Document text
?hipp4, Joody
Rangelore
arrant o., Dist. #7
T.lt. 'Tines, 88, was born on his father's
farm in Flayae Co., N.C. He was taught
to ride horses before he was eight, and
worked them to plow with he was
10. Be decided to seek hts fortune in
2exas when he reached 21, and luiediately
left home. He was employed as a cowboy
on the NUT Ranch in Erath-Co. for three
Yrs., then one Yr. on the IR Connected,
also in lisath, for one Tr. He was then
employed on the LXL in Hardeman Co. for
three Yrs. Leaving the trio he went to
Demming N.M., Where he was employed for
one Yr. by the Floreda Land Cattle Co.
of jetialla !lo., who owned and operated
the KILL Ranch near Deming. The fore-
man of the -ranch sent him to Ft. worth
rexas with a train load Of beef. Ifter
handling the FTh beef, he decided to
remain there and enter the +settle Comm.
business. fitter five Yrs in the Comm.
business, ,he was injured by a steer and
retired from all activity. 'Us residenoe
is now at 925 E. Hattie St. Ft. North,
'111M. 7ris story:
*.,,age #1
T was born in a log cabin miles and miles away from
anything like a town, but I wasn't born right on the range, as you
mi_ht say. I was born Sept. 13, 18,89, .in 7nyne Co., N.C. "y dad
'inn a pretty good sized farm with a few head of milk cows, whioh I
hazed a.round bonsiderable after I was taught to ride hosses. Now,
Cr just when I lernt to ride, I can't say but I know T was riding
before I was eight because I was plowing in the field before I was
10. That I know rnd am sure of.
And, I really thought I know d enough about cow o:itters
to make n !ood cow punch by the time I was 21, but right there was
where I got my heir in the batter, as the feller said. On my 21st
birthday, I told my parents I was coming to -e*as and be a cow puncher
on some big ranch because that was what I was born for, had it in my
ti
bl)od ant, couldn't get it out. yell sir, my dad just grinned end told
71hinps, :oody Page #2
T4angelore
?arrant Co., Dist. 7 FC
me I might's well le-rn right now as let- r on down the road that
punching cows wasn't the bid of roses it looked like. :la bawled
and out up a lot about it, but after dad took her off r,nd talked
to her, she dried up and seeLied to be resigned. I always figured'
he'd told her I'd get off a few miles, then come beak home like
a whupped pup. If he did,. I told myself that here's where he's
going to be fooled aplenty because I wee a man and could sot like'
a man.
long sometime the next day, dad gave me a skilny. old
work nag and told me thPt I'd better take that one because the oow
outfits furnished ho-ses end he couldn't afford to, be the loser of
a hoss._ Needed them for to work he said. ?or a hull, I had to
take and old tree tirt al the lenther'd been wore off, tie it on
with a rope and make my stirrups with short pieces of rope. I
finally got fixed and left the morning of the second day after, our
talk about me going away.
I just had about five do 'ars in money, and by the time
got along in deep Georgia, I was dead broke but I wouldn't go
beck. Yot a couple of months there before I got to rath Co. in
:exaa, I lived on mighty little tlse but wild game. 71enty of
thft, alright, but I'd been used to a change now and then and I
was beginning to get plenty lean.
In thosc days, any traveler that came ino a ranch yard was
asked to Light, netghbor, end feed your nag, then come and get your
own nose into the feed beg.. Or, if it was near mega time for every
body, they invited you to:rest yourself an come in at meal time.'
het was the way it wee everywhere, but I was leaty of what they'd
Phipps, 400dy
Bangalore
Tarrant Co., Di:;t4, tp7
Page 3
say about my trampy outfit. Why, I looked a 1 .t worse'n them old
iaddle bums thnt used to make the- country, and'd never work for
nnybody at any price. Well you see. I'd never been frombehind
my ma's apron strings 1(1 ree'ly didn't know how to make it around.
tll I had ran the will not to go back, and you can't eat that.
One day while riding throug Prath Co., I came to a ranch
and was so hungry thrt I d idn't care what was said or done. I wanted
to eat if they'd let me. Instead of wking fun of me, they fed me
and ofrered me n job if I'd take it. Tekelt2? I told the ram rod
to put me at anything he had for me to do, regardless of what it was,
becruse a job wi,s the one thing I wento and nothing else but.
7 Was so anxious that the whole crew of cow punchers busted out
laughing.
The ram ro(:, Jake Nut, told me that T could have a job
punching cattle providing I could rid bosses. "hen he turned
around and said:That thing you've got there's not a hoes. Its a
bone bag.'
I thought he just vatnt riding hosses like we worked
beck on the farm. Sleek, fat; pretty farm hosses. Not anything
like the stock you have on the tar: i today. Not a -tall, but they
beet the nag I rode into the auT Spread, so I told him I'd ride
most anything he had to get the job.'
That statement cost me a few bruises because I didn't
know they had concentreted.dynamite in lerther cases they celled
hosses, down here. .Now give you a sort of a picture of what
happene d thnt first morning. One -of the boys stalled me in the
bunkhouse for about 30 minutes after the rest had gone to the
Ross corral, telling and 'hoeing me hOw the boys lived, showing me
:oody
'Rangelore
Tarrant Dist.
Page 14
n fiddle they used for Musio whrn they felt romantic, end having
me read my bunk. That's What they called it when you loAed into
your covers for varmints. I just th,ught he was being floe to me
beoeuse I was a new hand and he wanted me to get broke into the
routine ,Iround there.
Well, sir. One of the boys oeme to the bunkhouse and told
us that all the hoses were saddled and we might's well cone on and
get started out to work. -Ist went down, and some of the boys were
already in their saddles.. One of them showed me the nag,I was to
ride, and it looked like it was gentle. in fact, it was the worst
1)oking one of the whole outfit. Shaggy, nothing like the rest of
them rode. I didn't say anything but climbed into the sadJle right
quick, then one of the boys closed the -grate. You see, my hoes was
still inside, but the rest of them had their's outside._ Well sir,
I no sooner -hit thet hull 'til hell busted loose. I wesn't on
th.,,t hose as long's it tskes to tell it "til I hit old mother mirth
on all fours.
I'd never seen a bucker working out, so I thought I'd dame
something or other to soars the nag. ?Al the fellers were busting
their innards laughing at me, but I thought, I'll show them.' I
started towards the oss, and a couple jumped down off the fence to
help me. ?hey helped me get into the saddle, and then we were off
to the races. I stayed for about a minute this time, then got
throwed oft. I thought than fellere'd die a -laughing at me.
They went on to work, then,. and Jake hisself owe and
helped me get my hull on another broom tail. This one wasn't so
bad, but T never rode him eiaher. The truth of the matter is, I
didn't rtd, a hoes that 'week. Thee dad blamed old Mustangs throwed
Phipps, :;oody
R..ngelore
-arrant Jo., Dist. 17
?age 45
me more thun 50 times before 1 finally stuck and steyed on one. I
wcs so sore I walked like I had a hump in my back big's a camel's.
Iow you can laugh all you want to, but I was a wreak. Them reseals
like to hove got me before I got one of them.
-hPt we "cod training for me though, becia.ise I busted in
a wild' one fore the next ?all roundup. ?lei busted him in and I
was the only one 130 ever ride him 'til he was a cutter.
T lit on the NUT right at the start of roundup, and they
kent me busy at the branding fire. I don't know just how many
('Algies ,did slap the -71T iron on, but there was e many a one, "1
tell you for sure. I expect there was right olose to a 1,000 dogies
out the iron on.
The say you get the dogies into the br-nding place is to
roundup al I the cattle on the range. The way that's done is for all
the ranchers from roundabout that parttoulr:r range to have men
represent them in the roundup, an go to all the places 'wattle
could've drifted to in. about five month's time. Thr,t was in the
day of the open range, although I was still on the VT when the
range began to be fenced in rrath.
I was on the VT thre., year's before I left. During that
three yePrs, I srve at least two pretty good sired stnmpedes a year.
Now, there's s sight you ought to see. A herd on the stampede.'
They don't have a lick of sense Pt thet time, and will run over
anything not too big. It its too big, the herd will ;To around,
but will follow the leader. They all have leaders. T'ro one to
seven or eight at p time during r stampede, an all the leeders
head the same way, working together. But even they don't know
*here they're going, an,, likely as not they'll leed.a herd over
Phipps, :oody Page 0
Rongelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. #7 FC
a precipice, a canyon wall, the banks of a deep arroyo, drew, or
anything. :hey'll lead them right into water where a number of
them are bound to drown. And, if e man happens to be in front of
the herd an falls. Tell, its just too bad for him for he had a
bad day.
)iie of the most wonderful sights there are to see anywhere
is when the lightning plays over a herd during an eleotrio storm.
I've aotually soon a big bolt of lightning bounce over and erulnd a
herd %just as it it was a big ball being shoved around bye kid.
ilat's one of the many things about cowboy life the picture shows
have missed making a picture of. nd, you know why? I'll tell
you its because there's sci much danger rirht then. 'nd good reason
too. I'd be soared if e ball of lightning bounced around over my
head, so a herd's bound to get soared. 14 the time lightning 'gets
to going good, the herd's alre:dy standing end reAy to run. Its
what they call instinct. :hen, when a bell bounces around, you're
,ighty lucky if you can keep them quiet 'til the bell jumps off.
Then, on th other hand, you never can tell which way a herd will
stampede, and if you had a bunch of people eround herd, some of
of
them wouldn't be fit to make, mud pies out/nfter about I 000 head
of beef stomped them down.
Lightning's just one of the many thinge'll.stampede a
herd of cattle. hid animals, sudden rackets, anythin4:91l. do it.
Thy, one of the stem edes on the %UT was caused by a stranger riding
up to the herd and get:i g down off his hoes. It'd already been
raining, and when its rainilig.a herd°11 get up ,n, put its tails
to the direction the rain's aoA.ng from. liey're mighty skittish
right then, too, and are (area y on their feet. ell, this feller's
Phipps, 400dy
Nnagelore
Dist. /7
sporting some dudish.tri-imings on his hosa'sj,eigns, and they
tinkle as he gets off. You might's well fired a eeanon beesuso
after one of th-n snorted, another snorted, and the rams was' on.
of course, I was right at him when he got off his hoop,
but 7 never did see who bowled hi n over with a reel swift kl4k
efter the herd got a -going. 7e cussed a -plenty about that, thee
his hoes joined the chase too. T!e was two drys getting his boss:
beck, then Jake Nut introduced 'him as a pros)eotive buyieft En
didn't buy nny NUT stock, but noboey cared* He (mused the Onyiri
an extra week's work rounding thet herd up again for they never
did get it to mill, even thoulkthey made tries tine end *0144.
One of the beet cutting hosses the NUT *ported even get
killed bystmbling. The only reason his rider wasn't killed 'MC
because he was throwed i to e small cut the critters jumped*
Speaking of hossep, the NUT kept a regular hose atio*Or
on the sprend, but most o the boys liked to bust in their, own":
troom tails. *e one I busted in, I watched the others de it
before T. tackled it. hen I et the heckamore, they only heit.on
for some reason or other. _11(1,- they only warited one being beet4W,
at ri time. 'het way, there wee -_)ne in the- corral all thO tine*
Mile I was longer busting mine then the others vote
their's, my hose turned out right well and was a top'eutter for
any aprer.d. Jake gave hi:: to me because I busted him myself, and,„
had had to much trluble learning to ride to stnrt with. AfieP
was mine, T named him Star. because of a white snot on his
forehead thet looked something like n star. I really think there
was four points, I'm not sure,. but I know there was thee.
Star was the only rei1 hoes I ever °valid*
Phipps, foody
7r3n eel 're
Terrant co., Dist. !"7
Page 48.
the NU' after three years on it, I went over to J.R. Longacre's
ranch. It was also in Ereth Co., and was every bit as big a spread,
if not maybe a little bi7ger. Longacre hired me hisself, after
1)oking Star over and making me en offer for him. I wouldn't lull,
so he gave me a job on the spread. -ossibly thinking I'd maybe
change my mind later on. As didn't know how much I loved old 3tar,
and wouldn't have traded him for the moon.
I worked two roundups, the Spring and rall, then left
-his spreed too. I don't recall just how many heed he run, but- his
iron was the J. Connected,' made like this:
I heacied for the ?anhandle when I left the ..111, but went
to work for the LXL in Herdemen Co., owned by the 3:-iith brothers.
:hey worked a lot of "exioens on the LXL, nnd run around 15,000
head in their iron. Ihy, I reckon they branded ',000 dogies every
year, with whet they bought and raised too. "hey bought from every
body that had something to se -1 for not much. That was their
policy.
'nother policy of their's, and the one th,A didn't make
suoh a hit with me, was their wonting to hire rs cheap as they
could. hey never run it wider me, though. I told them I wouldn't
chaperon cows around for lens thrn 30 and', so they gave it to me
bew.use they needed to hire a few whites to run their Spike. "ex
One of the outstanding things about the !,XL, in my mind,
was how the Spike were forever fighting. Just any litAe old
thing, and they'd go at it. Thr, way they fought, was to wrop a
blanket.around One arm, then hold a. knife in the other hand. The
blanket was used as sort of a shield to defend themselves from each
others They fought to kill, but when one of them was hurt pretty
Phipps, loody
P-mgelpre
-arrant Co., Dist* 17
Page 19
bad, the others'd horn in tid step the fray. The whites on the
spread didn't care how much they out and gouged. In feet, a few
of them encouraged more fights, thinking May e they'd all kill each
other and then we ,might have white Sow punchers on the spread* No
luck as tar's that was concerned, though.
Now ranch work in Texas was pretty much the same all
over. Stampedes when you had herds rounded up, branding 411 the
Spring and ?ell sale cattle shipped.after the Fall roundup, and
so on. I don't recollect the road but our beef vas' shipped by
-railroad from the L.
There was just one thing besides 1pik help that was different
on the LXT., and that was the Spik's way of mounting a hoes and rop4ng.
I don't know -if T can make it plain to you, but the •Spik whirls his
cast to the left while the -white's cast was made to the right. That
is, he whirled his rope on his ri,clIt before casting,. rtv the Spik's
on the opposite. Then, in mounting- a hos, enwhite-would oath a-holt
of his sad 1. horn, jump up nnd pull at the same time, litterally
whet they call, vaulting into the sedle. The Spik, though, he'd
just cub into his hull. As tar's being the best, there wasn't
much difference there because the greasers could really rope and
ride'. They could hold their own, but didn't have the guts the whites
had, end thrt made the whites the better cow puncher where any
difference was made-r-teCl.
After three yenre on the LXL, I left and went 4est. I
was on my own for over two months, I reckon, before I lit in Defaming,
and was hired by Shy, the ram rod for the Kill -nch, a few
miles out of De-ming. KILL was the iron but the name of the spread
was the Floret,. Land And Cnttle Co., and owned by a bunch of Sedalia,
Phipps, ,loody
Pangelore
Airrant Jo., Dist.
',.ge 410
No. bankers.
There wasn't so many head on the spread, around 1,500. ie
had a lot of trouble with the bandidoes from aoross the :':exican
border. he sprea.d wasn't but about 26 miles N. of the line to
.AFrt with, and the country was plenty mountainous. -lint gave the
bandidoes, Mexican bandits, -rustlers, and so on, a better shot at
the beef as close to the border as we were.-
That was one of the reesons the. KILL spread hired nothing
put top heads that were fast and straight with their 'end. There
Was one buckaroo with the ITL that could certainly spreql his lead
around fast and fancy free. His name was !ob :clarlejr, and the
rifle he oarrled was about the best and truest in that pert of the
country.
The rifle lee presented to hi: by the citizens of a little
old mining town in :.rizona. jharlestoan. It was on aocount of a
fight with some IndiAls. IcFarley had been used to roaming around
over the country, working when he wanted to, and not workinF when
-he-didn't feel like it.
One day he topped a pretty high hill, end heard some Shots
down the side, pretty close to where he was, so he rod L to see what
was coming oft. Alen he got Io where he could see, he saw about 30
Indians shoAing-at a party of char coal burners. Now, that's all
I 'know about whet they done in the line of work, but I've heard the
story about the fight from four or live different sources. Bob says
he left his hose hobbled, clinbed down the hill to ft spot of good
advantage, then went to picking off Indians.
Now, you know when an Indian gets ki led, the. rest are
more daring in getting his body then they are in fighting, for some
"body
tingolore
2arrant Co., Dist. :7
Page /11
re:' son or other, and that way, nobody hardly ever knows just how
iny.indinns get killed. 1,nyway, When the fight me over and the
red skids kept trying to get one of them that had sneaked his way
-up to where he had an awful advantage over the miners, or, burners,
and iob had opened up on him the first thing and killed him, 7Iob
would pick them off as they sneaked or ran into get this red skin.
ot) !says he knows he killed not less than 15 of them devils in all,
and 10 of them while they tried to get that one body. They finally
left the Indian there*
Bob says the burners henrd him grunting that Indian
pnrley voo all during the fight Vs kept trying to te 1 them to
bent it 7-nd leave 11112, ,but he must have been.en important'braide
or something becruse they kept trying to get him anyway. Ilhey
felt thrit as 1,ng':: he. was alive, thrt they might get him and he'd
be able to liveand fight again.
Along about dark, the red skins gave up and left, and
the Indian was dead when the burners come out to see vtist had
been left. I think :job said the burners told him there'd been
14 or them when Ihe,fight started,an&tho soldiers had, found where
theyIddirns had waite for four days for the burners to get away
from their rifles. That was one reason the burners made sudh
bad showing was because only three or four of them got to rifles*
There were only five of them left, andob atayed right
with them 'til they got help froi ,Charleston and the wounded ones
had sort of! ,-rot holed over*
Four or five days after the fight, a company of soldiers
showed up. .-lhey'd round where the Indianald camped, and had trPiled
them to where the fight took place. 'hen the captain walked up to
290 42
Pengelore
Thrrant Jo.,' 74st. '17 ,PC
the tent rhere fob was flopping, he stopped to look_at the dead
Indian thg't Bob had hung up on a tree about 20 foot from his tent.
?he captain told Bob not to harm the, body beoauie he intended to
send e wagon out from the post to get it and give it a burial.
9ob .id, burial, hell: 'hat's my Indian and if you
bother him, I'll put you up on that limb alongdide him.' The cep'
didn't bother to argue tbout it but went to his men and left.
I've heard Rob tell how he tried to make the burners that
tr.d been left feel better by hanging the red skin up and using him
for dinner bell. ,:hen- one of them got the meal ready, he'd go
to the body and beet on it, and it'd make a little noise. If left
very long, it'd prrched over like a drur-. because thet's en awful
dry country out there. I don't know how much noise the thing'd
made nor how far you oould hear it, but it was a good idea.
Mrn'ys the time I've read the silver bade on the stook
of the rifle. It said, ?RF3ENTED r6 ROB :!CPARL7Y FOR FJP/VORY
'"ON1 UMIANS., :Y :ITIzEilp CY! CHARLESTON ARIZONA.'
I" liked the 71oreds spread, but muerte), or other, I still
wasn't satisfied. I wanted to trt,vel or something, and When the
chance came to go to ?ort Alieth with a tr in l )ed of beef, I asked
for the job of earth' for the beef en route. Thy gave me the job,
and rfter the commission co hendled it here in rort -orth, I wired
ly I wouldn't be beck because T ems gong into the cor;niqsion
business here.
lv t I done, for five years. '1.ght still be at it but
one of the orrvry critters we had to handle in them days, gored me
up Iretty bad end laid me up. The only saving thing about it all,
was thet I'd saved all the tiAle T worked and had a nice RR laid away
Pm getting the old age ens on now, and everything's alright: