The Log of a Cowboy | Page 3

driven over next, the dogs swimming, and at last, bag
and baggage, we were in Texas.
We reached the Colorado River early in the fall, where we stopped and
picked cotton for several months, making quite a bit of money, and
near Christmas reached our final destination on the San Antonio River,
where we took up land and built a house. That was a happy home; the
country was new and supplied our simple wants; we had milk and
honey, and, though the fig tree was absent, along the river grew endless
quantities of mustang grapes. At that time the San Antonio valley was
principally a cattle country, and as the boys of our family grew old
enough the fascination of a horse and saddle was too strong to be
resisted. My two older brothers went first, but my father and mother
made strenuous efforts to keep me at home, and did so until I was
sixteen. I suppose it is natural for every country boy to be fascinated
with some other occupation than the one to which he is bred. In my
early teens, I always thought I should like either to drive six horses to a
stage or clerk in a store, and if I could have attained either of those

lofty heights, at that age, I would have asked no more. So my father,
rather than see me follow in the footsteps of my older brothers, secured
me a situation in a village store some twenty miles distant. The
storekeeper was a fellow countryman of my father--from the same
county in Ireland, in fact--and I was duly elated on getting away from
home to the life of the village.
But my elation was short-lived. I was to receive no wages for the first
six months. My father counseled the merchant to work me hard, and, if
possible, cure me of the "foolish notion," as he termed it. The
storekeeper cured me. The first week I was with him he kept me in a
back warehouse shelling corn. The second week started out no better. I
was given a shovel and put on the street to work out the poll-tax, not
only of the merchant but of two other clerks in the store. Here was two
weeks' work in sight, but the third morning I took breakfast at home.
My mercantile career had ended, and forthwith I took to the range as a
preacher's son takes to vice. By the time I was twenty there was no
better cow-hand in the entire country. I could, besides, speak Spanish
and play the fiddle, and thought nothing of riding thirty miles to a
dance. The vagabond temperament of the range I easily assimilated.
Christmas in the South is always a season of festivity, and the magnet
of mother and home yearly drew us to the family hearthstone. There we
brothers met and exchanged stories of our experiences. But one year
both my brothers brought home a new experience. They had been up
the trail, and the wondrous stories they told about the northern country
set my blood on fire. Until then I thought I had had adventures, but
mine paled into insignificance beside theirs. The following summer,
my eldest brother, Robert, himself was to boss a herd up the trail, and I
pleaded with him to give me a berth, but he refused me, saying: "No,
Tommy; the trail is one place where a foreman can have no favorites.
Hardship and privation must be met, and the men must throw
themselves equally into the collar. I don't doubt but you're a good hand;
still the fact that you're my brother might cause other boys to think 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