Document text
With tor, lhellon
Rangel or e
arrant lo.,"list.
7Iage
Tiichard rfurphy, 52, livin-! at 2927
'eventh Fart Worth, Tex. ,was born
i'larott 1,1885, at napout (now Holden),
3row-n-o0-.',Tex. His father, ilartin Airphy,
moved to Haskell, Haskell co.,Tex., in 1895,
and engaged in construction woik. liohard
Murphy secured work on the 'T niamond Ranch',
located 2? miles 1C. of ,marillo,Tex.,in 1896.
w -in he was U. years old, and where he ranained
antil 1902. He quit to take a job with the
'Turkey '-i‘raok lanch', boosted, in '‘riz. He left
thelTurkey "rack Ranch'in 1915 anti returned to
Tex. re then went to work for the ''Ave Wells
Janch', located in Andrews co., keret he re-
mained until 1918. After the drought or 1918
in the indrews Co. section of Tex., he !Tethered
23 carloads of bones and shipped them to Niles,
where they were contracted for by the 7illiams
-etal 'iono Co. 7rith the money he received for
the Iones, he purchased a farm, El 14 thereafter
,iem in fi rming. ilis story:
"1 vw.3 n on a £r.na near Ilapout (now Hold en) Tirown co.
Tex., March 1,1885. in Iwas 10 years ,7,1d, my father fire -zed
out to Haskell, ''''askell oo.,Tex. My father he learned the
oarpenter trade an' oL1.ei it in Haskell.
The next year, lB96, I draed out of Haskell for the
Skillet section of Tex. I lit on the liamond' outfit, which
wee located 2'7 miles nr,rth of Amarillo; awl there I nested for
six years, quittin:, the outfit in 1902. "7hen I lit in t' -at Sec-
tion, le n 't s up se there were 20 acres of land under cal ti
vett on in the whole section. It was just one cattle rare, with
a numblr of cow camps dotted here and there. The foreman on
the'T liamondt ranch at the time I lit there, Heal ',?h,ite, was
the owner. 'flie reml sr hands were John 9t oak fo (in or ;715
White, Geore (Jesse James, Ross 7'arnell, and John Held,
Oanthier, Iheldon
rtane:al
Tarrant los,list.P7
Page -42
Ito was the belly -eater when we were out with the ohack
wagon.. When we were in oamp Miss "Mite, dauo•hter of the
big auger, cooked our ahack. In arid it ion to Vat regular crew,
we had a few extra hands Itho WOrked derirr, Vie roundup.
",1t the time I lit on the IT niemond' outfit, r was for
sure a 'greener' green as an alfalfa field about cow work.
111 that T. could do was to sit straddle of a hose, but if it
switched it's tail I would .op into a spill. However, it didn't
take me long to get hipped about ne aork. I W39 t good hands,
!Islamise practically all ef• the waddles were old rawhides, and
top hands. It was sti open range, running around 3,0a) head of
white flee Herefords and 1,000 head of Ipenish breed hosses.
wily first wort was riding the range, looking for strays and
banged up critters. Tfy rtding pal was *Jess** Jame, the best
rieter I evr saw. He was called 'Jesse,' after .Tesse Jams, the
old °atlas, beeanas of his riding and shooting ability. He .7-ove
me some good riding pointers and I did a pert lot of practicing
under his directions. zhenever we had time,a wild bronoho was
saddled; ard I would try my hand at bustin,:, bronohos. fit,
I would. watch James ride 'em, to get next to his methods; V-Ien,
*lea I reckoned I had all his tricks in DikV conk, I tried to do
likewise. I put a blanket roll at the front and rear of the saddle
seat, which wee used as a brace when I first tried to ride 'sm.
?Nen I wedged in between the two rolls I lid Mike the grade of
staying with the critters and was soon able to discard the rolls.
"Inside of a month, I was ridin,r, with the average wallies
T practiced roping alon-o with the rid ing, arvi better* the year was
up I was working as a top hands At least the big sager reoboniti
4 Gauthier, litheldon
Rangelore
Tarrant 0o.,"nist.f?
age /3
is a top hand, booms.* he raised my wages from lb.00, the amount
started with, to $0.00 per month.
"The 'TV outfit joined the 'T %amend' outfit on the south,
which was owned by the Johnson brothers. The °Q, Bar' wa a\o the
west or us. with George Lengly as it's top serew. The twitters
belonging to ea oh of those outfits were mixed among our a little;
end, likewise, the T nlairond critters were mixed in snore the
eattie of those other ranehes. "luring rouidups all of the ranehes
in that emotion threw in together and worked first, one ransPe and
Vien the other, until the whole range section he bees gone over.
It took us around two months to make the roundup, ant d,rrini, those
two months we lived in the open and it was our hardest period of
the year. 're did our sleeping rolled up in.4 blanket, with our
conks 'eyed on saddle. Living in the open was not bad, except
When a spell of westher hit in on us; then it did call for a home
sweet home sow?. Th., rawhides nesting with the outfit was a
Jolly bun. of bunkaroos who took things as they were and said,
lit *mild be worse*.
We were always tarnished with plenty of good chuck for lining
uur flues, and John geld was a top chttok fixer. He was tops when
it came to fixing beef and beans; and, when mixing the sour-clough
for bread, he knew how to manipulate it.
"T worked at cutting out, during the roundup, the s000nd year
t was with the "T liamond' outfit." had worked with a number
bosses in my •tring. to fit the animals for cutting wo2k, end
there wire three of those critters that could do a jamb -up Job
as cutting bosses. The bosses did enerything but pick out the
critter. and throw the rope. They were fast, and could turn on a
4 Gauthier, Tuadon 7, Page 04
Rangelore
?arrant le.Oist.7g7 TIC
went plaft. When Twos mounted on any one of those twitters,
(settle wore put 40#11 tar the troll hooters about as fast as they
could burn the inimals,
'When the roundup was over and t'AP herd in ti -top shape,
we then went book to aur routine work; but,before getting down
to routine duties, the middies always took a little spell in
Alstrille, to shake off the roundup fever.
"Amarillo was a pure oow-town those days and run by stags.
There were Just a few women folks in the town,, ant they were at
a premium. Most of the waddles would make Vie Ulm after the
roundup, and some of the boys would stay there until all their
money was gone. lame of the boys played: the gambling joints,
some Just soaked themselves in the 'piton' and some went sally
hooting in the sally Joints. Any kind of a joint that a fellow
wanted was in the town to satisfy the waddieat wants.
"I was just a kid, but the older ',eddies took charge of is
so I wouldn't get taken in, or get in wrong. and the boys held me
down to earth, but Twat:shed and saw the optra.
"1 saw some shooting* a* many bear ftghts. Wearly all the
saloons in Amarillo, at that time, had bull -pens at the rear of
the Joints. The purpose for which the bull -pens were built was
to have a flame to shunt the fellows Oho beaame overloaded where
1.hey *mad sleep off the load of 'pisen'; also, to prevent inter-
ferenoe from the law, or meddling gentry who were looking for a
chance to satpo a roll of money. The bull -pen was also used
for a battle ground. l'hen a ooaple of fellows got riled at each
other, they were shunted into the bull- en to cool off!" The saloon
bounosrs would take the guns away from the riled men and push
Gauthier, Ihelidon 7.
Rangelore
Tarrant Co..nist.f 7
Page
PV1
Clem into the bull-pma to settle the argument, bear -fight
faehiea. That method saved a lot of shooting, but could not
be worked in ail eases and there was an °Gestational shooting,
sirliaa think of t'-ae Amarillo of those daya, I recall a
big silo that one saloon had im front of it's plates of business,
It read; 'whiskey, the road to ruin. Gone in'.
"After the bunch had Cieir fever oared, Vier would jiggle
back to the amp aret take up Ike routine work. "es would not, as
a rule, see the town except when we drove a herd of critters to
Amarillo for atiipment to tort Worth, which was where the twitters
were sold.
^At uttorillo, erittere were loaded in railway cars and
hauled to the Fbrt Worth sarket. Seas of us waddles would go
along to aot an bull -aurae to the cattle on the trip. Those of
-us who bull-nnzasi into ibrt Worth always enjoyed oureelves,for
a spell, seeing,' the stghte of tie atty before returning to the
gang; and at tires some would get to see more than they ex-
pected to look at.
"Our rautjne work oonsisted in rid ing the range and watch
in the hr's eendition, and keeping en eye peeled for rustlers.
'The site face eritters gave us very little trouble; they
were not bad about drifting, or going on a run. gonetimee, *len
a real busting storm lit in on us, with sky -fire and thunder, the
eattle would start running, but we Gould put the animals to
milling in a few minutes, or half art hour at the most. The
Hereford twitter can't run fast *sough to get a hoes warm follow-
ing it, so it's easy to handle a *temp of thoee kind of Gatti..
Gauthier, Shele OS F.
aangelore
Tarrent Co.fitet. 7
731
16
"The ruStlers were what kept the silver out of our cloud.
had a number of set-tos wit?:, the rustler', and many times
re -took our stook without seeing the rustlers.
"The hardeat scrap t took part in took piece in 1901. 4.
party of Indians came over from the Territory now k1.ahoia)
working under t"le direction of a white man named rieL, 7arrinarten,
and took 400 heed of our twitters which we had In a herd realy
for a drive to kr:at-1110 to be shioped. larrington was a known
rustler, and he used tneliayte to do his rustli. :Tave then
a percentage of the receipts from the sale of the cattle.
"rt took U.11 a week to locate that herd of 400 head.
located the cattle :.crazing in the Ohio= lanyon on the Red River,
being herded by a number of Terliane. Aceordinr; to reports we .7.!iot,
Earringtoe was away at the time fixinr a deal for delivery of the
herd. TN the hwtin pertsr, esides myself, were :rohn gtook ford,
Ross Parnell and Jeeps- James. e siphted the cattle in the ILA te
*vetting. we knew that it was our herd when we etThted it, off a
mile or more, because we had been tipped off that a herd of
critters..eerrying our brand was off in that direction.
"The radians spied us *hen we were about a half a mile off.
Roes Parnell had a sPy-glaes end could see the matlerettletail
movements, and reported to us bm saw them MONO about. It was plain
that they were get t taw ready to meet whatever was eoming, frlerlle
or foes. U. reaohed a ditiwance of eround a quarter of a mile from
where The %diens were, when they started te scatter and went
to various petits of shelter "'hat move on tool? Part pro Iced.
'Oamthier, Sheldon P.
Raw elor e
?arrant Co.,nist.f7
Page fit
an ambush 115r us the moment we started to move the stook. No
doubt the Indians reasened that, if we were not after the Gatti*
we would ride on; and, if we wire they would warm us with lead
parleyed on our best move and deoided that all of us
would start shooting at the various spots where we thought one
of the varmints were hiding. That was done to get the redskins
interested in the shooting, this let James oat book and start
drtfting the herd away. Whea he started the drift, the rest of
as were to slowly drop away from where the Tndians were hiding.
!tuft a move, we ealeulated, we sakemirsinelbr scald pull. the Endians
out of their shelter, if they !attended to fight it out. re
wanted the Indians out in the 0411/1 where we were willing to fi.,-ht
them.
'Ile followed out our plane and opened fire, shooting in the
several spots where Parnell said he saw the redskins go. Just at
the moment we started firing, the Indians started shooting, but
the range was too far for either party to do good work. After a
tow moments of shooting, Jambs dashed towards the herd and startod
the animals to moving. That move pulled the radials out from behind
their shelter, but they did not stand up red fight. They would
run a pisee,and then drop to the ground and crawl a piles towards
us. We stood our ground and there was a hot fight Dar a short spell,
and all the while James was moving the herd.
"All of u.s but Jame got nicked, and John Stookford was
wounded badly. ii died a few days letor from the effects of the
wound. We knew that one Indian wag killed ant possibly mother.
"When Jam,* had drifted the twitters about a quarter of a
mile, which did not take long, we suddenly gave our bosses the
Gauthier, Iheldon v.
Rangel or a
Tarrant Co.,nist
7'age
'11
L .3
guthooks and dashed to where the herd was. That move put us out
of range; however, we faced our mounts towards the Indians to in-
•licat e we were ready to fight. The Tndians decided that thev
had enough, becau.se they 1.1dn't follow us. fter a bit, we
dressed 7teckford's wound the best we knew how and'Let him and
Jesse drive the herd, vrhtle Parnell art r rode in to rear watch-
ing for a surprise attack. Along, about midni,tt we 'llowed t`re
critters to bed until daylight and then continued our driv e to
the ranch, which was finiehed without any further trouble.
“"hqvini-7 that rustled herd was the lorrest drive T ever
made, with one exception. I was one of seven weddies vitio went
-ith our big auger to Old Mexico, near ;tired°, ane picked up a
herd of 700 critters. The boes had bought the steers from old
f:;101 Francisco. lie paid 7.00 a head for the herd, art sold the
lot fer )27.50 a head. within 30 days after we had the critters on
the 'T. %almond.' range.
"It took us 41 d.aya rive the her'. through; and we had
t'he silver lining pulled out of our cloud Italy times or the drive.
drove the route of the old Testern Trail, which runs west ,:rf
an Antonio. /e crossed Red River at noon's Crossing and then
angled Northwest to our range. (Note: This trail 13 sometimes
referred to as the Chisolm Trail an -1 the hisolm ssing).
We had one spell of lf) straight nights that the herd went
on a stomp. They were not so bad that we could not kendle the
critters, but the stampedes put us to working plenty hard
every night to hold the herd together. Thite,"3-arnell and Jaies
had a heap of dealings with the longhorn cattle and knew how to
deal with a stampede. Them three waddies always worked in the
Gauthier, Iheldon
!tang el or e
!arrant Co „lista?
lead during a run, while the rest of us rode the his watching
for bunches that might stray from the main herd.
'None of us could get it through our oonks what ailed ,thosa
critters. The weather was pretty ant nothing unusual seemed to
take place, but every night the herd would get restless end
ally go to running. Tr! spite of all that we did to hold V-rit
hard quiet, the animals had to have their run. "le would ride the
whistling,and talking soothing prattle to the orit
tern, but t:Lat lid not 7et results. kfter the herd had run for
31 minutes or so, the boys would get the enimals ten,
in about an how, the he would be bedded and rest for the bal.-
anee of the night. The old rawhides said that tity never had
heard of a herd. acting in the sacs way.
"With all of these runs, we reached 1)oan's crossing of the
Red ?Amor without any loss, but in makinI the crossing we had
plenty of agitation.
"The river waa htigh and the water running quite swift. To
wait for the water to go down would have meant a delay of about
10 days. klso, there was a herd behind us, and Thite was afraid
that the two herds would get mixed there at the crossing and put
U.S to a lot of trouble cutting out. Secause of this situation,
White decided to ford the river in the high watv.
"fe stsrted the remuda across first, in charge of an extra
haat named Johnny Francis, and the cattle followed in charge of
the rest, of the crew. The rrent carried the whole outfit down-
stream a considerable d is tano e which caused those critters to
hit against a sheer bank on the opposite side. Also, there was
.•flauthier, Iheldon
Rangelare
-'age 4io
Tarrant Co.,"ist.P7
quicken!'" at the point. Johnny Prancee's mount went I oui with
him, and tile other hoes ee piled in on him and his mount; then the
critters piled. in on the hoes**, before the rest of u.s could cut
the herd off and head the animals further down the stre-r/ where
a larding could be made. Johnny Trrances was drowned and stomped
to death; in addition, seven head of hosses and five he of enttle.
We had to float the chuck wagon across with the ail of raft.
Two of us tied our ropes to the tongue of the ava,c7on; and
with
the ropes tied, ale°, to the horns of our sadill, we swam or
mounts across, pulling the waoen over safely to o landing.
"After we had the outfit *Gross the river, we attended to
p Ating Johnny away. 7e carried him to a cemetry at -.efors and_
there he was buried. Ye then finished our drive to the home _ nth
without: an txr the r trouble.
r
k t the "er nttriond' outfit in 1 902 EW went to Arizo.na,
where I joined up with the 'Turkey Track' outfit, located a miles
IT. of Tucson. The riarto:-1 Wil0 called the 'Turkey Track becau_ee
it's brand was the oatline of a turkey's foot. It wan waled by
the. McKinney brothers and they had 92 tteotions of land in the
range, most of it fenced. "'hat was not fenced, the mountains hold
the critters from drifting off. r stayed with the 'Tur7tey Trac:
oatfit.antil .1915, and was one of the -five hands which made up the
steady;oxen. It bein6 a.. fenced ran ge., it d id not take many hands
to deal with a herd of 4,000.
"There were two of us ridin.,F; the ranee line at all ties.en±
Vie rest of us rode tine range,keeping a watch .over the herd and
attending to the critters that needed attent ion, cutting out other
bra rds which would break through the fence every now aril then,
4 Gauthier, Iheldon
Rengel or e
Tarrant s.lo 'is t., 7
7ame
i'The qt -TV outfit was seittb of us, and the Tr west.
few cattle from each ran dh would be found on our range; and some
of our cattle would get out on the other ranges. "nvery onoe itt
a while the waddics of each rasa% would out out the off brands
and drive the twitters to the proper range.
"we lived at a Damp and the supply wagon came once each
month with our shuck and other supplies that the wade tea needed.
""e had no belly -cheater to do our cooking. It wag done f'..rat
by one and then the other, depending on who reached the carp first.
The outfit supplied us with plenty of chuck fixings. Ie had all
the eanned good! we coat eat. Cur ceolcincr art was applie4to
t: e meat, beans, cot' 119e, and bread. le eouldn't yell about the
chat* but did cuss, at times, at oUr own cooking.
"We had no rustler trouble, or stampedes, to deal with; ac
our work wan just routine, exeept at brardinr time w'ien extra help
would be used to Ited.p'.do the sob.
"I quit the urtarkey Trackl outfit after my pal, }etry or
was killed, beeause I became lonesome.
"le were all sitting aroand the campfire one night, s
yarns, and I was sittin. at the *Me of l'ord, with my right amm.
reeting on hie shoulder. Re: end r wee sinzi nig, or rather trying
toeing, the fo 1 lowt ng verse
"Take me back to ay boots and saddle,
fake ao bask to sr hoes and blanket,
Take me back to my spurn and quirt,
Take me beak to the open range
There the lonelorn and buffalo roam,.
"7e had retaelied shout the end of the song and had finished
the words 'Take me back to the open range', when a shot waa fired
ana
4 atLt-Aier, Iheldon 7.
Rargelore
Tarrant lo.,nistJ7
Page
731
fro n out of the derbies', the bullet passing through the sleeve
of my shirt and entering librd'a bead at the base of the skull.
'Te fell forward, dead.
"'There had b2en trouble between librd and a fellow named
Treary :Angie for soletime. That night, ',eels came up,unexpecte
and shot ford. :,ewis' rode away, and up to the time I left the
country had not been °aught.
"I quit the week following the shooting and came back to
Texas, tilt in the Midland section and joined the Valls'
outfit, which ranged critters around the Teener Lake section.
The outfit adopted the '5 Wells' brand beoause there were five
wells dug for water.
"I. wont throuah the drought which hit that country in
1V18. "hat dry aped gave us one of t7le bid' jobs that we were
called on to do, fire tt as watchinr for critters that went to
gnawing on bonee. 'Then cattle are starving for water or food.,
for some reason taey 1'4 I 11 pick up bones and go to chewing on
Frequently, a bone wou1 get hung in the throat or jaw of the
avowing ;Titter. It was
the anima from'ohOklnar.
"I'recall an.lecident that took plame between lab Rarriaaton
To% rale. The two manes were rilim together and spotted a
en necessary to remove the bone to save
critter that was gnawtne a bore. Than the waddles pulled the
bone out of the critter's mou.th, i slall turtle aropeed out of
the animal's mouth and crawled away.
"Now,. Harrington was rated as the biggest liar and was
proud of the title. Ile said to rate, By sod, you'll have to
tell about that turtla deal; folk" went believe it if I (shin
Gauthier, "aleIdon
Rangelore
Tarrant
:13
about it'.•
"There were tho!zsande- of ctritters thit dte'twins. tit
dry spell, and it put a .lot of cattle folks out of business.
"T raale a,,:!7col piece of money as a result of the dry spell.
T stale a eontract With 7.!.r.11iame of the ',7illiams7!etal and
Bone no., of ,nallas, Ter., in 1921, to take all the bones r.
gather at 32201 per ton. "luring a two month. period T shipood.
23 earleade of /ones, each ear holtnp around 19 tons. 11,ly total
wales were about )10,000.00.
"T gathered all the bones from around the •Thafter -,aka
section, then to ITIAland by team. 1)urinr the firet
part 3f my ben. gathering, we eotili gather s wagon load in about
30 or 40 minutes, because the ground was simply strewn with
oar W39800.
ith the rone I male out of the hone deal I bought a p ece
of land an started farming; and thkt ended my range career.
"To tell whorl T aorividered the top waddles among those
worked with is a tou!7h proposition. There were plenty of top
men, of course, some .standing out in one way or the other in t
art of the work. lirpr instance, James-1:0as.. James —of the '1,
niamontit outfit was the beat hose rider r ever saw or hear talk
about. 'Te weighed only 97 pounds, and was as quick as lightninc.
T never saw him fail to handle a critter, with or without a saddle.
He would snub a hose and then grab a handful of' mane an''
ew in
on it's baok. He could, in some way, stay with any of the pito'vars,
One time I watched him stay with a critter for MIX a day, and
without a saddle. :le just tuekered that animal plum out.
r7wIthier, gheldon P.
Rangeloro
Tarrant Ooi!jniat.457
?age /14
"John- qteakford was anon,' the best ropers. T have watched
many waldies put on the show t am-goini,7 to teLl about, but none
could beat John at it. We would put a wild hoes or steer in the
pen all drive it around at top speed. 7fhile the critter was run-
ning we would call the leg for Jon to loop and he would lo it,
rarely missimg4t.
"John gtecktord could do a trick of shorting that -T have
never seen any other person do. 7e woulA place two posts abellt
50 feet apart and while mounted on a hoes, startinbzack _a•cled
50 feet, he would ride towards the posts. nen ho arrived wIthin
25 feet ó f the posts, he stetted shooting, Using two six-guns,
one in each hand, he sould put 10 out of 12 bullets irlt the
pests by the tile he reac,led an even line of he posts.
ly best act was whrlin;:: tile rope, ail T was rated next to
John Itockford.