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




A Day of Discomfort

I ventured to jest with her, by saying most likely it had been arranged for our especial benefit, as we were newcomers in the country and needed to be introduced to all varieties of climate. The light words failed to bring a smile to her lips. So, without loss of time, I set about carrying such of our belongings as might be injured by the rain to the shelter of the wagons, and had hardly more than begun the task when father returned, his face quite as gloomy as mother's.

He tried to apologize for this sort of weather, and began by saying that from all he had learned during his first visit there was little danger that we should be visited by a very long storm.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

Even the negroes were out of humor, and although the morning was not cold, all were shivering, and looked as if they had been taking a bath in the stream. I asked Zeba what had happened. In sulky tones he told me that while he had been rounding up the cattle and bunching them at the upper end of the valley, so hat they would tray too far on the prairie, he had been treated to a veritable shower bath from the moisture on the mesquite bushes and the pecan trees.