on the Colorado River, we instructed him to buy for the Dodge market four herds more in adjoining counties, bringing down the necessary outfits to handle them from my ranch on the Clear Fork.  Previous to his return to San Antonio my active partner had closed contracts on thirteen thousand heavy beeves on the Frio River and lower Nueces, thus completing our purchases.  A healthy advance was noticeable all around in steer cattle, though hardly affecting cows; but having anticipated a growing appreciation in submitting our bids, we suffered no disappointment.  A week was lost in awaiting the arrival of half a dozen old foremen.  On their arrival we divided them between us and intrusted them with the buying of horses and all details in making up outfits.

The trails leading out of southern Texas were purely local ones, the only established trace running from San Antonio north, touching at Fort Griffin, and crossing into the Nations at Red River Station in Montague County.  All our previous herds from the Uvalde regions had turned eastward to intercept this main thoroughfare, though we had been frequently advised to try a western outlet known as the Nueces Canon route.  The latter course would bring us out on high tablelands, but before risking our herds through it, I decided to ride out the country in advance.  The canon proper was about forty miles long, through which ran the source of the Nueces River, and if the way were barely possible it looked like a feasible route.  Taking a pack horse and guide with me, I rode through and out on the mesa beyond.  General McKinzie had used this route during his Indian campaigns, and had even built mounds of rock on the hills to guide the wayfarer, from the exit of the canon across to the South Llano River.  The trail was a rough one, but there was grass sufficient to sustain the herds and ample bed-grounds in the valleys, and I decided to try the western outlet from Uvalde.  An early, seasonable spring favored us with fine grass on which to put up and start the herds, all five moving out within a week of each other.  I promised my foremen to accompany them through the canon, knowing that the passage would be a trial to man and beast, and asked the old bosses to loiter along, so that there would be but a few hours’ difference between the rear and lead herds.

I received sixteen thousand cattle, and the four days required in passing through Nueces Canon and reaching water beyond were the supreme physical test of my life.  It was a wild section, wholly unsettled, between low mountains, the river-bed constantly shifting from one flank of the valley to the other, while cliffs from three to five hundred feet high alternated from side to side.  In traveling the first twenty-five miles we crossed the bed of the river twenty-one times; and besides the river there were a great number of creeks and dry arroyos putting in from the surrounding hills, so that we were constantly crossing rough ground.