The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier | Page 2

load of gold and stories

of hungry markets in the north that meant fortunes for Texas ranchmen.
This was in 1866. It was the beginning of the great "Texas trail drive,"
which during the next twenty years poured six million cattle into the
plains and mountains of the Northwest. Of this great industrial
movement, Joe Loving was the pioneer.
At this time Fort Sumner, situated on the Pecos about four hundred
miles above Horsehead Crossing, was a large Government post, and the
agency of the Navajo Indians, or such of them as were not on the
war-path. Here, on his drive in the Summer of 1867, Loving made a
contract for the delivery at the post the ensuing season of two herds of
beeves. His partner in this contract was Charles Goodnight, later for
many years the proprietor of the Palo Duro ranch in the Pan Handle.
Loving and Goodnight were young then; they had helped to repel many
a Comanche assault upon the settlements, had participated in many a
bloody raid of reprisal, had more than once from the slight shelter of a
buffalo-wallow successfully defended their lives, and so they entered
upon their work with little thought of disaster.
Beginning their round-up early in March as soon as green grass began
to rise, selecting and cutting out cattle of fit age and condition, by the
end of the month they reached the head of the Concho with two herds,
each numbering about two thousand head. Loving was in charge of one
herd and Goodnight of the other.
Each outfit was composed of eight picked cowboys, well drilled in the
rude school of the Plains, a "horse wrangler," and a cook. To each rider
was assigned a mount of five horses, and the loose horses were driven
with the herd by day and guarded by the "horse wrangler" by night. The
cook drove a team of six small Spanish mules hitched to a mess wagon.
In the wagon were carried provisions, consisting principally of bacon
and jerked beef, flour, beans, and coffee; the men's blankets and "war
sacks," and the simple cooking equipment. Beneath the wagon was
always swung a "rawhide"--a dried, untanned, unscraped cow's hide,
fastened by its four corners beneath the wagon bed. This rawhide
served a double purpose: first, as a carryall for odds and ends; and
second, as furnishing repair material for saddles and wagons. In it were

carried pots and kettles, extra horseshoes, farriers' tools, and firewood;
for often long journeys had to be made across country which did not
furnish enough fuel to boil a pot of coffee. On the sides of the wagon,
outside the wagon box, were securely lashed the two great water barrels,
each supplied with a spigot, which are indispensable in trail driving.
Where, as in this instance, exceptionally long dry drives were to be
made other water kegs were carried in the wagons.
Such wagons were rude affairs, great prairie schooners, hooded in
canvas to keep out the rain. Some of them were miracles of patchwork,
racked and strained and broken till scarcely a sound bit of iron or wood
remained, but, all splinted and bound with strips of the cowboy's
indispensable rawhide, they wabbled crazily along, with many a shriek
and groan, threatening every moment to collapse, but always holding
together until some extraordinary accident required the application of
new rawhide bandages. I have no doubt there are wagons of this sort in
use in Texas to-day that went over the trail in 1868.
The men need little description, for the cowboy type has been made
familiar by Buffalo Bill's most truthful exhibitions of plains life. Lean,
wiry, bronzed men, their legs cased in leather chaparejos, with small
boots, high heels, and great spurs, they were, despite their loose,
slouchy seat, the best rough-riders in the world.
Cowboy character is not well understood. Its most distinguishing trait
was absolute fidelity. As long as he liked you well enough to take your
pay and eat your grub, you could, except in very rare instances, rely
implicitly upon his faithfulness and honesty. To be sure, if he got the
least idea he was being misused he might begin throwing lead at you
out of the business end of a gun at any time; but so long as he liked you,
he was just as ready with his weapons in your defence, no matter what
the odds or who the enemy. Another characteristic trait was his
profound respect for womanhood. I never heard of a cowboy insulting a
woman, and I don't believe any real cowboy ever did. Men whose
nightly talk around the camp-fire is of home and "mammy" are apt to
be a pretty good sort. And yet another quality for which he was
remarkable was his patient, uncomplaining endurance