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




Trying to Save the Stock

Heedless of the fact that my twelve sheep were stampeded, I ran swiftly along the edge of the stream toward the wagons, shouting wildly that a flood was upon us. I was yet twenty or thirty yards distant when father came out to learn why I was raising such an alarm.

It needed but one glance for him to understand that we were in the gravest danger. Even while I ran, it was possible for me to see the river rising, rising, until what, at the moment I set off to herd the sheep, had been comparatively dry land, was being flooded so rapidly that before I had gained the wagons, they were standing a full inch deep in the water.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

Father ran hurriedly, with a look of alarm on his face, toward the cook shanty and shouted for mother to make all haste, to leave everything behind her, and to clamber into one of the wagons. Then, turning to the negroes, he literally drove them out from their shelter, ordering them to round up the mules without delay so we might hitch them to the wagons. It was not necessary that I should be told to obey this command on the instant, even though it was not directed to me. I wheeled about, intending to turn the mules in the direction of the wagons, leaving the slaves to bring up the harness, but while doing so, I saw that we were too late by at least three or four minutes, for the mules, having already taken alarm by the rising of the water, were making their way at a quick pace up the incline which led to the higher land, following directly behind the sheep.