Document text
1 r7t--
aorta
Pioneer AL.,)erlencet:
end :oriboy
of .Arly
"01=e- e
NO.M1,?L VI .4 wr
by'
Mrs. Florenee temermIller, P. W.
W. B. WAND
es told $o
The sebinal nentinel,Sabinsi Texas.
1.0
no of the 300% intereatin$ eenvereationaliate to be
:352
found hereabouto who went up the trial and served, *La,
cowboy in the eerly is W. neer& of :')/thio401. Hie
kn,lek of story -telling briny his keen hunar Into -piny
-nd he relcnbera the humorous incidents in the rlw,t pleee
ea he tells -his story,. Hewing aone ul the ti' 11 five
ti.ee,one rey e mire he will hrve tftziLling stbrif,s to tell.
He nes born June lb, 1864, In Arkenses nnd after serving
twenty yer4re a O eowboy in Wort Tizau, he loft tNe rrneh
to trA, u Ire nu e storekeelier tio rn-rtner Al*;
brother. lie 'vs bookkeeler or theIr h,,rdtenre firm rir
number OF yeera.
In 100b, he vms mf.rried to A.as Lens Bigy of Utopia,
qnughter or Ben Biog. He eontinued entively in-bublie
11fe teking s'4c of his :linter's Clildren to repr.
tfter his wife's de!,th, he remained in town en 0 married
A.sa Hannah Jacobson a wiacAmaln Jeeember l9L2.
He hra been mayor of ebthNl two tnrma t!m.pest
.eivere yen's end is henrty end Pill or life as he takes
active sltarest In unito w,rreqrs.
The roll4pqAd eenount,of trir uT) the trail was
written by tan few Yetlra ego:
hionehr !xperiences W. E. Henrd.
Ppm. 2
232
"having heard su much about herd ties rhid depression, it takes -Ale
becL: to '87 wh:ch would make the present time look like six -bits. I think
some of the old timers will bear me out in this statement, thnt they planted
a crop in the sorinh of 187 and it whle up in the spring of '88.
"I Was worhinn: on a. reneh in Nebraska. when I recived a letter from my
brother, 7. D., with whom I had left sow° horses to Pasture, telling me to
come and get them as they were starving to deeth. 'Bee Tree' end 'Turkey
Roost' water holes had gone dry, something that had never been heard of
before. "ell, like all cowboys, I 14/MB 'brOke' but I had a nrivete horse
so the boys all shipped in end bought my horse, then out him up and played
poker to see WilJ wotkd get hm while I bought a ticket to the Sunny south.
"Arriving at nbinal, I had just three -dollars end sixty -cents left.
I bought a coffee not, a frying in and a few groceries which came to three
dollars, le-ving ;1" with sixty cents. Then we proceeded to round up the
horses and, in the mennttle, I related my financial condition to my brothers
and they (TVA :he the 'horse laugh' and told me I was well fixed. One of
them said, 'I want to give y u an ides of the financial condition of this
country Pt the nresent tie. I was in Uvelde n few days ego when one of the
weelthieht ranchmen in the Frio Canyon walked into his brother's htore end
asked nim for ten dollars. His brother said, 'I hrven't got it, but I will
see if I flx-i get it for you,' so he went out in town en h had to borrow from
threh different rlen to get it.'
"'tell, hope springs eternal in the human breast. I had a friend -t
Leakey who had a few old ponies and wes going with me. He had been teaching
school and as all school teachers had -Ioney I was sure he would too, so it
would all work out O. K. after all. he got the horses r)unded 1,1p end reached
the Heckberry wpterhole the first night. The next morning when we went to
'turn the horses out, we found a little baby pinto colt jut a few hours old.
hhen I nulled out my nistul to shoot it, my brother said, 'Don't do that:
toner
perienoter Ty
Heard
Peg, 3
A32
Al will tive trJliola with the ta!,rte ell day nnd maybe lose her,' so being n
obedlelA .a snared the colt. qoing up the Frio thot .y the colt got in
'swiminfr w -ter three tines but at out end mode It to Lat4key thet night.
."Les ey being out playground, the boys ;0)% up big farewell denote for
The% night when they peened the het "round to get s few niokles for
the fiddler, they onught me sitting by s Tung lady nnd rot hewing the nerve
to show 51 colors, I dropped in fifty cents ,,nd tried to look ste oheerful
es- tn,.,lieh 1 had n htinth'ed. Qt. course I eree muoh impressed with the old edege
th t he who dences fiddler.'
"The next morning my friend inforned me %het he did not hove o red cent;
snid he had s twenty dollar school voutihar that e couldn't even trnde for
dry goods to soy nothing of cash or grcerites. well, after our ripht of
dissipation, of course) we got off late end several of the boys went alone to
give us s good send-off and es we didn't get very for by noon, they stayed
with us for dinner end ete up thle lest orumb we had, but we votito it to the
Bell Ranch %tint night end found n hearty welcome, plenty of good acts,
notoitelity you seldom find now-e-oeys.. Th• next morning we hod a mess of
dry grits. Going on,up the rver one of our best mares elipned down end
never Gould get up. 'sell, we mnde it_out to the divide thet nirht, flund
lots of elitism, but no wetter. c talked s Mexioen sheti-herder out of enough
sets' for simper end bre.,kfnst,'nuch es it eine.' The next_orn;11) we hod
another big mere down end eouldn't get her up. !7 friend solid, '71ist's herd
r
luck.' I weld, It's two less to drive.'
"Going Ai down point Crook, we found te.li-tle bunch of rsee which
mesPnt there wee tenter there somewhere, so ne took their troll end found s
little rlok woterhole. this little bunch of horses there was 7 1.4ulte
with a bell on end my friend solid, 'There Ii s (Ivo dollnr reword for th-t
"mule down on the Neuces,' so Pe rounded u the ilotete end I roped the mule,
toAT the bell off nnd Alt it on one of our horses end he tcvlic the mule and
'lancer Ixperiences W. t. Herd Page 4
232
be .t it for the Nueces. When he arrived at the brief end of his journey,.
infPct he had reached the object, point and goal of his desire, his fond
anticipations were not fully realized for the Bo -hunk of the looms (hills)that
claimed the nule,could not raise but four dollars. hell, he said to himself,
'A half a loaf is better than no breadO so he took the four dollars.
"In the meantime, I left the horses at this little wnterhole and drifted
on town the creek to where my old friend, John Avant, had a sheep ranch.
There I found A hePrty welcome, plenty of good opts and a- very charming yJung
lady, so I NIPS shgewhat unconcerned about friend's return. When my friend
returned some two or three days later, we went down to the mouth of the creek
'where he had some relatives and anent the night with them. The next night
we reached Junction City where we hpent some of our four dollars for eats.
"in ti h me'ntime I had written the foremen on the ranch in Nebraska to
me thirty dollars P. H. to Coleman City. he learned later that our
send
best route did not go by Coleman City but by Ballinger, so arriving at
,lalingur, which hnu the end of the railroad, INe just had enough of Jur four
dollars left to buy me a ticket to Coleman. When I arrived in Coleman it was
night and not having the ,rice of a bed, I counted the stirs frhm an empty wagon
box. It is needless to say that I was un early interrogating the first man I
sew as to the lochtion of the )oht-office. He iniorme e that it was 31Andny
and that the hJst-office would not be :..en only to throw the all out to the bus
driver to tr,ke to the train some two htilea 'way. hhen the door opened, I
butted in rIld asked for hy moil, rind hurriedly opening the letter I was looking
forhl found 9 thirty -dollar money order which the honorable hostmnster refused
to c-sh w1thout identification whch was, of csorse, impossible. Being hut to
my wits' end, I did some deep thinking. In the mehntimei I asked the bus driver
to WIAAa :ainute. It finally dawned on me that I lind on an old white shirt
(not very w.ite either) on the tail of which my washwomnn had steuped my
iliodeer .0cperiences 11. H. Heard
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name, so j proseeded to dislley my cola de osmias (shirt tail); also a
Monogrom which my little Tenicee sweetie had'ilot in my hat the Christmas
before. 4611, I finally convinced the gentleman that I was the rl,tful
owner so he handed me out the long green. -Rushing out, I discovered the
bus driver baisie hundred yards away, which was vary unkind to say the lerst.
I don't know whether the milk of human kindness had dried up in his bosom
or whether he beesnle suspicious that something was wrong. He that as it may,
I g. vs cha3c and finally got aboard, a little short of wind but a little
longer onflneneee. Reschint camp, my friend and had a big jubilee..
"A few days later we clamped at Margaret, a litt/e town in Maydemftn,
County, and the next morning we had another baby colt hut it was not so neppy
as the little into so we decided we had better sell the mere and colt. Is
failed. iiowever, en old man with his glasses mn the end iltf his miss, who had
a little grocery store said, 'I'll give you twenty dollars worth of grooeries
for y3ur mere and colt.' well, we seeepted, reeling so ewhet elated over the
tot that we, at leapt, had nlenty of eats for many days. 'Rut all is not
;.old that illitters.' Too much ,,Toceries and not having a rermlar oackpaddle,
we hurt the Tplekhersa's lock Whreh neeessitatee e -change so we decided tt
out he p-ok on e holter broke %tare. All went well until the peek !at -a
little to one side which evidently did not suit this broemteil kvyliee u.o
she) dei;ided to relieve h,Tiielr of some of the burden. pith n few tucv7s and
et
snorts she mt4oh- the oppo ite side from where it belonged. Then she made
a little sem/Orele or some three or fuur-hundred yrreis. It wets quite
laughable and not so damn funny either to see yur good eats flying .through
the 'air in every direction. But we finally got htp lassoed and determined
not to be outdAie, we gathered up whet we could find, nut it beak on her
and necked her to the -,ne with the 1;ore book, then set off again.
"A few days later we camped on a little creak in Kreer County, the
die- utak* territory. It wigs my friend's night to stake his horse, out the
Pione,:r Experiences W. E. Rear*
PAge 6
SM2
next morning we found that the Aorse had pulled up the pin and was gone. There
we were forty miles from nowhere, afoot. Well, we got around the bunch, got
them in a little bend of the creek, where there wan a bluff on one side and my
friend Inid, 'Heard, its up to you. I can %abash sohooiibut I can't rone a
bronc-! Well, as most of the bunch were brones, to swing a rope meant 'adios'
(gooduye), so it was Just 'cluok or no dinner.' Friend ran the horses by me
and after plowing up terrafirma for some thirty or forty yards with a boot heel,
succeded in :etting the brute from a state of migration to a stationary orbit
watch ended our troubles fox the time at least.
"All went well then until we reached the South Canadian River which was
full of quioksond and very treacherous but we thought, to follow some cowboys
who were nutting a bunch of festive bovines across, we sould make it. Well,
we were getting along fine until the only poor)weak animal we had left got out
of line and went down, and when she rent down, a blue smoke went up, but we
hurried the bunch across and want book to get the old thing out, if possible.
We would get one leg out and by the time we could get another one out that
one would be back in, but we stayed **its until we got her out and across,
looking like she had been pulled through Hades and beet with a net bng.
However, going on up the road a few miles we came to a little ranch owneeby a
window. convinoing her that we had a very fine animal but just a little'too
poor for us to fool -with, we sold her, thus relieving ourselves 9f some
anxiety and adding a little more of the filthy lucre to our depleted money
bag.
^A. few days later, we tarrived at lontesuma, a new town, also a new
settlement, peojjle having come from the east and settled on this bald prairie
in Western Kansr,s. There we happened to meet up with a good fellow who told
us if we would stay there a few drys we could sell some horses. Well, we
stayed there some three or four days end sol‘, some horses. Eight or ten head.
There were no corrals exCept a little wire pan by the side of the livery stable,
Pioneer 4xperienoes W. lad
Page 7,
but we 'alleys had 'snook -totters' enough to line the feriae so we got by. When
we wo,:ld sell one we -ut ii hackamore on it, took it out on the Prairie and
tied it to a sack of sod as there wasn't a oush in forty miles of there.
As there were no fences, we hyd to hard our bunch day and night. One =ruing
while I was trying to untangle one of these kayuses which we hod sold, my
friend went to 'sleep and let the horses get in an old farmer's wheat patch.
Now this ol guy had an enclosure around his house and. barn and by some 'hook or
crook' he )t the whole bunch in there alid when ;Ay friend woke xi') and found
them and want up to i!et them, the old men said, 'You owe me one dollar per,'
*Loh meant SW,A thirty-five or forty dollars.
"Well, being the Judas Iscariot, carrying the money bog,, they (lame looking
for ne. Thanks to my Irish wit one time in life, I said, 'e are strangers
here find not familiar with the laws in Kansas but we are willing to do the
right thing, so you fellows go down town and ask some lawyer or justice of the
peace end if that is correct, come back and I'll nly the bill,' No sooner
than they were out of sight, I beat it up and turned the horses out and got them
on the oppoite side of town, then went beck to where I was. 5-.0, when they
round me they informed me that the eherge was correct nad demanded the noney
without any further argument. Then it Wee my time to talk. I says, 'Listen,
as e matter of rot there is no damage. Yu know that, as the horses only
walked across one corner of your whert lateh. You are ju,,t trying to hold
up r couple of Itids and we don't Twopose to be held up but, just to show you
that our he-rts are in the ri--ht llace we will make you r present of two
dollars andfifty cents. You can -take that or cc) where they don't shovel snow,
ur choice.' Learning by that time that he did not have the hoZ4esvin
his possession, he chose the former. By doing so _he mey he gotten both.
we had a good many miles to go yet. 441 thought portions we had
better be on our *fly'. Taking a farew-11 look as we were leaving town, we sew
several of those Togas knyuses•still tied to the sack of sod where we left
Heard
?ioneer eriences
7age 8
232
theM some threi, or four drys before. The owaers never hove been rble to
:ftt to tho seks -71tich less tho brono. 'all, we 1 tted e-ch other Al the b -c!,: i
th-t we (ot nwny frail there with e pretty nice roll of the long: green 'ad didn'
get held ui) either.
"i.A1 the third dry of July we rrived nt the t,outh uide of the &rkensne
river. The next aorning we went over to town to get n broil,N1 t-boma and
they told us thore men tiing to be m big bollgroite there thrt dry, Kenans City
pleYiap onrden city, so we decided to tee e day off and stny rnd Bee the mime.
'nd believe we, thrt wee some boll gems; I don't think 1 would be exar7erating•
to sny thnt the bell wee never on the f;round from strrt to finish rnd unless
my eyes deciftved me the oetoher took the bell from in front,of the brt,two
different times. You know Kensea was a prohibition strata even thnt fer beck
end we, being rank strangers, hnd considernble difficulty in getting the 'ins*
word' but after we'finelly aucceded everyth-n went very smoothly from then
on t_e b -lance of .the d -y. ind you; we 3PW the bell crme before we got the
'pass word.'
"going beak the next Aornim to Fiwt our horses we found thmt our little
ninto colt hnd fotten :.11-;.o the wire fence end out one le ;1 off. :ell, when
1 nulled my -Autol to shoot it, my friend said, 'Duet do thrt, we will hr:ve
trouble with thf; mere all dry rnd tonight we will lol;s her; It (the colt) will
!ceevl up.' Tell, i abated it. The Ioor little Vilw .ent on drer,-Ing owing
rind tinnily vot well, nnd when it was two yemre old 1 sold it for thirty
dollaru which woe 7--ly reerrh for obedience..
"our triP wee Uneventful antil we cros:ANd the B. end (H.R.) ln
NeoIrskr. -e (wined on m little creek and went brok to town to get some
groceries. Goinj tplot17 to map, au we aeasued the reilroad, me henrd e train
whistle--tt, first one ulnae we left Ballinger. 'Ay friend acid, 'Lets go
by the depot,' He ft,wt off his horse, unseddled him, threw his srddle an the.
'"ioneer JAperienoes ee W. rrd
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232
pletforli end tried his horse loose.. I *rad, o d on nor, old e;lort, what's
the -ria?' Ue anid, !I so gong bPok to Lee, es.' ',ell., I knee he nod a
sweetie beck In Leekey, but I didn't know it WAX e'tii efl hitt like Piet. Ifut
I anon found that 7torel swek;lon' was no Pvell, so !le went bpee to-Leakey,
I went on driln4 the remainder of tne horses oo:le two hundred 'le* elonc,
erriving qt the renoh on the twety-third d
y or July Iuet ninety deys from
the t17 -le .tit left ,_,en,.ey.
-elptlag the little fnoldent to iy eweetie es to hom I .7f3t the money
order oesed, xc clap:led her .ds end says, 'You ow. me t%e hest horse In
the noh," seye, 'I never owed nnybody enythinr thet.T wouldn't
11-RY. so TA.csK out ycAlr torse.' ehe pioked out one end delivered it to her,
furtbPr developments. A little leter, I'lePrned thrt 2ho hPd to
other sweeties oeid r,ac no demrnded the return of 7:13, $rablen teed tnetente,
which s'ne it with the Ueolp tiOn th-t I aqua redieally mrow. '-0141 seys,
'you rre r michty cute little 'leak but yiti oen,t Aut enythln:! like thAt over
ft Texpu 'ii o beck to .Lerø the i;irlo Pre not so fortunete as to
have tnrec: sweotlei; it one ttc,nog
w_nt h' o tu*P2114ms to. p(.41c erter so -e 2„..,00 heed of ePttle
for
H. encl.
eore A. onntdy end. ridirvi UVOr limet te hilly thet ay
feen,.; ATW hOd fPUe over, neturally thetwht of weld friend, so rot a
teeptifu )(eF,t-1 A.et re of ureke, ':enees, tta 1c4tre e'were mq-ki.hg,
our it -d, I ,nd ...ea It t,1 ay friend et thn 1-st eleee hed herrd of
pies :caufmpn 7ounti. n re.N days, I recAeed n let.ter frOm hii in
sn nt,inio ea;ktng me to .rite him e lon letter, end not to -7'0 thruu01 en
fntonlot on y return trip witht stolllinc to see hin. It so heppened•thPt
we peasod throu.th -Am Antonio in the wee hours of. the nit, co we did not
top. trough e _RR Am.tho Pnd soaked into his pleas
or ttasnessi.
tie looked up, l'Ad v2e the tt.le of dny Pnd Poked If there woo
enything he ould do for oe. 1 aV:ed him if he eould direet ne to the
eneer 2r1er one's r. K. Herdoge
232
Chrialer Gorege aa I wonted ,to hrve soma work done on my oar. He mold he
cv,Ild not. I then 'eked him how long he bad Imu living in San Antonio? Ae
amid alsut two years. I asked where he wee from rad he answered, 'California.
t‘rovious tu thet I lived In'Kaufnen County. And et -one tine I lived in
F.dwords county .round 'donkey.' I *eked him it ho know any or the Meru 4646.
Ho said he did, that he went 'up the trail. with w, N. I than honked him if
he know what bedome or M. Ho e.id, .°The lea% tide I heard of him he woe
looking softer Gott'. in Kansas. He promAsed to stop rnd nee no on his say
home wit he hab not shown up yet.' 1 roid,(Would you know him lf you crAild
see him?' its sold, 'Oh yes.' j(eflid, 'veil, you ere looking at tam.' so
we had another big jubilie, iinue the 'Oh be Joyful' which we hod In Gorden
City, Yanene, on the rourth of July forty-four years ego."