y ones for which the International Railway agent at the meeting in
February had so boastfully shown my employer the application for cars.
The foreman was cursing like a stranded pirate over the predicament in
which he found himself. He had left Santo Gertrudo Ranch over a month
before with a herd of three thousand straight two-year-old steers.
But in the shipment of some thirty-three thousand cattle from the two
ranches to Wichita Falls, six trains had been wrecked, two of which were
his own. Instead of being hundreds of miles ahead in the lead of the
year's drive, as he expected, he now found himself in charge of a camp
of cripples. What few trains belonging to his herd had escaped the ditch
were used in filling up other unfortunate ones, the injured cattle from
the other wrecks forming his present holdings.

"Our people were anxious to get their cattle on to the market early this
year," said he, "and put their foot into it up to the knee. Shipping
to Red River was an experiment with them, and I hope they've got their
belly full. We've got dead and dying cattle in every pasture from the
falls to the river, while these in sight aren't able to keep out of
the stench of those that croaked between here and the ford. Oh, this
shipping is a fine thing--for the railroads. Here I've got to rot all
summer with these cattle, just because two of my trains went into the
ditch while no other foreman had over one wrecked. And mind you, they
paid the freight in advance, and now King and Kennedy have brought suit
for damages amounting to double the shipping expense. They'll get it all
right--in pork. I'd rather have a claim against a nigger than a railroad
company. Look at your beeves, slick as weasels, and from the Nueces
River. Have to hold them in, I reckon, to keep from making twenty miles
a day. And here I am--Oh, hell, I'd rather be on a rock-pile with a ball
and chain to my foot! Do you see those objects across yonder about two
miles--in that old grass? That's where we bedded night before last and
forty odd died. We only lost twenty-two last night. Oh, we're getting in
shape fast. If you think you can hold your breakfast down, just take a
ride through mine. No, excuse me--I've seen them too often already."

Several of the boys and myself rode into the herd some little distance,
but the sight was enough to turn a copper-lined stomach. Scarcely an
animal had escaped without more or less injury. Fully one half were
minus one or bo