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 Disagreeable Intruder

The officers of the Texan army had been accustomed to send mounted men into the abandoned country, driving out the cattle for the use of the army and thus supplying the troops with meat at no other expense than that of searching for it, until there were no longer large herds to be seen. Now and then, however, as in our case, a ranchman would suddenly find three or four, or possibly a dozen, among his own herd.

Father was not much pleased at this addition to his stock, for those black fellows were so wild, having ranged the country as they willed during eight or ten years, that they played the mischief with the tame cattle, as I had already seen. At the slightest cause of alarm, they would set off in mad flight, and thus stampede the quietest herd that was ever rounded up.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

"To-morrow we will shoot that bull," father said, "if it can be done without making too much trouble among our own cattle. Then perhaps the cows will quiet down a bit, and find it more agreeable to behave themselves than to run races across the prairie without cause."

Half an hour before daylight next morning father and I, with plenty of ammunition, set off alone to do our best at cutting the wild bull out from the herd, and ending his career with a rifle ball.

We left our camp, without waiting for breakfast, believing in our ignorance that the hunt would not be long; but very shortly after it began we understood that we had more of a task on our hands than had been anticipated.

To get within rifle shot of the herd seemed for a long time an impossibility. No sooner would we come in sight of the animals than up would go their tails and away across the prairie all the cattle would dash as if suddenly grown wild.