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A little bit of history...
Uvalde County, TX - Bios: A. G. Anderson
(Folklore Project, Life Histories, 1936-39)
Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Anderson who live one mile west of town on the old
Fort Clark road, are both active physically and mentally. Mr. Anderson
has retired from ranch life but enjoys talking over old times with his
friends and acquaintances. Spending many years of their earlier life
in the Pecos country, they are discontent with Uvalde County, and
would willingly go back to west Texas if they could sell their home.
Asking him about some of his cowboy experiences, he told incidents of
his life in the following breezy manner:
"I was so small they floated me across the Mississippi River in a
thimble. I was about 14 years old when I became a ranch hand. My
father bought a small place and of course the country was all open and
we had all the territory we wanted for ranching. The country wasn't
settled at all -- just a few houses scattered here and yonder.
"I was 18 years old when I started out to work for myself, working for
my brother-in-law on his ranch. I worked first one place then another,
and when I would get out of work I would buy a wild horse and break
him. That was just an amusing job for me. In 1864 I went to Bestrop
County and worked one year for Sears and Walton. Sears was also our
Congressman then. This was about a 4,000 acre ranch and was fenced in.
After that, I left there and went to [?] and went up the trail to
North Texas, with a herd of 2,500 head of cattle for Jim Brown, Bill
Williamson and a fellow by the name of Hutcherson. It took us about
two months to make the trip. We had ten or eleven men in the outfit.
We had a good drive as we never had a run.
"Coming back west I went to Caldwell County and stayed there about a
month. You see I didn't stay nowhere long, I was just a [roaming
cowboy?] then.
"In '90, I went to Edwards County and begin work on Dragoo's ranch and
along about that time I met Miss Mattie Jackson. So on the 26th day of
December, 1893, we were married. We married eighteen miles north of
Rocksprings on the 'Wires' ranch, on the dry prong of South Lleno.
"No we didn't have any celebration," said his wife, "As soon as the
ceremony was over we got on our horses and rode twenty miles horseback
to the Henderson ranch. We killed a rabbit on the way and when we got
home we had fried rabbit and a glass of milk for supper."
"No, we didn't either," Mr. Anderson put in, "but we did take that
twenty-mile ride.
"After we were married I worked for Old Man Henderson for awhile. But
he was the last man I worked for; after I left him I went to work for
myself. I laughed one day at Old Man Henderson, after I had brought
the horses in and we had saddled and started out. As I galloped to
catch up with him, his horse swollered his head. In a few jumps, off
the old man went. I managed to keep my face straight, and said, 'Are
you hurt?' He said, 'No by God, go catch my horse!' I had to run the
horse about two miles before I could catch him, but I laughed so hard
I had to hold to my saddle horn to keep from falling off. I was never
thrown from any horse after I got into the saddle.
"Once out on the plains up in the Panhandle country, I went to get
00033on a locoed horse, and as I went to mount and caught the cheek of
the bridle, he slung me full length of the bridle rains but when I got
up, I got on him and rode him. Oh, you take a bad locoed horse, they
are really crazy. If you try to drive one over a wagon rut he won't
go. Loco is caused from a weed they eat, and the way they get started
to eating it is because it's the first weed to come up in the spring
and the stock are hungry for something green and they eat it. I have
seen big patches of it. It looks just like a pretty turnip patch. It
has an effect on stock just like morphine does on people -- when they
got started they can't quit', they just go wild after it. Yes, they
stay loco as long as they live. The horses are never any account after
they once get locoed. When you ride them two or three miles they are
give out. I guess there were one-hundred and fifty head of horses out
there on that ranch that was locoed.
"Once out on the plains I bought a big black horse. His mane and tail
was long and wavy just like it had been platted. He wasn't a bad horse
and didn't pitch much when I rode him , just reared up almost fell
over backwards with me. He made one of the best saddle horses I ever
rode.
"About as bad a pitching horse as I ever owned was also a big black
horse. He was sure a hard-pitching horse. He pitched about two-hundred
yards with me once and when he quit pitching, my hat was off and my
heels were in my boot tops. When he quit pitching, my wife says, 'Now
get off that horse and don't you ever get on him again; let him go
with the wild bunch.' But I told her no I was going to ride him to cow
camp. Then I got to camp the boys all knew what a bad horse he was and
one of them said I didn't ride him. I said, 'All right I'll bet you
five-hundred dollars I can ride him slick.' But he wouldn't call my
bet. I rode him all day and worked cattle on him. But I sold him next
day, for when he was pitching 00044I kind of lost my eye sight.
Everything got dark just like it does when it comes a blue norther.
The man I sold him to said he never did pitch with him.
"When I ranched out on the Pecos, I only owned about three sections of
land and used about fifty sections. The Pecos River country was fine
grazing and that old river never was up high enough to cause any
terrible floods while I was there but after rises in the river, we
always had to ride the river bed to get cattle out of the quicksand.
This was usually after the river had gone down and we would have to
dig them out. If there was water and sand both we could tromp them
out. But when we had to dig them out they had the longest legs you
ever saw. One thing about the water in the Pecos River -- if you get
wet in it, it won't give you a cold. I stayed wet one time for eight
or ten days, crossing a bunch of sheep and it never made me the least
bit sick.
"I had a little , boy pony once when we lived out on the Pecos that
was my favorite horse, he didn't have any other name[-?]I just called
him 'Pony.' He was a good cow horse and would stand a lot of hard
riding. I told my wife when we first married she could lend any thing
on the ranch except three things -- that was my saddle horse, my gun
and my saddle. So one morning I was gone and a man come riding up to
the house on a horse that was give out. He said a man had got shot a
short distance from there and he wanted a fresh horse to go get the
doctor in Sheffield, a distance of ten miles. My wife told him that I
had always told her not to lone my saddle horse, but under these
circumstances she would. But she warned him not to ride him too fast.
So he took Pony and was back in thirty minutes. My wife saw how hard
the horse had been rode, so she made the man put a rope on him and she
walked him for an hour so he wouldn't be stiff from the ride.
"Well , come to find out, this man had shot the other man himself
Another man had gone for the doctor and this man wanted [?] to meet
the doctor on so he could kill him. The doctor had cut across the
mountain and this man went around the road so he missed him. The
shooting took place at a dance near Sheffield on the Pecos. He thought
the fellow knew too much on him was why he shot him.
"Once out on the Pecos, there were two men who were ranching together.
One was a Dutchman. I don't remember his name, but the other was Henry
Green. Green claimed he had bought the Dutchman out and was wearing
his watch and chain and riding his horses. The old Dutchman never
would let any one ride his horses. Green claimed he had a bill of sale
to the Dutchman's stock and he had gone back to Germany. I guess he
had. Several years later, some boys were hunting with dogs and they
chased a fox up a tree and the boys ran over a skeleton. This was up
in a canyon on the Pecos right close to old Fort Lancaster. A dentist
identified his teeth. He knew he had done the work and when he done
it. It was the old Dutchman.
"In the meantime, Green had gone out to New Mexico and went to work on
a ranch. The next day he had some words with his boss, and the boss
emptied his pistol into Green. Before he died he said, 'You've killed
me but if I had my gun, I would get you.' Then he died.
"Up near San Angelo once, a cowboy rode up on an old Dutch sheep
herder herding his sheep on the cowboy's range. He told the Dutchman
to leave, but the next day when the cowboy came back he was still
there. So the cowboy gave him a good whipping. Several years later
they met one day in San Angelo and the cowboy said, 'I whipped you one
time.' The old Dutchman said, 'Yes, but while you was whipping me, my
sheep was eating your veeds (weeds).'
"Another time this same old Dutchman drove his sheep hard into a
cattlemen's territory and took one of his wagon wheels off of the
wagon 00066[?] it under some thick brush. So when the ranchman came
along the and told him to move he said, 'Vell, one of my wagon wheels
broke down and [?] [into town?] to be fixed and as soon ad it gets
here, I vill move on.' The next day, the ranchman came back and he was
still there. The ranchman said, 'I thought I told you to get off my
ranch.' But the Dutchman still insisted his wagon was broken down. So
the rancher decided to take a look for himself and found the wheel in
the [?] of thick brush.
"I crossed the Pecos once with 1,000 head of sheep, we took them
across on wagon beds with the use of some extra lumber. I got the
lumber from John [?]. We were taking the sheep to [?] Mexico. It
took two months to make the trip. This was in 1903. We didn't stay in
New Mexico but one [month?]. I didn't like it there. [?], and one
day I drove my sheep in to drink and when they [?] up, they walked
out and twenty-five of them lay right there and died. So we headed
back to Texas. After we crossed the river, we stopped and lambed out
the sheep on the O. T. [Lord?] ranch. We had two herders, my wife and
myself. It took about a month and a half to get them lambed out and we
came on down to [Edwards?] County.
"I have worked a lot with Old Man Henry [?]. His ranch joined mine out
on the Pecos. He had a big outfit. [He?] owned about 4,000 head of
cattle. He used to come riding up to my house at full speed and tell
my wife, 'I want to borrow 10,000.' She would tell him all right to
get down. And when he come he would say, 'Oh, a glass of [?] will do
just as well.
"[One morning my?] my father and me caught ten [lobos?] [?] killing
[chickens, and calves?]. He said he would give us ten dollars apiece
for all he caught. So we went down to his ranch [one night and spent?]
the night. Slept on our saddle blankets for beds and started out the
next day at daybreak Well, when we got to the top of the mountain the
dogs smelled the lobos and went after them. They were running
with the wind. They went down in the canyon and bayed a lobo pup. I
jumped off my horse and went down after him. He was a little fellow
and I killed him with a stick. We went on a little farther up the
canyon and killed nine more. They were about the size of a bob cat.
But the big ones killed a dog for me that same day. They were sure bad
about killing dogs.
"Another time down on Independence (a tributary of the Pecos), we
heard a pack of lobo wolves running a herd of two-year-old cattle. The
lobos would howl every now and then and that is how we knew it was
lobos after the cattle. I have been told, before I went there that the
lobos were so bad that a pack of them would herd a bunch of cattle
just like cowboys. There would be four or five lobos and they would
watch their chance to run in and get a calf. Then one would run and
drag the calf out and they'd be on it eating the calf before they had
it killed.
"We camped on the Nueces River one time and in the night I heard a calf
bawling. I knew a lobo had him him down and was eating him before he
ever killed it. They nearly always start eating on the hams, or in the
flank. I sure hated to lie there and let him kill that calf, but I
wouldn't get up and go down there for I didn't want the other boys to
know I had gun on.
"Once when I lived out in the Pecos country, I started out to buy a
ranch. I had been leasing range and I wanted to buy a ranch of my own.
It was in January and the ground was froze. I would ride all day long
and when night would come , I would lay down and sleep on my saddle
blanket and cover with my slicker. Of course I always built a fire but
the ground would freeze most every night. Well, I rode like this for
about a week. I 00088looked the country over but, I didn't find a
ranch that suited me so I started back home. Just before I reached
home I begin to feel bad. Everything got dark like does when a sand
storm comes up. When I got home I was a sick man. My wife filled a tub
with hot water and put me in blankets. I sure warmed up. I sweated so
much it rolled down the blanket and on the floor. Then she gave me a
sponge in cold water. It was what I needed I guess for it felt while I
was taking it. But I almost fainted when it was over. Anyway I guess
she knocked the pneumonia.
"I knew a good woman roper up on the Nueces. Her name was Sallie Novel
and she later married Will McBee. She and her sister were in the goat
pen roping kids by the fore feet. We came alone with a herd of cattle,
and one of the men went to rope a calf and missed. The girl came out
and says, 'Let me get him for you.' So she got the calf's fore-feet
the first throw. He took the calf and turned and said, 'I've been a
cowboy all my life but that girl sure did out-rope me.
"Of course you know that most anything can 'stampede' a herd -- little
things or big things. I was in a little run once over on Paint Creek.
One morning we had the cattle penned and a rooster flew up on the
fence, flopped his wings and crowed, and out they came, bringing half
the side of the pen with them. But we soon got 'em checked.
"Another time , it rained all night and we had a run. You never want
to make your bed down close to a herd. But this night the ground was
so wet I had made my bed on a big flat rock close to the herd. About
four o'clock in the morning they 'stampeded.' It was lucky for me they
went the opposite direction from where I was sleeping. We didn't save
a cow but the next day we got most of them back. If you were never
near a run of a big herd, you can't imagine the noise they make. In
day time when they get to running their old eyes just bug out like a
crawfish's eyes.
"We ranched out on Devil's River fifty miles north of Del Rio for ten
years. We had about 3,000 head of goats my wife and myself did all the
'tending to these goats. We did all the sheering and the packing of
the wool into the sacks. She would turn the sheering machine and I did
the sheering. Sometimes we would work till twelve o'clock at night.
"We later moved into town and lived there in Del Rio about twelve
years. Our house burned down and I bought another ranch about four
miles out of town. A fellow came along one day and wanted it worse
than I did and I sold it to him. So we moved to Uvalde. No, I didn't
buy no ranch here, I don't like this country for ranching."
Uvalde County, TX - Bios: A. G. Anderson
(Folklore Project, Life Histories, 1936-39)
Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Anderson who live one mile west of town on the old
Fort Clark road, are both active physically and mentally. Mr. Anderson
has retired from ranch life but enjoys talking over old times with his
friends and acquaintances. Spending many years of their earlier life
in the Pecos country, they are discontent with Uvalde County, and
would willingly go back to west Texas if they could sell their home.
Asking him about some of his cowboy experiences, he told incidents of
his life in the following breezy manner:
"I was so small they floated me across the Mississippi River in a
thimble. I was about 14 years old when I became a ranch hand. My
father bought a small place and of course the country was all open and
we had all the territory we wanted for ranching. The country wasn't
settled at all -- just a few houses scattered here and yonder.
"I was 18 years old when I started out to work for myself, working for
my brother-in-law on his ranch. I worked first one place then another,
and when I would get out of work I would buy a wild horse and break
him. That was just an amusing job for me. In 1864 I went to Bestrop
County and worked one year for Sears and Walton. Sears was also our
Congressman then. This was about a 4,000 acre ranch and was fenced in.
After that, I left there and went to [?] and went up the trail to
North Texas, with a herd of 2,500 head of cattle for Jim Brown, Bill
Williamson and a fellow by the name of Hutcherson. It took us about
two months to make the trip. We had ten or eleven men in the outfit.
We had a good drive as we never had a run.
"Coming back west I went to Caldwell County and stayed there about a
month. You see I didn't stay nowhere long, I was just a [roaming
cowboy?] then.
"In '90, I went to Edwards County and begin work on Dragoo's ranch and
along about that time I met Miss Mattie Jackson. So on the 26th day of
December, 1893, we were married. We married eighteen miles north of
Rocksprings on the 'Wires' ranch, on the dry prong of South Lleno.
"No we didn't have any celebration," said his wife, "As soon as the
ceremony was over we got on our horses and rode twenty miles horseback
to the Henderson ranch. We killed a rabbit on the way and when we got
home we had fried rabbit and a glass of milk for supper."
"No, we didn't either," Mr. Anderson put in, "but we did take that
twenty-mile ride.
"After we were married I worked for Old Man Henderson for awhile. But
he was the last man I worked for; after I left him I went to work for
myself. I laughed one day at Old Man Henderson, after I had brought
the horses in and we had saddled and started out. As I galloped to
catch up with him, his horse swollered his head. In a few jumps, off
the old man went. I managed to keep my face straight, and said, 'Are
you hurt?' He said, 'No by God, go catch my horse!' I had to run the
horse about two miles before I could catch him, but I laughed so hard
I had to hold to my saddle horn to keep from falling off. I was never
thrown from any horse after I got into the saddle.
"Once out on the plains up in the Panhandle country, I went to get
00033on a locoed horse, and as I went to mount and caught the cheek of
the bridle, he slung me full length of the bridle rains but when I got
up, I got on him and rode him. Oh, you take a bad locoed horse, they
are really crazy. If you try to drive one over a wagon rut he won't
go. Loco is caused from a weed they eat, and the way they get started
to eating it is because it's the first weed to come up in the spring
and the stock are hungry for something green and they eat it. I have
seen big patches of it. It looks just like a pretty turnip patch. It
has an effect on stock just like morphine does on people -- when they
got started they can't quit', they just go wild after it. Yes, they
stay loco as long as they live. The horses are never any account after
they once get locoed. When you ride them two or three miles they are
give out. I guess there were one-hundred and fifty head of horses out
there on that ranch that was locoed.
"Once out on the plains I bought a big black horse. His mane and tail
was long and wavy just like it had been platted. He wasn't a bad horse
and didn't pitch much when I rode him , just reared up almost fell
over backwards with me. He made one of the best saddle horses I ever
rode.
"About as bad a pitching horse as I ever owned was also a big black
horse. He was sure a hard-pitching horse. He pitched about two-hundred
yards with me once and when he quit pitching, my hat was off and my
heels were in my boot tops. When he quit pitching, my wife says, 'Now
get off that horse and don't you ever get on him again; let him go
with the wild bunch.' But I told her no I was going to ride him to cow
camp. Then I got to camp the boys all knew what a bad horse he was and
one of them said I didn't ride him. I said, 'All right I'll bet you
five-hundred dollars I can ride him slick.' But he wouldn't call my
bet. I rode him all day and worked cattle on him. But I sold him next
day, for when he was pitching 00044I kind of lost my eye sight.
Everything got dark just like it does when it comes a blue norther.
The man I sold him to said he never did pitch with him.
"When I ranched out on the Pecos, I only owned about three sections of
land and used about fifty sections. The Pecos River country was fine
grazing and that old river never was up high enough to cause any
terrible floods while I was there but after rises in the river, we
always had to ride the river bed to get cattle out of the quicksand.
This was usually after the river had gone down and we would have to
dig them out. If there was water and sand both we could tromp them
out. But when we had to dig them out they had the longest legs you
ever saw. One thing about the water in the Pecos River -- if you get
wet in it, it won't give you a cold. I stayed wet one time for eight
or ten days, crossing a bunch of sheep and it never made me the least
bit sick.
"I had a little , boy pony once when we lived out on the Pecos that
was my favorite horse, he didn't have any other name[-?]I just called
him 'Pony.' He was a good cow horse and would stand a lot of hard
riding. I told my wife when we first married she could lend any thing
on the ranch except three things -- that was my saddle horse, my gun
and my saddle. So one morning I was gone and a man come riding up to
the house on a horse that was give out. He said a man had got shot a
short distance from there and he wanted a fresh horse to go get the
doctor in Sheffield, a distance of ten miles. My wife told him that I
had always told her not to lone my saddle horse, but under these
circumstances she would. But she warned him not to ride him too fast.
So he took Pony and was back in thirty minutes. My wife saw how hard
the horse had been rode, so she made the man put a rope on him and she
walked him for an hour so he wouldn't be stiff from the ride.
"Well , come to find out, this man had shot the other man himself
Another man had gone for the doctor and this man wanted [?] to meet
the doctor on so he could kill him. The doctor had cut across the
mountain and this man went around the road so he missed him. The
shooting took place at a dance near Sheffield on the Pecos. He thought
the fellow knew too much on him was why he shot him.
"Once out on the Pecos, there were two men who were ranching together.
One was a Dutchman. I don't remember his name, but the other was Henry
Green. Green claimed he had bought the Dutchman out and was wearing
his watch and chain and riding his horses. The old Dutchman never
would let any one ride his horses. Green claimed he had a bill of sale
to the Dutchman's stock and he had gone back to Germany. I guess he
had. Several years later, some boys were hunting with dogs and they
chased a fox up a tree and the boys ran over a skeleton. This was up
in a canyon on the Pecos right close to old Fort Lancaster. A dentist
identified his teeth. He knew he had done the work and when he done
it. It was the old Dutchman.
"In the meantime, Green had gone out to New Mexico and went to work on
a ranch. The next day he had some words with his boss, and the boss
emptied his pistol into Green. Before he died he said, 'You've killed
me but if I had my gun, I would get you.' Then he died.
"Up near San Angelo once, a cowboy rode up on an old Dutch sheep
herder herding his sheep on the cowboy's range. He told the Dutchman
to leave, but the next day when the cowboy came back he was still
there. So the cowboy gave him a good whipping. Several years later
they met one day in San Angelo and the cowboy said, 'I whipped you one
time.' The old Dutchman said, 'Yes, but while you was whipping me, my
sheep was eating your veeds (weeds).'
"Another time this same old Dutchman drove his sheep hard into a
cattlemen's territory and took one of his wagon wheels off of the
wagon 00066[?] it under some thick brush. So when the ranchman came
along the and told him to move he said, 'Vell, one of my wagon wheels
broke down and [?] [into town?] to be fixed and as soon ad it gets
here, I vill move on.' The next day, the ranchman came back and he was
still there. The ranchman said, 'I thought I told you to get off my
ranch.' But the Dutchman still insisted his wagon was broken down. So
the rancher decided to take a look for himself and found the wheel in
the [?] of thick brush.
"I crossed the Pecos once with 1,000 head of sheep, we took them
across on wagon beds with the use of some extra lumber. I got the
lumber from John [?]. We were taking the sheep to [?] Mexico. It
took two months to make the trip. This was in 1903. We didn't stay in
New Mexico but one [month?]. I didn't like it there. [?], and one
day I drove my sheep in to drink and when they [?] up, they walked
out and twenty-five of them lay right there and died. So we headed
back to Texas. After we crossed the river, we stopped and lambed out
the sheep on the O. T. [Lord?] ranch. We had two herders, my wife and
myself. It took about a month and a half to get them lambed out and we
came on down to [Edwards?] County.
"I have worked a lot with Old Man Henry [?]. His ranch joined mine out
on the Pecos. He had a big outfit. [He?] owned about 4,000 head of
cattle. He used to come riding up to my house at full speed and tell
my wife, 'I want to borrow 10,000.' She would tell him all right to
get down. And when he come he would say, 'Oh, a glass of [?] will do
just as well.
"[One morning my?] my father and me caught ten [lobos?] [?] killing
[chickens, and calves?]. He said he would give us ten dollars apiece
for all he caught. So we went down to his ranch [one night and spent?]
the night. Slept on our saddle blankets for beds and started out the
next day at daybreak Well, when we got to the top of the mountain the
dogs smelled the lobos and went after them. They were running
with the wind. They went down in the canyon and bayed a lobo pup. I
jumped off my horse and went down after him. He was a little fellow
and I killed him with a stick. We went on a little farther up the
canyon and killed nine more. They were about the size of a bob cat.
But the big ones killed a dog for me that same day. They were sure bad
about killing dogs.
"Another time down on Independence (a tributary of the Pecos), we
heard a pack of lobo wolves running a herd of two-year-old cattle. The
lobos would howl every now and then and that is how we knew it was
lobos after the cattle. I have been told, before I went there that the
lobos were so bad that a pack of them would herd a bunch of cattle
just like cowboys. There would be four or five lobos and they would
watch their chance to run in and get a calf. Then one would run and
drag the calf out and they'd be on it eating the calf before they had
it killed.
"We camped on the Nueces River one time and in the night I heard a calf
bawling. I knew a lobo had him him down and was eating him before he
ever killed it. They nearly always start eating on the hams, or in the
flank. I sure hated to lie there and let him kill that calf, but I
wouldn't get up and go down there for I didn't want the other boys to
know I had gun on.
"Once when I lived out in the Pecos country, I started out to buy a
ranch. I had been leasing range and I wanted to buy a ranch of my own.
It was in January and the ground was froze. I would ride all day long
and when night would come , I would lay down and sleep on my saddle
blanket and cover with my slicker. Of course I always built a fire but
the ground would freeze most every night. Well, I rode like this for
about a week. I 00088looked the country over but, I didn't find a
ranch that suited me so I started back home. Just before I reached
home I begin to feel bad. Everything got dark like does when a sand
storm comes up. When I got home I was a sick man. My wife filled a tub
with hot water and put me in blankets. I sure warmed up. I sweated so
much it rolled down the blanket and on the floor. Then she gave me a
sponge in cold water. It was what I needed I guess for it felt while I
was taking it. But I almost fainted when it was over. Anyway I guess
she knocked the pneumonia.
"I knew a good woman roper up on the Nueces. Her name was Sallie Novel
and she later married Will McBee. She and her sister were in the goat
pen roping kids by the fore feet. We came alone with a herd of cattle,
and one of the men went to rope a calf and missed. The girl came out
and says, 'Let me get him for you.' So she got the calf's fore-feet
the first throw. He took the calf and turned and said, 'I've been a
cowboy all my life but that girl sure did out-rope me.
"Of course you know that most anything can 'stampede' a herd -- little
things or big things. I was in a little run once over on Paint Creek.
One morning we had the cattle penned and a rooster flew up on the
fence, flopped his wings and crowed, and out they came, bringing half
the side of the pen with them. But we soon got 'em checked.
"Another time , it rained all night and we had a run. You never want
to make your bed down close to a herd. But this night the ground was
so wet I had made my bed on a big flat rock close to the herd. About
four o'clock in the morning they 'stampeded.' It was lucky for me they
went the opposite direction from where I was sleeping. We didn't save
a cow but the next day we got most of them back. If you were never
near a run of a big herd, you can't imagine the noise they make. In
day time when they get to running their old eyes just bug out like a
crawfish's eyes.
"We ranched out on Devil's River fifty miles north of Del Rio for ten
years. We had about 3,000 head of goats my wife and myself did all the
'tending to these goats. We did all the sheering and the packing of
the wool into the sacks. She would turn the sheering machine and I did
the sheering. Sometimes we would work till twelve o'clock at night.
"We later moved into town and lived there in Del Rio about twelve
years. Our house burned down and I bought another ranch about four
miles out of town. A fellow came along one day and wanted it worse
than I did and I sold it to him. So we moved to Uvalde. No, I didn't
buy no ranch here, I don't like this country for ranching."
