cattlemen and farmers ready for war.
fort worth, august 5, 18—. one hundred and seventy-five thousand head of cattle are being slowly drifted and driven from the drought-parched sections of northwestern texas into jacks county, along the waters of the west fork of trinity. the herders who accompany them demand that they must have grass and water, or blood. the farmers, who will be greatly damaged by the passage of these immense herds, are arming and say the cattle shall not come in—that they must be driven back at all hazards. to permit them to pass means fences destroyed, crops ruined, and the meagre supply of water exhausted; to turn them back means death to the cattle and financial disaster to the men who own them. to-day the news was carried from house to house, and the farmers are turning out to a man, resolved to rendezvous on bear creek and forbid[2] the driving of the cattle through their lands. large squads have gone to the front, and they are well-armed and desperate. sheriff reins will be on hand to-morrow, and so will a company of militia under command of captain fuller. several conflicts, involving the loss of six or seven lives, have already taken place between the cattlemen and the farmers, the particulars of which have not yet found publicity.
of all the boys into whose hands this story may fall, and who make it a point to read the daily papers, i venture to say that not one in a hundred will remember that he ever saw the above despatch, which was flashed over the wires one bright summer morning a few years ago; but if those boys had been on the ground as i was, and witnessed the thrilling and affecting scenes that transpired before and after that despatch was written, they would have seen some things that time could never efface from their memories.
if ever i saw suffering cattle or determined, almost desperate, men, who were fairly spoiling for a fight, it was on that sweltering august day when a big brown-whiskered man, a wealthy farmer of jacks county, accompanied by the sheriff and two deputies, rode[3] up to the wagon and demanded to see “the boss.” around the wagon were gathered a weary and dusty party of men and boys, who had come there to slake their thirst, and john chisholm, the man to whose enterprise and push the great texas cattle trade owed its existence, was just raising a cup of the precious fluid to his lips. i say “precious” because our supply was limited, and the nearest stream far away.
“it tastes as though it had been boiled for a week,” said he, after he had moistened his parched mouth, “but every drop of it is worth its weight in gold. touch it lightly, boys, for there is no telling when we shall be able to fill the cask again. have any of the scouts come in yet? if we don’t find a pool pretty soon we shall all be ruined. just see there!” he added, waving his hand toward the back trail. “a blind man could easily follow our route, for every rod of it is marked with dead beeves.”
it would have taken something besides a “pool” of water to quench the thirst of that multitude of cattle, which were drifting along[4] a mile or so in advance of the wagon, almost concealed by the suffocating cloud of dust that hung over them and pointed out their line of travel. just how many of them there were in the herd the most experienced cattleman could not guess, for the flanks of the drove as well as its leading members were far out of sight. there were more than a dozen outfits mixed up together, no attempt having been made to keep them apart; nor was there any effort made to control their movements beyond keeping them headed toward the west fork of trinity, the nearest point at which water could be obtained. the suffering beasts complained piteously as they plodded along, and now and then deep mutterings of challenge and defiance, followed by a commotion somewhere in the herd, would indicate the spot where perhaps a dozen of the half maddened animals had closed in deadly combat. it was little wonder that the sixty bronzed and weather-beaten men who accompanied them were in fighting humor, and ready to resist to the death any interference with their efforts to find water or grass. they were almost consumed[5] with thirst themselves. every drop of water they drank was brought along in the wagon, and there was so little of it that no one thought of taking more than a swallow at a time. scouts had been sent out early in the morning with instructions to search everywhere for a water-course, and it was as mr. chisholm enquired about them, and handed back the cup he had drained, that the sheriff rode up and asked to see “the boss.”
“’pears to me as if this outfit was bossing itself,” replied mr. chisholm, facing about in his saddle and looking sharply at the newcomers. “you can see for yourself, without looking, that all we can do is to keep the critters pointed toward the west fork. but you don’t belong on our side of the house. where might you hail from?”
“i am sheriff of this county, and came out to tell you that you must not trespass on the grounds of our farmers,” answered the officer.
“well, then, what do you come to us for?” enquired mr. chisholm, while the men around him scowled savagely and played with the locks of their rifles. “go and serve your[6] warning on the critters. can’t you see that some of them are miles ahead of us? how are we going to turn them back when our horses are nigh about as ready to drop as the cattle are? i tell you it can’t be done!”
“don’t you know it means ruin to us farmers if we allow those famishing cattle to get into our fields?” demanded the brown-whiskered man, who seemed quite as ready and willing to fight as the cattlemen were. “they will break down our fences and eat up the very crops on which our lives depend. besides, there are no more grass and water in the country than we want ourselves.”
“i’m powerful sorry to hear you say that, but i don’t see what we are going to do about it,” said mr. chisholm. “we’ve got to go somewhere now that we have started.”
the sheriff opened his lips to speak, but the brown-whiskered man was too quick for him.
“you don’t know what you are going to do about it, don’t you?” he said, with a savage emphasis. “well, i will tell you. when you get to the top of that swell yonder you[7] will see, a couple of miles off, a long line of willows.”
“now, if that isn’t the best piece of news i have heard for a week i wouldn’t say so!” exclaimed the cattleman. “where there’s timber there is water, of course. i thought the critters were a-travelling along a trifle pearter than they were a while back. sam, you drive on ahead with the wagon and fill up the cask, and the rest of us will kinder scatter out on the flanks and head the critters toward the willows our friend speaks of.”
“will you let me get through with what i have to say?” shouted the farmer, his face growing white with anger. “you go near those willows if you dare! there are more than two hundred men hidden among them, and if our pickets can’t turn your cattle back they’ll shoot them!”
“will, eh?” exclaimed mr. chisholm, his face wearing a good-natured smile, that was very aggravating to the brown-whiskered farmer. “i hope not, for if you shoot our stock we’ll have to shoot you to pay for it. look a-here,” he added, turning his horse[8] about and riding up close to the man he was addressing, “i tell you once for all, stranger——”
“hold! i command the peace!” cried the sheriff, seeing that the men and boys around the wagon were moving up to support their leader. “keep back, all of you!”
“the peace hasn’t been broken yet,” replied mr. chisholm, “and i assure you that i and my friends have no intention of breaking it; but our watchword is, ‘grass and water, or blood!’ and it is for you to decide which it shall be. we are not the men to stand by with our hands in our pockets and see our stock perish for want of something to eat and drink, and you misjudge us if that is the kind of fellows you took us for. you farmers were very kind to yourselves when you ran your fences along every water-course in the state, so’t we cattlemen could not get to it. water’s free and we want our share of it.”
“but our land has been paid for, and you have no right to come upon it after we have told you to keep off,” said the farmer.
[9]
“some of you have paid for the land you raise crops on and some are squatters the same as we cattlemen are,” answered mr. chisholm, becoming earnest, but still fighting to keep down his rising anger. “there are miles and miles of these streams been fenced in and shut off from us stock-raisers without any warrant of law, and now we are going to walk over some of them same fences.”
“if you attempt it we shall shoot you down like dogs!” said the farmer fiercely, and as he spoke he lifted his rifle an inch or two from the horn of his saddle, as if he had half a mind to begin the shooting then and there.
“easy, easy, mr. walker,” interposed the sheriff, laying his hand upon the angry man’s arm. “we’ve got the right on our side and the whole power of the state behind us, and there’s no need that you should get yourself into trouble by taking matters into your own hands. i warn you to turn back,” he continued, addressing himself to mr. chisholm. “i am an officer of the law, and if you do not pay some attention to what i say i shall be obliged to arrest you.”
[10]
the cattleman laughed, not loudly, but heartily and silently.
“i reckon you’re a new man who has just been put into office,” said he, as soon as he could speak. “if you were an old hand at the business you would know that it would take pretty considerable of a posse to arrest any man in this outfit. i wouldn’t try it if i were sheriff.”
“well, you have heard my warning,” said mr. walker, “and the blame for whatever happens will be on your own head. nearly all the farmers in the county have assembled to resist your advance, and they sent me out here to tell you that you have come far enough. now, will you turn back or not?”
“i aint got much patience with a man who has two good eyes in his head to keep on asking such a question as that. of course we’ll not turn back! we can’t!”
“then we shall drive you back,” said mr. walker. “that’s all there is about it. because the drought has ruined your business you need not think we are going to let you ruin ours.”
[11]
the farmer rode away, shaking his head and muttering to himself, and paying no sort of attention to the sheriff, who spurred to his side and tried to reason with him. after a while the sheriff came back to expostulate with the leader of the cattlemen; but the latter waved him aside.
“i don’t blame you, mr. officer,” said he. “you have done nothing but duty in warning us not to trespass on them farmers’ grounds, but you see how we are fixed, don’t you? we can’t stop where we are. all the cowboys in texas could not turn the critters back now that they have got a sniff of the water that is flashing along sparkling and cold behind them willows, and what is there left for us but to go on? all we ask of you and your posse is to keep out of the way. we cattlemen know how to take care of ourselves.”
“but don’t you see that i can’t keep out of your way?” demanded the sheriff. “as an officer it is my duty to oppose your further progress!”
“then it will be my duty to ride over you[12] rough-shod,” said the cattleman cheerfully. “i don’t want to do that, for you seem to be a good sort, even if you are an officer. if you will be governed by the advice of one who knows more about this country and the men who live in it than you are ever likely to learn, you will ride down to the willows and tell them farmers to fall back and give our perishing stock a chance at the water. if they will listen to you there will be no trouble. me and my friends will camp nigh the stream to-night, hold a council of war in the morning, and like as not we’ll come to some sort of an understanding. but i can’t spend any more time with you. if you or the farmers are going to force a fight upon us, we must get ready for it.”
so saying mr. chisholm waved his hand to the officer and rode away, leaving us three boys from the north, who had ridden up close to hear this consultation and the threats it contained, in a state of dreadful uncertainty. we had come from our homes, somewhere near denver, which at that time was little more than a sprinkling of miner cabins, with[13] no such thoughts as this in our minds, and here we were right in the midst of it—civil war! we had come down there to invest a few hundred dollars in cattle. we thought we could make something by it. by keeping far to the eastward, along the banks of the red river, we had got beyond reach of the comanche and kiowas and other indians who felt inclined to steal everything we had, and then by turning rapidly to the west had found ourselves right among the cattlemen almost before we knew it.
you remember that there were three of us boys—elam storm, now no longer moody and reticent, but hail fellow well met with everybody, for we had found the nugget of which he had been in search for so many years; tom mason, who went by the name of “lucky tom”; and myself, carlos burton, upon whom devolves the duty of writing this story. we had seen some adventures during our long ride, some that i would gladly like a chance to relate; but they differed so widely from the scenes we passed through among those cattlemen that i am glad to pass[14] them by to tell this story of “tom mason’s luck.” tom was a lucky fellow, that’s a fact, and for a runaway boy he had a good deal of pluck. i don’t know that he thought of making any money at the time he was working with us, but at the same time he took the right way to get it. you know he was trying to scrape together five thousand dollars, the amount he stole from his uncle—a large sum for a boy of his age to make; but he had that amount and more too when he went home. i will tell all about it when i get to it.
at length, when we had been so long on our journey that elam and tom declared that i had missed my way, we ran across a fence, and that night we struck the farmer’s house. i noticed that there was corn on the other side of the fence, and that instead of being healthy and green and thrifty-looking, it was stunted and its leaves were beginning to turn yellow. it looked as though it was all ready to gather, only there was not the sign of an ear on any of the stalks that we could see. i found out the reason for this when we put up at the farmer’s house that night,—the first house we[15] had stayed in since leaving uncle ezra’s,—when he told us that there had not been a drop of rain in that part of texas for sixteen months. water was beginning to get scarce, and the worst of it was, the grass on the school-lands, miles away where all these cattle were pastured, was burning up, and they expected every day to find an army of famishing cattle coming down upon them.
“and that’s something we can’t stand,” said the farmer. “we have only a little grass and water for our own use, and those cattle will use up all we have got. more than that, they will break down our fences and ruin our crops so that we shan’t have a thing to go on. that’s one thing we have to contend with in texas—long droughts.”
that was one thing i hadn’t thought of, and when we started the next day i took particular notice of the grass and water and found that they were tolerable scarce, every little mud hole in which there was water being fenced in to keep their stock away from it. i had never been in that part of texas before, and i found that water was hard[16] to get at, we having to fill our bottles to last us all day; but i supposed it was characteristic of the country. of course the little stock that the farmers had was thrifty and fat, as well they might be, for they had water enough, only not as much as they wanted; but the farther we went into the country the worse grew the situation. we often had to beg for water, and it was the first time i ever did such a thing in my life.
at last we got beyond the range of the farmers, and then we found what suffering for water meant. we were generally able to find a mud hole or two in which water had been, and which was not entirely dry, and by digging down in it would get enough to quench our thirst, and there we would stay until the next morning to enable our horses to gain strength enough to carry us; but there was no grass for them to eat. everything was dried up. two nights we spent without water. we had enough in our bottles for ourselves, but our poor horses were obliged to go thirsty. elam i knew was all right. he would keep on until i gave the word to go back, and if his[17] horse played out, he would shoulder his pack and go ahead on foot, but i looked for a complaint from tom. it is true he looked pretty glum when his horse came up to him in the morning and said as plainly as he could that he was thirsty, and tom could count every bone in his body, but never a word of protest did i hear from him. he would get on and ride as if nothing was the matter.
one afternoon we came within sight of a long line of willows which we knew lined a stream, the first we had seen for many a day, and near them was a large herd of cattle ranging about and trying to find enough to eat. a little nearer to us, on a little rise of ground, we saw a horse, his rider having dismounted to give him a chance to browse. he saw us as soon as we did him, and shaded his eyes with his hand and looked at us. then he picked up his rifle and held it in the hollow of his arm.
“what is he going to do?” said tom. “is he going to try to keep us away from that water?”
“we will soon know,” i replied. “i never[18] knew a cowboy to be armed with a rifle before. it proves that there has been somebody here after his water, and he wants to be prepared to meet them at long range.”
it was four miles to where he was, and it took us all of an hour to get up there. it seemed as if our horses couldn’t raise a trot to save their lives. as we made no move to raise our weapons, he finally dropped his to the ground and leaned upon it.
“how-dy!” said i, as soon as we got within speaking distance. that is the term that western men always use in addressing one another. “i’m almost dead for a drink, and have come here to see if you would give us some.”
“you are alone, i take it?” said the cowboy.
“we are alone,” said i.
“there’s nobody behind you with a big drove of cattle, is there?”
“nobody at all. we came down here to buy stock, but i don’t believe we want any now.”
“you can have all we’ve got,” said he, with[19] a smile. “we’ll sell ’em to you at a dollar apiece.”
i looked around at the walking skeletons he was willing to dispose of at so meagre a price. they were too far away for me to see much of them, but still i could tell that they were gaunt and scraggy in the extreme. some of them were lying down flat on their sides, with their heads extended, and when a steer gets that way he is in a bad fix.
“i had no idea that your steers were in such shape,” said i. “are some of them dead?”
“oh, no; there’s plenty of life left in them yet. you will find plenty of water on the other side of those willows. you see some cattlemen came up here the other day from the same direction you came from, looking for grass and water, and said they were going to come in at all hazards; that’s what made me pick up my rifle when i saw you.”
“we aint seed no cattlemen down this way,” said elam. “we aint seed anything but farmers.”
we were too thirsty to waste any more time in talking, and so we rode down on the other[20] side of the willows to find the “plenty of water” the cowboy spoke of. well, there was plenty of it, such as it was, but it was scattered along the creek in little holes, and had been trampled in by the cattle until it was all roiled up; a filthy place to drink, but boys and horses went at it, and by the time we had got all the water we wanted there wasn’t much left in that hole. we filled our bottles, saw our horses drink all they needed, and then mounted and rode back to where we had left the hospitable cowboy.
“i don’t call that plenty of water,” said tom, who nevertheless had been a good deal revived by the hearty swig he had taken. “i wish you had some of the water that was overflowing the mississippi valley when i left it. it was enough to flood this whole country.”
“well, pilgrim, it is enough for us, situated the way we are now. i have seen the time when that bayou down there was booming full, and you would have to wait for a week before you could cross it. i suppose you would like a roof to shelter you to-night, wouldn’t you?” said the cowboy. “well, if[21] you will follow the creek up about ten miles, you will find the ranch of mr. davenport, my boss. he will give you plenty to eat and a shakedown, but your horses will fare hard for grass.”
“thank you! we would like something a little different from the bacon and crackers we have been living upon so long,” said i. “mr. davenport isn’t so hard up as his cattle?”
“oh, bless you, he’s got plenty. he got a whole wagon load of things last night.”
thanking the cowboy again for his kindness in showing us the water, we rode away. the route we followed took us directly through his cattle, and i was not much surprised when i remembered what the cowboy had said about selling them for a dollar apiece. i never saw such poverty-stricken cattle in my life. even the bulls paid no sort of attention to us, and we told one another that we thought our trip to texas had not amounted to anything, and that we would have to wait until the next spring before we could take any cattle home with us. while we were talking the matter over, tom pointed out in the distance the whitewashed walls of mr. davenport’s ranch.
