e Texas troops were exchanged, our mess was ragged enough,
but pig-fat, and slick as weasels. Lord love you, but we were a great
mess of thieves."

Nearly all of Flood's old men were with him again, several of whom were
then in Forrest's camp. A fight occurred among a group of saddle horses
tied to the front wheel of the wagon, among them being the mount of
John Officer. After the belligerents had been quieted, and Officer had
removed and tied his horse to a convenient tree, he came over and joined
our group, among which were the six trail bosses. Throwing himself down
among us, and using Sponsilier for a pillow and myself for footstool, he
observed:

"All you foremen who have been over the Chisholm Trail remember the
stage-stand called Bull Foot, but possibly some of the boys haven't.
Well, no matter, it's just about midway between Little Turkey Creek and
Buffalo Springs on that trail, where it runs through the Cherokee Strip.
I worked one year in that northern country--lots of Texas boys there
too. It was just about the time they began to stock that country with
Texas steers, and we rode lines to keep our cattle on their range. You
bet, there was riding to do in that country then. The first few months
that these Southern steers are turned loose on a new range, Lord! but
they do love to drift against a breeze. In any kind of a rain-storm,
they'll travel farther in a night than a whole outfit can turn them back
in a day.

"Our camp was on the Salt Fork of the Cimarron, and late in the fall
when all the beeves had been shipped, the outfit were riding lines and
loose-herding a lot of Texas yearlings, and mixed cattle, natives to
that range. Up in that country they have Indian summer and Squaw winter,
both occurring in the fall. They have lots of funny weather up there.
Well, late one evening that fall there came an early squall of Squaw
winter, sleeted and spit snow wickedly. The next morning there wasn't
a hoof in sight, and shortly after daybreak we were riding deep in our
saddles to catch the lead drift of our cattle. After a hard day's ride,
we found that we were out several hundred head, principally yearlings of
the through Texas stock. You all know how locoed a bunch of dogies can
get--we hunted for three days and for fifty miles in every direction,
and neither hide, hair, nor hoof could we find. It was while we were
hunting these cattle that my yarn commences.

"The big augers of the outfit lived in Wichita, Ka