Contents ▼▲
Front Matter Dreams of a Sheep Ranch Sheep Raising Herding Sheep Something About Texas Land Grants The "Texas Fever" Why I wanted to Go Hunting in Texas Father Spys the Land Our Plantation Father Comes Home The Bigness of Texas Where We were Going What I Hoped to Do Cattle Driving How We Set Out A Laborious Journey Comanche Indians Father to the Rescue Arrival at Fort Towson Preparing for a Storm A Dry "Norther" Two Kinds of Northers How Turkeys Kill Snakes Deer and Rattlesnakes A Corral of Wagons On the Trail Again Mesquite A Texas Sheep Ranch Profits from Sheep Father's Land Claim Spanish Measurements The Chaparral Cock Night on the Trinity Standing Guard A Turkey Buzzard Plans for Building a House The Cook Shanty A Storm of Rain A Day of Discomfort Thinking of the Old Home Waiting for the Sun Too Much Water The Stream Rising Trying to Save the Stock The Animals Stampeded Saving Our Own Lives A Raging Torrent A Time of Disaster The Flood Subsiding A Jack Rabbit Reparing Damages Rounding up the Stock FAfter the Flood Waiting for Father Recovering Our Goods Setting to Work Sawing Out Lumber In the Saw Pit Wild Cattle A Disagreeable Intruder Odd Hunting A Supply of Fresh Meat "Jerking" Beef Searching for the Cattle Our New Home Planting and Building Bar-O Ranch An Odd Cart The Visitors Zeba's Curiosity Possible Treachery Suspicious Behavior Gyp's Fight With a Cougar In a Dangerous Position Hunting Wild Hogs Treed by Peccaries Gyp's Obedience My Carelessness Vicious Little Animals Father Comes to the Rescue Increase in my Flock Unrest of the Indians Texas Joins the Union War with Mexico Selling Wool Peace on the Trinity My Dream Fulfilled

Philip of Texas - James Otis




Making a Corral of Wagons

The train was made up of heavy wagons, each drawn by four yoke of cattle. When the first came up in front of the fort, the driver turned his team at an angle with the trail, bringing the oxen away from the fort and the rear end of the wagon toward it.

The second wagon was wheeled around within a short distance of the first, the intention of the teamsters being to halt the heavy carts in such positions that when all had arrived a circle would be formed, within which the cattle could be kept. On that side nearest the fort a passage between two of the wagons, five or six feet in width, w as left open through which the oxen could be driven after they had been unyoked.

As soon as the cattle had been taken to where they might feed, heavy ropes were stretched across the opening, so that the four mules which had been driven by the owners of the train were actually fenced in, and there was no need either to hobble or to make them fast with a picket line, for they could not make their way out between the wagons.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

It was all done in a way which showed that these people had been accustomed to making camp quickly so that they would have a place where they might corral the stock, and stand some chance of defending themselves against Indians.

It was this precaution on the part of the teamsters which gave me yet more reason than I had on meeting the Comanches to understand that in this country there were many chances that we might be called upon to battle for our lives.

One of the drivers told me that, on the march, when a norther springs up, they always make a corral in this fashion, forming it sufficiently large to herd all the cattle within the circle. If they are not sharply looked after, the animals will take to their heels as if frightened out of their wits. Therefore people who are accustomed to such sudden changes in the weather are ever on the lookout lest their cattle be left where they may not readily be bunched. Oxen will become wilder through fear of a norther than they can be made through the shrieking and yelling of Indians who are trying to stampede them.