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




Peace on the Trinity

But the Lord was good to us settlers on the Trinity; for He permitted no blood-craving Indian to come our way. It seemed at times almost as if it was a crime for us to prosper so wondrously well, while in other parts of the state the settlers were struggling against the savages, or standing in battle array before the Mexicans. Indeed, I was very nearly ashamed because no harm came to us on the Trinity, because our worldly goods were increasing day by day, and because Bar-O Ranch was rapidly becoming one of the best in the state.

But for the fact that many others have told the story of how Texas won her independence, how she flourished or decayed as a free republic during ten years, and how she was finally annexed to the United States, I would be glad to tell more of these things to you. They could not fail to be entertaining as well as instructive, for they show how a people with a true purpose before them overcame the many obstacles which confronted them and finally made Texas what she is to-day, one of the brightest stars in the blue field of Old Glory.