EXPERIENCES OF A TRAPPER AND HUNTER 
FROM YOUTH TO OLD AGE 
By T. ALEXANDER 
CHAPTER XIV. 
Bill and I bid our Delaware friends farewell, and started for the 
Chicasaw country with the view of working for one month as cowboys. 
This was new to me, but still Bill was an old hand at cow punching. 
Within two days we reached the Barnard and Washington camp, which 
was near the Red River. Washington was a squawman, and Barnard 
was a Texan. Washington was in charge of the herd and gave Bill and 
I a job. They were having a hard time fighting the screw worm. 
Probably some of you readers do not know what a screw worm is. 
Well, 1 will try and explain. It is just about the size of a maggot, and 
will bore into sound flesh the same as the maggot works on decayed 
flesh. When an animal gets bitten by a horsefly, the blood is started 
in anyway, the screw fly would blow a living worm into this fresh 
blood, and this would get a start and bore into the flesh, keeping fresh 
blood coming continually. This fresh blood would soon be full of 
worms, and in a few days the poor animal would be eaten alive. The 
herd had to be looked after very closely on account of the screw worm. 
When we found an animal with the screw worm we would have to 
rope it and apply chloroform to the infected part, sometimes using 
cresilie ointment and pine tar. This kept all the bunch busy day after 
day doctoring the herd and the month was up before we knew it. 
Washington paid Bill and 1 for our services, and we were off for Port 
Smith. Fort Smith in those days was wide open for saloons, gambling 
dens of all kinds, etc., and as Bill and I had been away from tempta¬ 
tions of this kind so long, we naturally took part in most everything. 
I have noticed where men had to live on the trap line, as a cowboy 
or a lumberjack, when they reach town they lose control of themselves, 
and do some very foolish things. When these same men are working 
they are responsible and dependable, but city life invariably “gets, 
their goat/’ 
Bill and I stayed in Fort Smith about two weeks, during which time 
1 sold the two ponies and their bridles and saddles, with which Bill and 
1 had scouted the territory. I gave Bill $20.00 to straighten up and 
boarded the train for Grady, Arkansas, the Happy Hunting Ground. 
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