I
would favor you. A trail outfit has to work as a unit, and dissensions
would be ruinous." I had seen favoritism shown on ranches, and
understood his position to be right. Still I felt that I must make
that trip if it were possible. Finally Robert, seeing that I was
overanxious to go, came to me and said: "I've been thinking that if I
recommended you to Jim Flood, my old foreman, he might take you with
him next year. He is to have a herd that will take five months from
start to delivery, and that will be the chance of your life. I'll see
him next week and make a strong talk for you."

True to his word, he bespoke me a job with Flood the next time he met
him, and a week later a letter from Flood reached me, terse and
pointed, engaging my services as a trail hand for the coming summer.
The outfit would pass near our home on its way to receive the cattle
which were to make up the trail herd. Time and place were appointed
where I was to meet them in the middle of March, and I felt as if I
were made. I remember my mother and sisters twitted me about the
swagger that came into my walk, after the receipt of Flood's letter,
and even asserted that I sat my horse as straight as a poker.
Possibly! but wasn't I going up the trail with Jim Flood, the boss
foreman of Don Lovell, the cowman and drover?

Our little ranch was near Cibollo Ford on the river, and as the outfit
passed down the country, they crossed at that ford and picked me up.
Flood was not with them, which was a disappointment to me, "Quince"
Forrest acting as _segundo_ at the time. They had four mules to the
"chuck" wagon under Barney McCann as cook, while the _remuda_, under
Billy Honeyman as horse wrangler, numbered a hundred and forty-two,
ten horses to the man, with two extra for the foreman. Then, for the
first time, I learned that we were going down to the mouth of the Rio
Grande to receive the herd from across the river in Old Mexico; and
that they were contracted for delivery on the Blackfoot Indian
Reservation in the northwest corner of Montana. Lovell had several
contracts with the Indian Department of the government that year, and
had been granted the privilege of bringing in, free of duty, any
cattle to be used in filling Indian contracts.

My worst trouble was getting away from home on the morning of
starting. Mother and my sisters, of course, shed a few tears; but my
father, stern and unbending in his manner, gave me his benediction in
these words: "