370 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 5, 1908. 
the bar, so the guns were shipped and the an¬ 
chors weighed, the fleet sailed away and peace 
once more reigned. 
Then the English came again, this time in 
peace, and in the harbor floated the English en¬ 
sign. A few years later the Spanish flag again 
floated, to be replaced by the flag of the United 
State in 1821 . In the long years of peace St. 
Augustine grew to be a very garden of oranges. 
Vessels from all along the coast came here for 
them. It is said as many as thirty vessels might 
be in the harbor at one time loading with 
oranges. The great freeze of 1835 destroyed all 
this and for many years there was no attempt 
at restoration. 
For generations the sunset gun has boomed 
over the harbor, to be answered by the cry of 
the marsh hens from every marsh in reach of 
the sound. The fisherman has gone out in his 
canoe at night and returned early in the morn¬ 
ing with the cargo he sold at the sea wall. And 
you look from the parapet and see the harbor 
alive with the motor craft of to-day, while the 
seaward picture is the same as seen by Ponce 
de Leon or Menendez. St. Augustine Harbor 
has indeed come back to its own. 
Loge eur\d Brea\.dy 
By F. T. 
OGE and Brandy were the swing team on 
a mess wagon that came over the trail from 
Texas via Abilene in ’ 71 . They were sure 
enough Texans, with their long horns and lank 
bodies built for speed, and they were to be de¬ 
pended on in a crisis, as I will relate. 
One day on the Kansas prairie we saw a line 
of fire in the direction we were going extend¬ 
ing across our path to the horizon from east to 
west. We did not know how far the burnt 
ground extended beyond the line of fire, but 
there was nothing to do but go on. Soon all 
about us the grass would be burned; there was 
nothing to do but go on, and take our chances. 
Our mess wagon was presided over on the 
road by our cook, but this was as far as his 
ability to perform duty extended, for he had 
a broken arm, a souvenir of a hilarious time 
in a Texan town, and thinking he might have 
trouble in crossing the line of fire I went back 
from the herd to assist him. 
Although the grass was short it was thick, 
and for some time before reaching the line of 
EARLY FLORIDIANS. 
Reproduced from an engraving made about 1600. 
WEBBER 
fire I pushed the team to full speed. I should 
have crossed the fire all right, as the oxen were 
not afraid of it, but just before we reached it 
the wagon, an old lynchpin affair, dropped into 
a little ditch fringed with tall blue-stem, the 
front axle broke and the wagon was at the 
mercy of the flames. 
We threw out the rolls of bedding, and the 
boys’ war bags, and these I carried across the 
fire line, but everything else went up in smoke. 
I his was not much, for in those days we had 
no tents and our fare was of the plainest. 
1 he two yoke of oxen had gone on to the 
herd which I soon overtook, and with one of 
the boys we returned to the place where I had 
dumped the beds with a bunch of saddle horses 
on which the dunnage was soon strapped. But 
how about something to eat? That question was 
settled as soon as we went into camp by killing 
a steer, and as there was plenty of dry wood 
we soon had the ribs done to a turn on either 
side a fine bed of coals. 
How we got another wagon would not in¬ 
terest readers of Forest and Stream, but what 
I particularly wanted to relate was the experi¬ 
ence we had in crossing the Missouri River in 
the fall, and the part had in it by Loge and 
Brandy. 
It was the nth of October, a cold, sleety day, 
and for this reason we could not get the cattle 
to take the water. They were held that night 
on the bank of the river in the cold and mud 
and everybody was miserable. I had been fer¬ 
ried over in the evening with my horse to catch 
the herd as they came out of the river on the 
Iowa side. Realizing soon after dusk that they 
would not succeed in crossing that evening, I 
rolled up in my slicker and put in the night the 
best I could. 
In the morning it was clear and fine, but cold. 
About io o’clock the boys on the other side drove 
Loge and Brandy with their yoke on into the 
river, and they were soon well on their way 
across with the herd trailing behind. Two- 
thirds of the way across was a sandy island, 
and although it was not in their course the cattle 
made for it and were soon rounded up on it, or 
in the water surrounding it, for there was not 
room on it for all the herd. 
About this time I could see my brother wav¬ 
ing his arms and yelling at me, although I could 
not distinguish anything he was saying. I sup¬ 
posed he wanted me to go to the island and 
start the cattle off. I thought that this was a 
little strange, for he knew that I was on a played- 
out horse, and the water was cold and muddy. 
The mud was so thick in solution in the water 
that it would soon weight one’s clothes and im¬ 
pede his actions. However, in those days, we 
did not stop to consider the reason why, but 
acted; and, throwing aside my six-shooters, chaps 
and everything I could do without, I was soon 
in the deep water, and my horse, without a 
struggle, was going to the bottom. 
To those unaccustomed to horses ridden to 
weakness over a trail 1,500 miles long, through 
the alternating summer heat and rain and dust of 
the Indian Territory, Kansas and Nebraska, it 
will perhaps be incomprehensible that a horse 
should deliberately walk into a river to drown 
himself. That was the case, however; my mount 
had determined on suicide. As he reached deep 
water I had slipped off his back to assist him, 
and was holding on by his tail; but as he went 
deeper and deeper in the water I was gradually 
drawn under, and when I was about to let go 
and try to regain the shore, old Bally happened 
to think that, although he might take his own 
life, he had no right to sacrifice mine. He com¬ 
menced to exert himself, and we were soon at 
the surface taking in large chunks of the at¬ 
mosphere, for which I was very thankful. 
It was a long, hard pull to the island, and I 
had time to pity Bally, for several times he 
stopped paddling and drifted some distance with 
the current, almost spent; but we finally made it. 
I was chilled to the bone, but there was no time 
to lose, for my brother was still going through 
his gymnastics on the opposite shore, and the 
longer I was out of the water the colder I got. 
Loge and Brandy were as biddable and kind a 
yoke of oxen as ever lived. I could ride either 
without a string, and could guide them where I 
wished, and was really attached to them. Driv¬ 
ing them into the water, they were soon on their 
way to the shore I had left with the rest of the 
2700 head of cattle following. 
THE VILLAGE AND HARBOR. 
(1650.) 
