There is a close relationship between a cowman and his herds.  My insight into cattle character exceeds my observation of the human family.  Therefore I wish to confess my great love for the cattle of the fields.  When hungry or cold, sick or distressed, they express themselves intelligently to my understanding, and when dangers of night and storm and stampede threaten their peace and serenity, they instinctively turn to the refuge of a human voice.  When a herd was bedded at night, and wolves howled in the distance, the boys on guard easily calmed the sleeping cattle by simply raising their voices in song.  The desire of self-preservation is innate in the animal race, but as long as the human kept watch and ward, the sleeping cattle had no fear of the common enemy.  An incident which I cannot explain, but was witness to, occurred during the war.  While holding cattle for the Confederate army we received a consignment of beeves from Texas.  One of the men who accompanied the herd through called my attention to a steer and vouchsafed the statement that the animal loved music,—­that he could be lured out of the herd with singing.  To prove his assertion, the man sang what he termed the steer’s favorite, and to the surprise of every soldier present, a fine, big mottled beef walked out from among a thousand others and stood entranced over the simple song.  In my younger days my voice was considered musical; I could sing the folk-songs of my country better than the average, and when the herdsmen left us, I was pleased to see that my vocal efforts fascinated the late arrival from Texas.  Within a week I could call him out with a song, when I fell so deeply in love with the broad-horn Texan that his life was spared through my disloyalty.  In the daily issue to the army we kept him back as long as possible; but when our supply was exhausted, and he would have gone to the shambles the following day, I secretly cut him out at night and drove him miles to our rear, that his life might be spared.  Within a year he returned with another consignment of beef; comrades who were in the secret would not believe me; but when a quartette of us army herders sang “Rock of Ages,” the steer walked out and greeted us with mute appreciation.  We enjoyed his company for over a month, I could call him with a song as far as my voice reached, and when death again threatened him, we cut him to the rear and he was never spoken again.  Loyal as I was to the South, I would have deserted rather than have seen that steer go to the shambles.

In bringing these reminiscences to a close, I wish to bear testimony in behalf of the men who lent their best existence that success should crown my efforts.  Aside from my family, the two pleasantest recollections of my life are my old army comrades and the boys who worked with me on the range and trail.  When men have roughed it together, shared their hardships in field and by camp-fire like true comrades, there is an indescribable bond between them that puts to shame