from them I selected two thousand steer cattle for the trail.  The mixed stuff was again sent to my Clear Fork ranch, and the steers went into a neighborhood herd intended for the Kansas market.  But when the latter was all ready to start, such discouraging reports came down from the north that my friends weakened, and I bought their cattle outright.