Document text
daps, .00dy
,ngelore
rrant Co., List. 7
2age
FC
J.ia. brown, 54, was born on his father's
stock farm, which waa located 12 74i. N. Z.
of Ft. ',Aorth, Texas. bron was taueht to
ride a horse at an early age, and WE13
emlloyed by his father to take care of his
stock when Brown was eight years old, his
ambition as a child was to be a real bronc
buster, such as he saw when his father took
laim to Fort ..worth. t every op)ortunity,
he rode unruly horses until he was recognized'
as an able horse trainer. bud Leggett, who
owned a ranch 15 Mi. N. of ft. 4orth, employed
him ds a bronc buster in l849. This became
his life's vocation, working intermittently
for i,agtett, J.R. Jameson, a horse dealer,
and the Collier Ranch, located on Rock Creek,
near Ft. Worth. 1:hen he wasn't employed as
a horse trainer, he dealt in cattle until
the injuries he recieved if; his vocation'
forced him to retire from all activity in
1D37. Brown now resides at 3010 Clinton
ve. N. Ft. :;orth, Tex. Flis story:
You're looking for ola ox -cow hands are you? dell, you're
blalking to one that used to be considered a right able Drone buster.
I've wet narsea a few cow critters in my time too. The trouble about
all is, that I've gone through so much misery lately, that it's hard
Iller me to thinx about anying but my aches und pains. I hurt all
4
sr, all the m just like a punch drank prize fighter. I
g-ibt hurt in the bisiness, and I'll never get over it.
Ahero I first learned to ride, was on my father's stock
tlarn1 he used to run about 12 miles L. of here. I was born there,
41 ?lay the and, 1883. 1. reckon I Wa3 riding before I was five years
ofd because my dad used me as a cow puncher when I wasn't but eight.
4 course, he didn't run so many head, from 10 to 50, but,I rode herd
11 all he had 'til bud Daggett hired me in l8VW, to work for- him.
I didn't go to work for Bud as a cow puncher, though.
hired me as a brow) buster. That was what I done all my life when
could get that kind of work. I elan resell when I was it kid, how I
AkAways wanted to be a real brone boater whan,l,foiew ap aald I'rede
sliipps, Woody
Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. qv
Page ik
PC
everything I could get on. then dad went to the field to plow and I
had to go to help, I'd ride on one of the mules. iamin dad went to town
for sup lies and woulan't let me take a boos for myself, I'd ride one
of the team. Many's the licking I caught for riding the yearlings on
the )lace. Dad said I rode the fat off them, and might break their backs.
I didn't care, though. What I wanted to do, was to learn to ride 'en
roggh. And I didn't care how rough.
"I guess every kid has belonged to a gang at some time or
other. AS far apart as we lived, we still had a gang of kids that would
get together for a little fun. We'd spot a yearling that belonged to
somebody, then go ride him that night in the moon light. Anything to
ride something. We got good, too. We got so good that it was pretty
hard to throw us. I believe Ives about the best rider in our gang,
though, for that was my ambition. When I was about l5 years old, I
could ride anything anywhere, and dad give in to letting as ride. He
told mother that I could take pare of myself pretty well. She never
aid give in, but I think that's the way women are anyhow.
Ever since I can recall, Fort Worth has been a cattle ship-
ping point. You see, the railroads oats to Fort Worth about the year.
I was born. Jinee. then, the railroads carried more and more beef, 'til
when I got to be a good sized kid, the trail drives were a thing or the
past. The reason I mentioned this was, to tell about us driving our
beef to Fort Worth to sell it. We'd make up a herd of all dad wanted
to sell, then drive it in. That was the high light of my kid experiences.
Those truil drives. dome people would laugh at them, because they were
so short, but to me as a kid, they were something. Why, we even had
several stampedes in that short a distance. It recaly doesn't make any
difference -in how far you drive them. The first 50 miles are the bard
eat anyhOw. We'd set the bird on wow, Oen some 0 Uwe 11044.
?hips, 'Woody ?age #3
Rangelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. fl FC
want to break back to their home pastures. A stampede with just a few
critters can cost quite a bit of money if they get hurt while stomping.
Dad never lost, though, because the land was pretty level. Fenced too,
but a fence doesn't mean a thing to a critter on the stomp. I've seen
big stomps whore the critters just run over a fence as if it wasn't
there.
When I got to be about 16 years old, went to a place
where when they had a stomp, it meant something. Bud Daggett hired me
as a Drone buster, and he run around 6,000 bead in the D iron, 15
miles from town, due North. I didn't have so awful much busting to do
because he had some other good riders on the place. There was Walter
Campbell, Lay Singers, Walter Lions, Will Green, and others. Cow
Dunchers are like boomers. They drift to a plows, work awhile, then
drift along. bud wouldn't hire a man though, unless he could really
ride and rope. You take most of those fellows, and they were good
shots, too.
Of course, Fort Worth and Tarrant county was pretty well
organized, and settle rustling was held down pretty well. Better than
it is now, because nowadays, the rustler uses a truck to do hie stealing
with. A truck with the tail gate forming a ramp. He can out a fence,
drive right up to a herd, run a couple to three or four up the ramp,
put the ramp up to make his tail gate, then drive off to a buthher's
where the beef will be butohered in a epouple of hoursi the hide end
offal burnt, and no tell tale spots left. Nobody but the butcher and
the driver knows a thing about it.
What rustling we had was very little. Stampedes, fights,
and fenoe trouble was all we had to bother us. You could pretty well
figure on a stomp almost everytime you rounded up a herd at critters.
Ali?ps, Woody
Rang -lore
Tarrant Cu., gist. -17
Page 1f5
FC
outfit. If too much fire water hadn't been ta&en on, usually the outcome
would be a small sized rodeo. We'd all go to the pasture just North of
the river, and ride the worst hosses Jo could find in Fort Worth. We
could always find several bad hoses in town, because nearly everybody
kept bosses and the worst boss in the world, I guess, is a saddle hoes
gone bad. They're usually killers, and try to paw a rider to death.
These rodeos always provided a goad show, dud hardly ever
wa.. anybody hurt. Reason for that was because there was a -plenty good
riders around to help, and if it lo,ked like a rider taiga get caught,
somebody'u ride between the boss and the man and help him.
There was one cow t.uncher'that worked on the Daggett place
off and on, that was the worst at starting these fight's a anybody I
ever heard of. Re was one of these picture show kind of cow punchers.
The swagering, showy type. He'd wear his chaps to town, and swagger
around like a rooster on parade. The trouble about his swaggering was,
that he was able to about call any of his bluffs. He was as good a
rider as I ever saw, and a dead allot. He was so good, and careless
with it, that he was always getting into hot water with the law here
and having to go to Oklahoma. Then, the next time he showed up, be
was running from the law in Oklahoma. He was always either running
rim the law here ort he law there. Oh yes, his name was Old Renee.
n11 the old timers here knew lim.
I worked for Bud Daggett off Aid on, about 10 years altogether.
While 1 waAft working for him, I was busting bosses for J.R. Jameson,
a hoes dealer. He bought bosses in West Texas, drove 'es here, bad me
bast 'am, then drove 'onto East Texas, where he could always find a
buyer. He'd drive from 160 to 200 head at a time from somewhere in
West Texas. It took quite a taw riders to ride herd on that may of
thorn at a time, but hied got *ma through sone may or other with as tow
ihipps, Woody
hangelore
Tarrant Co., Ast.
Page ft6
PC
riders as he had to have. His system was to have a brow, buster partly
breLk "em as the bosses were caught, then drive tam here to Fort Worth,
have me finish the job, then drive 'am on, to his market. You see, the
handling between West Texas and here would make the busting easier, and
take me less time. he made -,lenty money doing that.
"1 worked about five years straight for him. Going with him
to est Texas. We'd trap the bosses in the ale Duro canyon, the
Yellowhouse Canyon, and other places Where nature fixed part of a boss
trap for you. When you could get the 'losses into a canyon, you Could
either run 'em into a blind canyon, if you found one or, you could
block up one end of a canyon, and keep riders at the end you drove the
herd into. It just wasn't hardly possible to trap 'em other wise. I've
heard a lot about creasing them, but that's easier told than done. Too
much danger of killing your hose because the creasing place was so close
to the head.
The business of trapping wild bosses goes pretty hard on a
man became.e you have to keep after the herd ror two and three days,
riding in relays. The wild bosses always ran in big, wide circles,
trying to keep as close as possible to their hors grounds. This way,
all you had to do, was to follow the herd, find out where it was used
to getting it's water, and grating. After you got this, you started
chasing it. Once it makes a circle, you can depend on it that it will
usually stay right in the circle it made at first. After getting the
.circle fixed, we'd station tuen along the route with fresh flosses to
relieve the riders in after the herd. After the herd had run a couple
of days without rst, it wasn't so wary. You had to run "ea down to
catch 'en because they were too wary to go into a trap 'til they were
real tired out. Even then, it wasn't easy to trap them.
.1'hipps, Woody
R6ngelore
Tarrant Co., Dist. ;17
Pa60 07
rc
The real work comes after, the herd he been trapped; Then
the hose buster catches it. The men working with him, go into the
corral or trap, and rope one of then. Then they'll bring it outside,
or the busting will be done inside. Whenever it's done inside the
corral, a man has to be kept on the watch that the other bosses don't
go wild and try to kill the buster when be gets thrown. That's an,
angle I never beard talked about much, but it's a real one for a wild
boss buster because sometimes a hose in the wild herd will try to fight
a buster. .usually they 're so wild that they have to be caught to
get 'em aroind a man.
rater the men working with the buster have a saddle on the
wild hoes, they keep it tied to the snubbing post 'ti] the rider gets
on. Then they wait 'ti] everybody is out of danger before they turn the
wild hail; loose. When he's turned loose, 95 out of a 100 of them will
try to turn themselves wrong side out to get rid of it's rider. They'll
pitch so hard that it's nothing at all unusual for a brine buster to
quit a boss with his nose bleeding. Sometimes, they don't get to quit.
sometimes the hos.catches the buster in smeh a way that he breaks his
ribs, or he gets thrown and fails to light right, and breaks a neck, a
leg or somethini. That's the worst part of the business, but it's all
in the day's work. after a bronc buster gets thrown once, reel good,
as a rule, he's good ibr nothing else but a three by six hole in the
ground. Very very few of 'em ever come baoA. after one good throw.
That's what's the matter with no today. I've been thrown
so mapy times that I'm just cheating the undertaker by living. After I
worked for Saieson„ I broker bosses every Summer for the Collier Relish
out on Rock Greek. I'd bast 30-40 head every Summer for them.
That's abLut all the heas basting I done en a big seals.
I never wet nursed many sows beside* tbr the Usage's,* gale* I -414. 440
:live. Woody
RangelOre
Tarrant Co., .4st. '77 FC
?age
herd on a good sized herd which was located right where the Fort aorth
;)took Yards are located right now. It was In 1A00, and Sansom Herald
had 1500 heed of 9 CD cattle he was holding there. He hired me as an
extra rider because they were having so much trouble. They were old'
starved steers, and they'd stampede every night. No matter what we
done, them steers stampeded every night. They'd run any direction,
just so long as they was running away from that spot. We never did find
out if anything but starvation W41 running them. Finally though, the
T.11. got us some cattle oars so's we could load 'am and get 'em off
our hands.
The Collier Ranch brand woks the 7K connected. You make
it by making the 7, then making the K right with it, using the back
part of the 7 for the fore part of the K. To save me, I can't rev:0110ot
ho many head they run, nor the ram rod's acme. I expect it vows
Collier himself though, because it was about an average ranch of those
days.
"Well, I've helped all I wad. I could tell lots *ore but
I'm in tco much pain these days to moonset much else. Rode too many
wild hosses.