So after darkness had fallen and the men had bedded their cattle for the night, he slipped through the guard on night-herd and lay down among the others.  He complimented himself on his craftiness, but never dreamed that this was a trail herd, bound for some other country three hundred miles beyond his native Texas.  The company was congenial; it numbered thirty-five hundred two-year-old steers like himself, and strangely no one ever noticed him until long after they had crossed the Frio.  Then a swing man one day called his foreman’s attention to a stray, line-backed, bar-circle-bar steer in the herd.  The foreman only gave him a passing glance, saying, “Let him alone; we may get a jug of whiskey for him if some trail cutter don’t claim him before we cross Red River.”

Now Red River was the northern boundary of his native State, and though he was unconscious of his destination, he was delighted with his new life and its constant change of scene.  He also rejoiced that every hour carried him farther and farther from the Nueces valley, where he had suffered so much physical pain and humiliation.  So for several months he traveled northward with the herd.  He swam rivers and grazed in contentment across flowery prairies, mesas and broken country.  Yet it mattered nothing to him where he was going, for his every need was satisfied.  These men with the herd were friendly to him, for they anticipated his wants by choosing the best grazing, so arranging matters that he reached water daily, and selecting a dry bed ground for him at night.  And when strange copper-colored men with feathers in their hair rode along beside the herd he felt no fear.

The provincial ideas of his youth underwent a complete change within the first month of trail life.  When he swam Red River with the leaders of the herd, he not only bade farewell to his native soil, but burned all bridges behind him.  To the line-back steer, existence on the Nueces had been very simple.  But now his views were broadening.  Was not he a unit of millions of his kind, all forging forward like brigades of a king’s army to possess themselves of some unconquered country?  These men with whom he was associated were the vikings of the Plain.  The Red Man was conquered, and, daily, the skulls of the buffalo, his predecessors, stared vacantly into his face.

By the middle of summer they reached their destination, for the cattle were contracted to a cowman in the Cherokee Strip, Indian Territory.  The day of delivery had arrived.  The herd was driven into a pasture where they met another outfit of horsemen similar to their own.  The cattle were strung out and counted.  The men agreed on the numbers.  But watchful eyes scanned every brand as they passed in review, and the men in the receiving outfit called the attention of their employer to the fact that there were several strays in the herd not in the road brand.  One of these strays was a line-back, bar-circle-bar, two-year-old steer.  There were also others; when fifteen of them had been cut out and the buyer asked the trail foreman if he was willing to include them in the bill of sale, the latter smilingly replied:  “Not on your life, Captain.  You can’t keep them out of a herd.  Down in my country we call strays like them poker steers.”