[Illustration]
THE OUTLET
By Andy Adams
PREFACE
At the close of the civil war the need for a market for the surplus
cattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. There had been
numerous experiments in seeking an outlet, and there is authority for
the statement that in 1857 Texas cattle were driven to Illinois. Eleven
years later forty thousand head were sent to the mouth of Red River in
Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo, Illinois, and thence inland by
rail. Fever resulted, and the experiment was never repeated. To the
west of Texas stretched a forbidding desert, while on the other hand,
nearly every drive to Louisiana resulted in financial disaster to the
drover. The republic of Mexico, on the south, afforded no relief, as it
was likewise overrun with a surplus of its own breeding. Immediately
before and just after the war, a slight trade had sprung up in cattle
between eastern points on Red River and Baxter Springs, in the
southeast corner of Kansas. The route was perfectly feasible, being
short and entirely within the reservations of the Choctaws and
Cherokees, civilized Indians. This was the only route to the north; for
farther to the westward was the home of the buffalo and the
unconquered, nomadic tribes. A writer on that day, Mr. Emerson Hough,
an acceptable authority, says: “The civil war stopped almost all plans
to market the range cattle, and the close of that war found the vast
grazing lands of Texas fairly covered with millions of cattle which had
no actual or determinate value. They were sorted and branded and herded
after a fashion, but neither they nor their increase could be converted
into anything but more cattle. The demand for a market became
imperative.”
This was the situation at the close of the ’50’s and meanwhile there
had been no cessation in trying to find an outlet for the constantly
increasing herds. Civilization was sweeping westward by leaps and
bounds, and during the latter part of the ’60’s and early ’70’s, a
market for a very small percentage of the surplus was established at
Abilene, Ellsworth, and Wichita, being confined almost exclusively to
the state of Kansas. But this outlet, slight as it was, developed the
fact that the transplanted Texas steer, after a winter in the north,
took on flesh like a native, and by being double-wintered became a
marketable beef. It should be understood in this connection that Texas,
owing to climatic conditions, did not mature an animal into marketable
form, ready for the butcher’s block. Yet it was an exceptional country
for breeding, the percentage of increase in good years reaching the
phenomenal figures of ninety-five calves to the hundred cows. At this
time all eyes were turned to the new Northwest, which was then looked
upon as the country that would at last afford the proper market.
Railroads were pushing into the domain of the buffalo and Indian; the
rush of emigration was westward, and the Texan was clamoring for an
outlet for his cattle. It was written in the stars that the Indian and
buffalo would have to stand aside.
Philanthropists may deplore the destruction of the American bison, yet
it was inevitable. Possibly it is not commonly known that the general
government had under consideration the sending of its own troops to
destroy the buffalo. Yet it is a fact, for the army in the West fully
realized the futility of subjugating the Indians while they could draw
subsistence from the bison. The well-mounted aborigines hung on the
flanks of the great buffalo herds, migrating with them, spurning all
treaty obligations, and when opportunity offered murdering the advance
guard of civilization with the fiendish atrocity of carnivorous
animals. But while the government hesitated, the hide-hunters and the
railroads solved the problem, and the Indian’s base of supplies was
destroyed.
Then began the great exodus of Texas cattle. The red men were easily
confined on reservations, and the vacated country in the Northwest
became cattle ranges. The government was in the market for large
quantities of beef with which to feed its army and Indian wards. The
maximum year’s drive was reached in 1884, when nearly eight hundred
thousand cattle, in something over three hundred herds, bound for the
new Northwest, crossed Red River, the northern boundary of Texas. Some
slight idea of this exodus can be gained when one considers that in the
above year about four thousand men and over thirty thousand horses were
required on the trail, while the value of the drive ran into millions.
The history of the world can show no pastoral movement in comparison.
The Northwest had furnished the market—the outlet for Texas.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
THE OUTLET
CHAPTER I. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER II. ORGANIZING THE FORCES
CHAPTER III. RECEIVING AT LOS LOBOS
CHAPTER IV. MINGLING WITH THE EXODUS
CHAPTER V. RED RIVER STATION
CHAPTER VI. CAMP SUPPLY
CHAPTER VII. WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
CHAPTER VIII. EN PASSANT
CHAPTER IX. AT SHERIFF’S CREEK
CHAPTER X. A FAMILY REUNION
CHAPTER XI. ALL IN THE DAY’S WORK
CHAPTER XII. MARSHALING THE FORCES
CHAPTER XIII. JUSTICE IN THE SADDLE
CHAPTER XIV. TURNING THE TABLES
CHAPTER XV. TOLLESTON BUTTS IN
CHAPTER XVI. CROSSING THE NIOBRARA
CHAPTER XVII. WATER-BOUND
CHAPTER XVIII. THE LITTLE MISSOURI
CHAPTER XIX. IN QUARANTINE
CHAPTER XX. ON THE JUST AND THE UNJUST
CHAPTER XXI. FORT BUFORD
CHAPTER XXII. A SOLDIER’S HONOR
CHAPTER XXIII. KANGAROOED
CHAPTER XXIV. THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT
THE OUTLET
CHAPTER I.
OPENING THE CAMPAIGN
“Well, gentlemen, if that is the best rate you can offer us, then we’ll
drive the cattle. My boys have all been over the trail before, and your
figures are no inducement to ship as far as Red River. We are fully
aware of the nature of the country, but we can deliver the herds at
their destination for less than you ask us for shipping them one third
of the distance. No; we’ll drive all the way.”
The speaker was Don Lovell, a trail drover, and the parties addressed
were the general freight agents of three railroad lines operating in
Texas. A conference had been agreed upon, and we had come in by train
from the ranch in Medina County to attend the meeting in San Antonio.
The railroad representatives were shrewd, affable gentlemen, and
presented an array of facts hard to overcome. They were well aware of
the obstacles to be encountered in the arid, western portion of the
state, and magnified every possibility into a stern reality. Unrolling
a large state map upon the table, around which the principals were
sitting, the agent of the Denver and Fort Worth traced the trail from
Buffalo Gap to Doan’s Crossing on Red River. Producing what was
declared to be a report of the immigration agent of his line, he showed
by statistics that whole counties through which the old trail ran had
recently been settled up by Scandinavian immigrants. The representative
of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, when opportunity offered,
enumerated every disaster which had happened to any herd to the
westward of his line in the past five years. The factor of the
International was equally well posted.
“Now, Mr. Lovell,” said he, dumping a bundle of papers on the table,
“if you will kindly glance over these documents, I think I can convince
you that it is only a question of a few years until all trail cattle
will ship the greater portion of the way. Here is a tabulated statement
up to and including the year ’83. From twenty counties tributary to our
line and south of this city, you will notice that in ’80 we practically
handled no cattle intended for the trail. Passing on to the next
season’s drive, you see we secured a little over ten per cent. of the
cattle and nearly thirty per cent. of the horse stock. Last year, or
for ’83, drovers took advantage of our low rates for Red River points,
and the percentage ran up to twenty-four and a fraction, or practically
speaking, one fourth of the total drive. We are able to offer the same
low rates this year, and all arrangements are completed with our
connecting lines to give live-stock trains carrying trail cattle a
passenger schedule. Now, if you care to look over this correspondence,
you will notice that we have inquiries which will tax our carrying
capacity to its utmost. The ‘Laurel Leaf’ and ‘Running W’ people alone
have asked for a rate on thirty thousand head.”
But the drover brushed the correspondence aside, and asked for the
possible feed bills. A blanket rate had been given on the entire
shipment from that city, or any point south, to Wichita Falls, with one
rest and feed. Making a memorandum of the items, Lovell arose from the
table and came over to where Jim Flood and I were searching for Fort
Buford on a large wall map. We were both laboring under the impression
that it was in Montana, but after our employer pointed it out to us at
the mouth of the Yellowstone in Dakota, all three of us adjourned to an
ante-room. Flood was the best posted trail foreman in Don Lovell’s
employ, and taking seats at the table, we soon reduced the proposed
shipping expense to a pro-rata sum per head. The result was not to be
considered, and on returning to the main office, our employer, as
already expressed, declined the proffered rate.
Then the freight men doubled on him, asking if he had taken into
consideration a saving in wages. In a two days’ run they would lay down
the cattle farther on their way than we could possibly drive in six
weeks, even if the country was open, not to say anything about the wear
and tear of horseflesh. But Don Lovell had not been a trail drover for
nearly fifteen years without understanding his business as well as the
freight agents did theirs. After going over a large lot of other
important data, our employer arose to take his leave, when the agent of
the local line expressed a hope that Mr. Lovell would reconsider his
decision before spring opened, and send his drive a portion of the way
by rail.
“Well, I’m glad I met you, gentlemen,” said the cowman at parting, “but
this is purely a business proposition, and you and I look at it from
different viewpoints. At the rate you offer, it will cost me one dollar
and seventy-five cents to lay a steer down on Red River. Hold on; mine
are all large beeves; and I must mount my men just the same as if they
trailed all the way. Saddle horses were worth nothing in the North last
year, and I kept mine and bought enough others around Dodge to make up
a thousand head, and sent them back over the trail to my ranch. Now, it
will take six carloads of horses for each herd, and I propose to charge
the freight on them against the cattle. I may have to winter my remudas
in the North, or drive them home again, and if I put two dollars a head
freight in them, they won’t bring a cent more on that account. With the
cattle it’s different; they are all under contract, but the horses must
be charged as general expense, and if nothing is realized out of them,
the herd must pay the fiddler. My largest delivery is a sub-contract
for Fort Buford, calling for five million pounds of beef on foot. It
will take three herds or ten thousand cattle to fill it. I was anxious
to give those Buford beeves an early start, and that was the main
reason in my consenting to this conference. I have three other earlier
deliveries at Indian agencies, but they are not as far north by several
hundred miles, and it’s immaterial whether we ship or not. But the
Buford contract sets the day of delivery for September 15, and it’s
going to take close figuring to make a cent. The main contractors are
all right, but I’m the one that’s got to scratch his head and figure
close and see that there’s no leakages. Your freight bill alone would
be a nice profit. It may cost us a little for water getting out of
Texas, but with the present outlet for cattle, it’s bad policy to
harass the herds. Water is about the best crop some of those settlers
along the trail have to sell, and they ought to treat us right.”
After the conference was over, we scattered about the city, on various
errands, expecting to take the night train home. It was then the middle
of February, and five of the six herds were already purchased. In spite
of the large numbers of cattle which the trail had absorbed in previous
years, there was still an abundance of all ages, anxious for a market.
The demand in the North had constantly been for young cattle, leaving
the matured steers at home. Had Mr. Lovell’s contracts that year called
for forty thousand five and six year old beeves, instead of twenty,
there would have been the same inexhaustible supply from which to pick
and choose. But with only one herd yet to secure, and ample offerings
on every hand, there was no necessity for a hurry. Many of the herds
driven the year before found no sale, and were compelled to winter in
the North at the drover’s risk. In the early spring of ’84, there was a
decided lull over the enthusiasm of the two previous years, during the
former of which the trail afforded an outlet for nearly seven hundred
thousand Texas cattle.
In regard to horses we were well outfitted. During the summer of ’83,
Don Lovell had driven four herds, two on Indian contract and two of
younger cattle on speculation. Of the latter, one was sold in Dodge for
delivery on the Purgatory River in southern Colorado, while the other
went to Ogalalla, and was disposed of and received at that point. In
both cases there was no chance to sell the saddle horses, and they
returned to Dodge and were sent to pasture down the river in the
settlements. My brother, Bob Quirk, had driven one of the other herds
to an agency in the Indian Territory. After making the delivery, early
in August, on his employer’s orders, he had brought his remuda and
outfit into Dodge, the horses being also sent to pasture and the men
home to Texas. I had made the trip that year to the Pine Ridge Agency
in Dakota with thirty-five hundred beeves, under Flood as foreman. Don
Lovell was present at the delivery, and as there was no hope of
effecting a sale of the saddle stock among the Indians, after
delivering the outfit at the nearest railroad, I was given two men and
the cook, and started back over the trail for Dodge with the remuda.
The wagon was a drawback, but on reaching Ogalalla, an emigrant outfit
offered me a fair price for the mules and commissary, and I sold them.
Lashing our rations and blankets on two pack-horses, we turned our
backs on the Platte and crossed the Arkansaw at Dodge on the seventh
day.
But instead of the remainder of the trip home by rail, as we fondly
expected, the programme had changed. Lovell and Flood had arrived in
Dodge some ten days before, and looking over the situation, had come to
the conclusion it was useless even to offer our remudas. As remnants of
that year’s drive, there had concentrated in and around that market
something like ten thousand saddle horses. Many of these were from
central and north Texas, larger and better stock than ours, even though
care had been used in selecting the latter. So on their arrival,
instead of making any effort to dispose of our own, the drover and his
foreman had sized up the congested condition of the market, and turned
buyers. They had bought two whole remudas, and picked over five or six
others until their purchases amounted to over five hundred head.
Consequently on our reaching Dodge with the Pine Ridge horses, I was
informed that they were going to send all the saddle stock back over
the trail to the ranch and that I was to have charge of the herd. Had
the trip been in the spring and the other way, I certainly would have
felt elated over my promotion. Our beef herd that year had been put up
in Dimmit County, and from there to the Pine Ridge Agency and back to
the ranch would certainly be a summer’s work to gratify an ordinary
ambition.
In the mean time and before our arrival, Flood had brought up all the
stock and wagons from the settlement, and established a camp on
Mulberry Creek, south of Dodge on the trail. He had picked up two
Texans who were anxious to see their homes once more, and the next day
at noon we started. The herd numbered a thousand and sixty head, twenty
of which were work-mules. The commissary which was to accompany us was
laden principally with harness; and waving Flood farewell, we turned
homeward, leaving behind unsold of that year’s drive only two wagons.
Lovell had instructed us never to ride the same horse twice, and
wherever good grass and water were encountered, to kill as much time as
possible. My employer was enthusiastic over the idea, and well he might
be, for a finer lot of saddle horses were not in the possession of any
trail drover, while those purchased in Dodge could have been resold in
San Antonio at a nice profit. Many of the horses had run idle several
months and were in fine condition. With the allowance of four men and a
cook, a draft-book for personal expenses, and over a thousand horses
from which to choose a mount, I felt like an embryo foreman, even if it
was a back track and the drag end of the season. Turning everything
scot free at night, we reached the ranch in old Medina in six weeks,
actually traveling about forty days.
But now, with the opening of the trail season almost at hand, the
trials of past years were forgotten in the enthusiasm of the present. I
had a distinct recollection of numerous resolves made on rainy nights,
while holding a drifting herd, that this was positively my last trip
over the trail. Now, however, after a winter of idleness, my worst fear
was that I might be left at home with the ranch work, and thus miss the
season’s outing entirely. There were new charms in the Buford contract
which thrilled me,—its numerical requirements, the sight of the
Yellowstone again, and more, to be present at the largest delivery of
the year to the government. Rather than have missed the trip, I would
have gladly cooked or wrangled the horses for one of the outfits.
On separating, Lovell urged his foreman and myself to be at the depot
in good time to catch our train. That our employer’s contracts for the
year would require financial assistance, both of us were fully aware.
The credit of Don Lovell was gilt edge, not that he was a wealthy
cowman, but the banks and moneyed men of the city recognized his
business ability. Nearly every year since he began driving cattle,
assistance had been extended him, but the promptness with which he had
always met his obligations made his patronage desirable.
Flood and I had a number of errands to look after for the boys on the
ranch and ourselves, and, like countrymen, reached the depot fully an
hour before the train was due. Not possessed of enough gumption to
inquire if the westbound was on time, we loitered around until some
other passengers informed us that it was late. Just as we were on the
point of starting back to town, Lovell drove up in a hack, and the
three of us paced the platform until the arrival of the belated train.
“Well, boys, everything looks serene,” said our employer, when we had
walked to the farther end of the depot. “I can get all the money I
need, even if we shipped part way, which I don’t intend to do. The
banks admit that cattle are a slow sale and a shade lower this spring,
and are not as free with their money as a year or two ago. My bankers
detained me over an hour until they could send for a customer who
claimed to have a very fine lot of beeves for sale in Lasalle County.
That he is anxious to sell there is no doubt, for he offered them to me
on my own time, and agrees to meet any one’s prices. I half promised to
come back next week and go down with him to Lasalle and look his cattle
over. If they show up right, there will be no trouble in buying them,
which will complete our purchases. It is my intention, Jim, to give you
the herd to fill our earliest delivery. Our next two occur so near
together that you will have to represent me at one of them. The Buford
cattle, being the last by a few weeks, we will both go up there and see
it over with. There are about half a dozen trail foremen anxious for
the two other herds, and while they are good men, I don’t know of any
good reason for not pushing my own boys forward. I have already decided
to give Dave Sponsilier and Quince Forrest two of the Buford herds, and
I reckon, Tom, the last one will fall to you.”
The darkness in which we were standing shielded my egotism from public
view. But I am conscious that I threw out my brisket several inches and
stood straight on my bow-legs as I thanked old man Don for the
foremanship of his sixth herd. Flood was amused, and told me afterward
that my language was extravagant. There is an old superstition that if
a man ever drinks out of the Rio Grande, it matters not where he roams
afterward, he is certain to come back to her banks again. I had watered
my horse in the Yellowstone in ’82, and ever afterward felt an itching
to see her again. And here the opportunity opened before me, not as a
common cow-hand, but as a trail boss and one of three in filling a five
million pound government beef contract! But it was dark and I was
afoot, and if I was a trifle “chesty,” there had suddenly come new
colorings to my narrow world.
On the arrival of the train, several other westward-bound cowmen
boarded it. We all took seats in the smoker, it being but a two hours’
run to our destination. Flood and I were sitting well forward in the
car, the former almost as elated over my good fortune as myself. “Well,
won’t old Quince be all puffed up,” said Jim to me, “when the old man
tells him he’s to have a herd. Now, I’ve never said a word in favor of
either one of you. Of course, when Mr. Lovell asked me if I knew
certain trail foremen who were liable to be idle this year, I intimated
that he had plenty of material in his employ to make a few of his own.
The old man may be a trifle slow on reaching a decision, but once he
makes up his mind, he’s there till the cows come home. Now, all you and
Quince need to do is to make good, for you couldn’t ask for a better
man behind you. In making up your outfit, you want to know every man
you hire, and give a preference to gray hairs, for they’re not so
liable to admire their shadow in sunny or get homesick in falling
weather. Tom, where you made a ten-strike with the old man was in
accepting that horse herd at Dodge last fall. Had you made a whine or
whimper then, the chances are you wouldn’t be bossing a herd this year.
Lovell is a cowman who likes to see a fellow take his medicine with a
smile.”