hungry markets in the north that meant fortunes for Texas
ranchmen. This was in 1866. It was the beginning of the great "Texas
trail drive," which during the next twenty years poured six million
cattle into the plains and mountains of the Northwest. Of this great
industrial movement, Joe Loving was the pioneer.

At this time Fort Sumner, situated on the Pecos about four hundred
miles above Horsehead Crossing, was a large Government post, and the
agency of the Navajo Indians, or such of them as were not on the
war-path. Here, on his drive in the Summer of 1867, Loving made a
contract for the delivery at the post the ensuing season of two herds
of beeves. His partner in this contract was Charles Goodnight, later
for many years the proprietor of the Palo Duro ranch in the Pan Handle.

Loving and Goodnight were young then; they had helped to repel many a
Comanche assault upon the settlements, had participated in many a
bloody raid of reprisal, had more than once from the slight shelter of
a buffalo-wallow successfully defended their lives, and so they entered
upon their work with little thought of disaster.

Beginning their round-up early in March as soon as green grass began to
rise, selecting and cutting out cattle of fit age and condition, by the
end of the month they reached the head of the Concho with two herds,
each numbering about two thousand head. Loving was in charge of one
herd and Goodnight of the other.

Each outfit was composed of eight picked cowboys, well drilled in the
rude school of the Plains, a "horse wrangler," and a cook. To each
rider was assigned a mount of five horses, and the loose horses were
driven with the herd by day and guarded by the "horse wrangler" by
night. The cook drove a team of six small Spanish mules hitched to a
mess wagon. In the wagon were carried provisions, consisting
principally of bacon and jerked beef, flour, beans, and coffee; the
men's blankets and "war sacks," and the simple cooking equipment.
Beneath the wagon was always swung a "rawhide"--a dried, untanned,
unscraped cow's hide, fastened by its four corners beneath the wagon
bed. This rawhide served a double purpose: first, as a carryall for
odds and ends; and second, as furnishing repair material for saddles
and wagons. In it were carried pots and kettles, extra horseshoes,
farriers' tools, and firewood; for often long journeys had to be made
across country which did not furnish enough fuel to boil a pot o