A RANCHMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS 



fat. The calves were sold at $2.50 per head, the 

 butchers to come and get them, as wanted. Their 

 first trip, made in an ordinary butcher's wagon, with 

 no horse to rope from, encountered maternity from 

 the jump. 



My father had a first-model Smith & Wesson blue- 

 barreled six-shooter. He had furnished me with 

 cartridges for unlimited practice. I have not car- 

 ried or fired a revolver in forty years, but at that 

 time I could pepper my shots pretty well about the 

 ace at fifty feet. I hired out to the butchers, and 

 had good success shooting the calves in the forehead 

 from the wagon. I was allowed 10 cents per head, 

 which was probably a better return, in proportion, 

 than the cattle-owners, received from their invest- 

 ments. 



In the summer tragedy came. The winter had 

 been very mild; ticks carried over; a dairy herd 

 which had been culled and selected for years was 

 turned into the pasture with the Texas cows, and 

 suffered a 90 per cent mortality. The whole coun- 

 try became excited, thinking it an epidemic which 

 would spread; stories of Texas fever were brought in 

 vaguely from other states; a great many domestic 

 cattle in Dickinson County, Kans., near Abilene, 

 died; New York State issued a quarantine against 

 Texas cattle; the Governor of Illinois called a con- 

 vention at Springfield, 111., which was attended by 

 delegates from most of the northern states and two 



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