accommodation of shippers during the
summer of 1861, while a firm of shrewd, far-seeing Yankees made great
pretensions of having established a market and meeting-point for
buyers and sellers of Texas cattle. The promoters of the scheme had a
contract with the railroad, whereby they were to receive a bonus on
all cattle shipped from that point, and the Texas drovers were offered
every inducement to make Abilene their destination in the future. The
unfriendliness of other States against Texas cattle, caused by the
ravages of fever imparted by southern to domestic animals, had
resulted in quarantine being enforced against all stock from the
South. Matters were in an unsettled condition, and less than one per
cent of the State's holdings of cattle had found an outside market
during the year 1867, though ranchmen in general were hopeful.

I spent the remainder of the month of October at the Edwards ranch. We
had returned in time for the fall branding, and George and I both made
acceptable hands at the work. I had mastered the art of handling a
rope, and while we usually corralled everything, scarcely a day passed
but occasion occurred to rope wild cattle out of the brush. Anxiety to
learn soon made me an expert, and before the month ended I had caught
and branded for myself over one hundred mavericks. Cattle were so
worthless that no one went to the trouble to brand completely; the
crumbs were acceptable to me, and, since no one else cared for them
and I did, the flotsam and jetsam of the range fell to my brand. Had I
been ambitious, double that number could have been easily secured, but
we never went off the home range in gathering calves to brand. All
the hands on the Edwards ranch, darkies and Mexicans, were constantly
throwing into the corrals and pointing out unclaimed cattle, while I
threw and indelibly ran the figures "44" on their sides. I was partial
to heifers, and when one was sighted there was no brush so thick or
animal so wild that it was not "fish" to my rope. In many instances a
cow of unknown brand was still followed by her two-year-old, yearling,
and present calf. Under the customs of the country, any unbranded
animal, one year old or over, was a maverick, and the property of any
one who cared to brand the unclaimed stray. Thousands of cattle thus
lived to old age, multiplied and increased, died and became food for
worms, unowned.

The branding over, I soon grew impatient to be doing something. There
wou