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




Vicious Little Animals

Hour after hour passed, yet those vicious little brutes at the foot of the tree seemed as excited as when they first saw me, and I made up my mind that I was in for many hours of this odd imprisonment, because it was not reasonable to suppose the hogs would soon grow so hungry as to leave me free.

But for the fact that Gyp was a dog who obeyed my every command, and had the good sense to understand that something serious had happened, I might have come to the end of my days there among the mesquite bushes, murdered by the peccaries I had counted on for pork.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

Fortunately father was about two miles down the river when he saw Gyp coming toward him apparently in great fright. At once he understood the situation to be extremely grave, else the dog would never have returned home without me. Seizing his rifle, for we on the banks of the Trinity took good care to go well armed even while working on the ranch, father ordered Gyp to lead the way to where he had left me.

Half an hour before sunset he came so near that it was possible to hear the angry grunting of the peccaries, and understood in a twinkling what had happened.