I have never kept a diary.  One might wonder that the human mind could contain such a mass of incident and experiences as has been my portion, yet I can remember the day and date of occurrences of fifty years ago.  The scoldings of my father, the kind words of an indulgent mother, when not over five years of age, are vivid in my memory as I write to-day.  It may seem presumptuous, but I can give the year and date of starting, arrival, and delivery of over one hundred herds of cattle which I drove over the trail as a common hand, foreman, or owner.  Yet the warnings of years—­the unsteady step, easily embarrassed, love of home and dread of leaving it—­bid me hasten these memoirs.  Even my old wounds act as a barometer in foretelling the coming of storms, as well as the change of season, from both of which I am comfortably sheltered.  But as I look into the inquiring eyes of a circle of grandchildren, all anxious to know my life story, it seems to sweeten the task, and I am encouraged to go on with the work.

CHAPTER II

MY APPRENTICESHIP

During the winter of 1865-66 I corresponded with several of my old comrades in Texas.  Beyond a welcome which could not be questioned, little encouragement was, with one exception, offered me among my old friends.  It was a period of uncertainty throughout the South, yet a cheerful word reached me from an old soldier crony living some distance west of Fort Worth on the Brazos River.  I had great confidence in my former comrade, and he held out a hope, assuring me that if I would come, in case nothing else offered, we could take his ox teams the next winter and bring in a cargo of buffalo robes.  The plains to the westward of Fort Griffin, he wrote, were swarming with buffalo, and wages could be made in killing them for their hides.  This caught my fancy and I was impatient to start at once; but the healing of my reopened wound was slow, and it was March before I started.  My brother gave me a good horse and saddle, twenty-five dollars in gold, and I started through a country unknown to me personally.  Southern Missouri had been in sympathy with the Confederacy, and whatever I needed while traveling through that section was mine for the asking.  I avoided the Indian Territory until I reached Fort Smith, where I rested several days with an old comrade, who gave me instructions and routed me across the reservation of the Choctaw Indians, and I reached Paris, Texas, without mishap.

I remember the feeling that I experienced while being ferried across Red River.  That watercourse was the northern boundary of Texas, and while crossing it I realized that I was leaving home and friends and entering a country the very name of which to the outside world was a synonym for crime and outlawry.  Yet some of as good men as ever it was my pleasure to know came from that State, and undaunted I held a true course for my destination.  I was disappointed