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




The Animals Stampeded

Probably, if I had moved more cautiously, I might have circled around them, and thus checked their flight until the negroes could come up; but I was so thoroughly alarmed by the rapid rise of the water and the ominous roaring in the distance, that I set off at full speed directly toward the animals, and in a twinkling they broke into a gallop, stampeding the sheep by plunging among them.

As if this was not sufficient disaster, the cattle, which had been feeding fully a mile farther down the valley, now wheeled suddenly about in alarm, and set off over the ridge, bellowing with fear, their tails swinging high in the air.

So unreasoning was I in the sudden fright which had come upon me, that I failed to realize it would be useless to pursue any of our live stock, until father shouted for me to turn back without loss of time. His voice, even though he was no more than two hundred yards away, came dimly to my ears because of the increasing roar in the distance, which sounded more and more threatening each instant.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

When I gathered my wits about me sufficiently to obey the command, I saw that he, with the negroes, was striving desperately to haul one of the heavy wagons from the bank of the stream; but so sodden with water was the earth that the wheels sank into the soft surface to the depth of two or three inches, and, struggle as they might, it could not be moved a single pace.