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 Laborious Journey

John and Zeba managed to get along with the cattle very well; but the drivers of the mule teams were not so skillful in handling the animals as father had expected, and the result was that he found it necessary to take the place of one or the other nearly all the time, thus leaving mother alone.

Sometimes I led the procession; at other times I trudged on in the rear where the dust was thickest, running first on one side of the road and then on the other, to keep the sheep from straying, and succeeded in holding them to the true course only by the aid of my dog, who had more sound common sense in that shaggy body of his than the brightest lad I have ever come across. Gyp was a willing worker, and a cheery companion at all times. He would run here and there regardless of the heat, and when the sheep were partly straightened up as they should be, come back panting, his red tongue lolling out, and looking up at me with a world of love in his big brown eyes, as if to ask why I was so solemn, or why I could not find, as he did, some sport in thus driving a flock of silly sheep to Texas.

During the journey we halted wherever night overtook us, sometimes camping in the open and finding our beds in one of the wagons, or again herding our cattle in the stable yard of a tavern.

As for food, we got it as best we could. When fortune favored us and we came upon a tavern, we had enough to satisfy our hunger, and in very many places as good as we could have had at the old home in Bolivar County. At other times we ate from the store of provisions we carried, cooking the food by the roadside, while the sheep and the cattle, too tired to stray very far after so many miles of plodding, fed eagerly on whatever grass they were lucky enough to find.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

Gyp was my bedfellow, whether I slept in one of the wagons or at a tavern, and before we had crossed the Red River I found myself treating him as I would have treated a lad of my own age, and time and time again I thought to myself that he understood all I said to him.