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6.
in riding these pesky little fellows. From there I went to Burleson county and worked for one year . When through with them I went to Grimes and Parker and worked for them [[xxx]] until 1871. During this time I worked cattle and branded them out in the open. I was on the prairies almost all of this time and never saw a house and very few people.  It was not an easy life by a good deal,  Oftentimes, at nights, one would have to go out in the scrub timber and wait until the moon came up to catch cattle and throw them and then brand them.  This was often a most hazardous undertaking and meant that a man was apt to be thrown on the wild prairies and left dead. Perhaps, no one would ever have found you, if you had been hurt in an accident, so few people ever being about.

With the broad experience I [[xxx]] had up to this time [[xxx]] as a cowboy [[xxx]] I was yet a novice at the business.  In 1872 I began to see that I had yet a great deal to learn. That year I hit the old "Chischom" trial. The first start on this historic trial was made from Mound Prairie [[xx]] to Georgetown.  We went out by way of Colwell [[xxxx]] near Lexington then across the Gable river at [[xxxx]] Crompton crossing then to Denton county and on to Kansas.  During that time we handle about 2,500 head of cattle.  There were many herds on the trial before and behind us.  There was only room during that year for cattle to water and to graze. The old trial was used the year round.

Many of the cattlemen drove their cattle over the trail and wintered them in Kansas, but the men I worked for did not do this, thinking evidently that Texas was a better [[xxxx]] place and a cheaper one for the handling of the vast herds. Kansas at that time was the finest sage grass grazing country that I had ever seen.

About this time I began to get acquainted with the Indians.  The Indians were good and perfectly harmless until the white [[x]] man with [[xxx]] his [[xx]] herds began to intrude on their reservations and then they began to make trouble and kept presistently at it. They became cross and rude  and often