Reed Anthony, Cowman | Page 6

carry the specie in on eight pack
mules. The distance was nearly two hundred miles, and as we neared
the encampment we were under the necessity of crossing a shallow
river. It was summer-time, and as we halted the tired mules to loosen
the lash ropes, in order to allow them to drink, a number of Indian
children of both sexes, who were bathing in the river, gathered naked
on either embankment in bewilderment at such strange intruders. In the
innocence of these children of the wild there was no doubt inspiration
for a poet; but our mission was a commercial one, and we relashed the
mules and hurried into the village with the rent money.

I have never kept a diary. One might wonder that the human mind
could contain such a mass of incident and experiences as has been my
portion, yet I can remember the day and date of occurrences of fifty
years ago. The scoldings of my father, the kind words of an indulgent
mother, when not over five years of age, are vivid in my memory as I
write to-day. It may seem presumptuous, but I can give the year and
date of starting, arrival, and delivery of over one hundred herds of
cattle which I drove over the trail as a common hand, foreman, or
owner. Yet the warnings of years--the unsteady step, easily
embarrassed, love of home and dread of leaving it--bid me hasten these
memoirs. Even my old wounds act as a barometer in foretelling the
coming of storms, as well as the change of season, from both of which I
am comfortably sheltered. But as I look into the inquiring eyes of a
circle of grandchildren, all anxious to know my life story, it seems to
sweeten the task, and I am encouraged to go on with the work.
CHAPTER II
MY APPRENTICESHIP
During the winter of 1865-66 I corresponded with several of my old
comrades in Texas. Beyond a welcome which could not be questioned,
little encouragement was, with one exception, offered me among my
old friends. It was a period of uncertainty throughout the South, yet a
cheerful word reached me from an old soldier crony living some
distance west of Fort Worth on the Brazos River. I had great confidence
in my former comrade, and he held out a hope, assuring me that if I
would come, in case nothing else offered, we could take his ox teams
the next winter and bring in a cargo of buffalo robes. The plains to the
westward of Fort Griffin, he wrote, were swarming with buffalo, and
wages could be made in killing them for their hides. This caught my
fancy and I was impatient to start at once; but the healing of my
reopened wound was slow, and it was March before I started. My
brother gave me a good horse and saddle, twenty-five dollars in gold,
and I started through a country unknown to me personally. Southern
Missouri had been in sympathy with the Confederacy, and whatever I
needed while traveling through that section was mine for the asking. I

avoided the Indian Territory until I reached Fort Smith, where I rested
several days with an old comrade, who gave me instructions and routed
me across the reservation of the Choctaw Indians, and I reached Paris,
Texas, without mishap.
I remember the feeling that I experienced while being ferried across
Red River. That watercourse was the northern boundary of Texas, and
while crossing it I realized that I was leaving home and friends and
entering a country the very name of which to the outside world was a
synonym for crime and outlawry. Yet some of as good men as ever it
was my pleasure to know came from that State, and undaunted I held a
true course for my destination. I was disappointed on seeing Fort Worth,
a straggling village on the Trinity River, and, merely halting to feed my
mount, passed on. I had a splendid horse and averaged thirty to forty
miles a day when traveling, and early in April reached the home of my
friend in Paolo Pinto County. The primitive valley of the Brazos was
enchanting, and the hospitality of the Edwards ranch was typical of my
own Virginia. George Edwards, my crony, was a year my junior, a
native of the State, his parents having moved west from Mississippi the
year after Texas won her independence from Mexico. The elder
Edwards had moved to his present home some fifteen years previous,
carrying with him a stock of horses and cattle, which had increased
until in 1866 he was regarded as one of the substantial ranchmen in the
Brazos valley. The ranch house was a stanch one, built at a time when
defense was to be