southeast on the Smoky River, at seven dollars a head.  The terms were that I was to cut out the cattle, and as many were cripples and cost me little or nothing, they afforded a nice profit besides cleaning up my herd.  When selling my own, I always priced a choice of my cattle at a reasonable figure, or offered to cull out the same number at half the price.  By this method my herd was kept trimmed from both ends and the happy medium preserved.

I love to think of those good old days.  Without either foresight or effort I made all kinds of money during the summer of 1870.  Our best patrons that fall were small ranchmen from Kansas and Nebraska, every one of whom had coined money on their purchases of the summer before.  One hundred per cent for wintering a steer and carrying him less than a year had brought every cattleman and his cousin back to Abilene to duplicate their former ventures.  The little ranchman who bought five hundred steers in the fall of 1869 was in the market the present summer for a thousand head.  Demand always seemed to meet supply a little over half-way.  The market closed firm, with every hoof taken and at prices that were entirely satisfactory to drovers.  It would seem an impossibility were I to admit my profits for that year, yet at the close of the season I started overland to Texas with fifty choice saddle horses and a snug bank account.  Surely those were the golden days of the old West.

My last act before leaving Abilene that fall was to meet my enemy and force a personal settlement.  Major Mabry washed his hands by firmly refusing to name my accuser, but from other sources I traced my defamer to a liveryman of the town.  The fall before, on four horses and saddles, I paid a lien, in the form of a feed bill, of one hundred and twenty dollars for my stranded friends.  The following day the same man presented me another bill for nearly an equal amount, claiming it had been assigned to him in a settlement with other parties.  I investigated the matter, found it to be a disputed gambling account, and refused payment.  An attempt was made, only for a moment, to hold the horses, resulting in my incurring the stableman’s displeasure.  The outcome was that on our return the next spring our patronage went to another bran, and the story, born in malice and falsehood, was started between employer and employee.  I had made arrangements to return to Texas with the last one of Major Mabry’s outfits, and the wagon and remuda had already started, when I located my traducer in a well-known saloon.  I invited him to a seat at a table, determined to bring matters to an issue.  He reluctantly complied, when I branded him with every vile epithet that my tongue could command, concluding by arraigning him as a coward.  I was hungering for him to show some resistance, expecting to kill him, and when he refused to notice my insults, I called the barkeeper and asked for two glasses of whiskey and a pair of six-shooters.  Not a word passed between us until the bartender brought the drinks and guns on a tray.  “Now take your choice,” said I. He replied, “I believe a little whiskey will do me good.”