ging my
experience I was content, while the wages offered me were double what
I received the summer before.

We went into camp and began rounding up near the middle of March. All
classes of cattle were first gathered into one herd, after which the
beeves were cut separate and taken charge of by my outfit. We gathered
a few over fifteen hundred of the latter, all prairie-raised cattle,
four years old or over, and in the single ranch brand of my employer.
Major Seth had also contracted for one thousand other beeves, and it
became our duty to receive them. These outside contingents would have
to be road-branded before starting, as they were in a dozen or more
brands, the work being done in a chute built for that purpose. My
employer and I fully agreed on the quality of cattle to be received,
and when possible we both passed on each tender of beeves before
accepting them. The two herds were being held separate, and a friendly
rivalry existed between the outfits as to which herd would be ready
to start first. It only required a few days extra to receive and
road-brand the outside cattle, when all were ready to start. As Major
Seth knew the most practical route, in deference to his years and
experience I insisted that he should take the lead until after Red
River was crossed. I had been urging the Chisholm trail in preference
to more eastern ones, and with the compromise that I should take the
lead after passing Fort Worth, the two herds started on the last day
of March.

There was no particular trail to follow. The country was all open,
and the grass was coming rapidly, while the horses and cattle were
shedding their winter coats with the change of the season. Fine
weather favored us, no rains at night and few storms, and within two
weeks we passed Fort Worth, after which I took the lead. I remember
that at the latter point I wrote a letter to the elder Edwards,
inclosing my land scrip, and asking him to send a man out to my new
ranch occasionally to see that the improvements were not destroyed.
Several herds had already passed the fort, their destination being the
same as ours, and from thence onward we had the advantage of following
a trail. As we neared Red River, nearly all the herds bore off to the
eastward, but we held our course, crossing into the Chickasaw Nation
at the regular Chisholm ford. A few beggarly Indians, renegades from
the Kiowas and Comanches on the west, annoyed us for the first week,
but were easily