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




"Jerking" Beef

This was the first process towards "jerking" beef, or, in other words, drying it in the sun, a method of preserving meat which I fancy has come down to us from the Indians. Before the morning was spent I discovered that there are more disagreeable tasks than that of pushing a crosscut saw up and then pulling it down.

Before all the meat had been cut into thin ribbons and hung on the scaffolding, we were covered with blood, and on the topmost branches of the pecans sat a dozen or more of those miserable turkey buzzards, awaiting an opportunity to come down and eat what was left of the carcass. It was necessary to keep as close a watch over those birds as we did over the wolves, else all our labor would have been speedily devoured. When there was an opportunity for a much-needed bath, father allowed no more than two of us to go into the stream at a time, obliging the others to remain where they might stand guard over the meat.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

When night came, the ribbons of flesh were not wholly cured and we found it necessary to gather them up and store them in one of the wagons lest the dew spoil the flesh; in the morning we hung all the thin strips out again, standing over them jealously.

It seemed to me just then as if all our days and nights in Texas were to be spent standing guard over some thing. During the night we were forced to watch lest the wolves devour our sheep, and during the day we had to keep a careful eye over the turkey buzzards who seemed on the verge of starvation all the time. In addition to this labor, it was necessary to perform the regular work on the ranch, and thus it may be seen that we did not have much time for idling.