The Outlet

“Well, gentlemen, if that is the best rate you can offer us, then we’ll drive the cattle.  My boys have all been over the trail before, and your figures are no inducement to ship as far as Red River.  We are fully aware of the nature of the country, but we can deliver the herds at their destination for less than you ask us for shipping them one third of the distance.  No; we’ll drive all the way.”

The speaker was Don Lovell, a trail drover, and the parties addressed were the general freight agents of three railroad lines operating in Texas.  A conference had been agreed upon, and we had come in by train from the ranch in Medina County to attend the meeting in San Antonio.  The railroad representatives were shrewd, affable gentlemen, and presented an array of facts hard to overcome.  They were well aware of the obstacles to be encountered in the arid, western portion of the state, and magnified every possibility into a stern reality.  Unrolling a large state map upon the table, around which the principals were sitting, the agent of the Denver and Fort Worth traced the trail from Buffalo Gap to Doan’s Crossing on Red River.  Producing what was declared to be a report of the immigration agent of his line, he showed by statistics that whole counties through which the old trail ran had recently been settled up by Scandinavian immigrants.  The representative of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, when opportunity offered, enumerated every disaster which had happened to any herd to the westward of his line in the past five years.  The factor of the International was equally well posted.

“Now, Mr. Lovell,” said he, dumping a bundle of papers on the table, “if you will kindly glance over these documents, I think I can convince you that it is only a question of a few years until all trail cattle will ship the greater portion of the way.  Here is a tabulated statement up to and including the year ’83.  From twenty counties tributary to our line and south of this city, you will notice that in ’80 we practically handled no cattle intended for the trail.  Passing on to the next season’s drive, you see we secured a little over ten per cent. of the cattle and nearly thirty per cent. of the horse stock.  Last year, or for ’83, drovers took advantage of our low rates for Red River points, and the percentage ran up to twenty-four and a fraction, or practically speaking, one fourth of the total drive.  We are able to offer the same low rates this year, and all arrangements are completed with our connecting lines to give live-stock trains carrying trail cattle a passenger schedule.  Now, if you care to look over this correspondence, you will notice that we have inquiries which will tax our carrying capacity to its utmost.  The ‘Laurel Leaf’ and ‘Running W’ people alone have asked for a rate on thirty thousand head.”

But the drover brushed the correspondence aside, and asked for the possible feed bills.  A blanket rate had been given on the entire shipment from that city, or any point south, to Wichita Falls, with one rest and feed.  Making a memorandum of the items, Lovell arose from the table and came over to where Jim Flood and I were searching for Fort Buford on a large wall map.  We were both laboring under the impression that it was in Montana, but after our employer pointed it out to us at the mouth of the Yellowstone in Dakota, all three of us adjourned to an ante-room.  Flood was the best posted trail foreman in Don Lovell’s employ, and taking seats at the table, we soon reduced the proposed shipping expense to a pro-rata sum per head.  The result was not to be considered, and on returning to the main office, our employer, as already expressed, declined the proffered rate.

Then the freight men doubled on him, asking if he had taken into consideration a saving in wages.  In a two days’ run they would lay down the cattle farther on their way than we could possibly drive in six weeks, even if the country was open, not to say anything about the wear and tear of horseflesh.  But Don Lovell had not been a trail drover for nearly fifteen years without understanding his business as well as the freight agents did theirs.  After going over a large lot of other important data, our employer arose to take his leave, when the agent of the local line expressed a hope that Mr. Lovell would reconsider his decision before spring opened, and send his drive a portion of the way by rail.

“Well, I’m glad I met you, gentlemen,” said the cowman at parting, “but this is purely a business proposition, and you and I look at it from different viewpoints.  At the rate you offer, it will cost me one dollar and seventy-five cents to lay a steer down on Red River.  Hold on; mine are all large beeves; and I must mount my men just the same as if they trailed all the way.  Saddle horses were worth nothing in the North last year, and I kept mine and bought enough others around Dodge to make up a thousand head, and sent them back over the trail to my ranch.  Now, it will take six carloads of horses for each herd, and I propose to charge the freight on them against the cattle.  I may have to winter my remudas in the North, or drive them home again, and if I put two dollars a head freight in them, they won’t bring a cent more on that account.  With the cattle it’s different; they are all under contract, but the horses must be charged as general expense, and if nothing is realized out of them, the herd must pay the fiddler.  My largest delivery is a sub-contract for Fort Buford, calling for five million pounds of beef on foot.  It will take three herds or ten thousand cattle to fill it.  I was anxious to give those Buford beeves an early start, and that was the main reason in my consenting to this conference.  I have three other earlier deliveries at Indian agencies, but they are not as far north by several hundred miles, and it’s immaterial whether we ship or not.  But the Buford contract sets the day of delivery for September 15, and it’s going to take close figuring to make a cent.  The main contractors are all right, but I’m the one that’s got to scratch his head and figure close and see that there’s no leakages.  Your freight bill alone would be a nice profit.  It may cost us a little for water getting out of Texas, but with the present outlet for cattle, it’s bad policy to harass the herds.  Water is about the best crop some of those settlers along the trail have to sell, and they ought to treat us right.”

After the conference was over, we scattered about the city, on various errands, expecting to take the night train home.  It was then the middle of February, and five of the six herds were already purchased.  In spite of the large numbers of cattle which the trail had absorbed in previous years, there was still an abundance of all ages, anxious for a market.  The demand in the North had constantly been for young cattle, leaving the matured steers at home.  Had Mr. Lovell’s contracts that year called for forty thousand five and six year old beeves, instead of twenty, there would have been the same inexhaustible supply from which to pick and choose.  But with only one herd yet to secure, and ample offerings on every hand, there was no necessity for a hurry.  Many of the herds driven the year before found no sale, and were compelled to winter in the North at the drover’s risk.  In the early spring of ’84, there was a decided lull over the enthusiasm of the two previous years, during the former of which the trail afforded an outlet for nearly seven hundred thousand Texas cattle.

In regard to horses we were well outfitted.  During the summer of ’83, Don Lovell had driven four herds, two on Indian contract and two of younger cattle on speculation.  Of the latter, one was sold in Dodge for delivery on the Purgatory River in southern Colorado, while the other went to Ogalalla, and was disposed of and received at that point.  In both cases there was no chance to sell the saddle horses, and they returned to Dodge and were sent to pasture down the river in the settlements.  My brother, Bob Quirk, had driven one of the other herds to an agency in the Indian Territory.  After making the delivery, early in August, on his employer’s orders, he had brought his remuda and outfit into Dodge, the horses being also sent to pasture and the men home to Texas.  I had made the trip that year to the Pine Ridge Agency in Dakota with thirty-five hundred beeves, under Flood as foreman.  Don Lovell was present at the delivery, and as there was no hope of effecting a sale of the saddle stock among the Indians, after delivering the outfit at the nearest railroad, I was given two men and the cook, and started back over the trail for Dodge with the remuda.  The wagon was a drawback, but on reaching Ogalalla, an emigrant outfit offered me a fair price for the mules and commissary, and I sold them.  Lashing our rations and blankets on two pack-horses, we turned our backs on the Platte and crossed the Arkansaw at Dodge on the seventh day.

But instead of the remainder of the trip home by rail, as we fondly expected, the programme had changed.  Lovell and Flood had arrived in Dodge some ten days before, and looking over the situation, had come to the conclusion it was useless even to offer our remudas.  As remnants of that year’s drive, there had concentrated in and around that market something like ten thousand saddle horses.  Many of these were from central and north Texas, larger and better stock than ours, even though care had been used in selecting the latter.  So on their arrival, instead of making any effort to dispose of our own, the drover and his foreman had sized up the congested condition of the market, and turned buyers.  They had bought two whole remudas, and picked over five or six others until their purchases amounted to over five hundred head.  Consequently on our reaching Dodge with the Pine Ridge horses, I was informed that they were going to send all the saddle stock back over the trail to the ranch and that I was to have charge of the herd.  Had the trip been in the spring and the other way, I certainly would have felt elated over my promotion.  Our beef herd that year had been put up in Dimmit County, and from there to the Pine Ridge Agency and back to the ranch would certainly be a summer’s work to gratify an ordinary ambition.

In the mean time and before our arrival, Flood had brought up all the stock and wagons from the settlement, and established a camp on Mulberry Creek, south of Dodge on the trail.  He had picked up two Texans who were anxious to see their homes once more, and the next day at noon we started.  The herd numbered a thousand and sixty head, twenty of which were work-mules.  The commissary which was to accompany us was laden principally with harness; and waving Flood farewell, we turned homeward, leaving behind unsold of that year’s drive only two wagons.  Lovell had instructed us never to ride the same horse twice, and wherever good grass and water were encountered, to kill as much time as possible.  My employer was enthusiastic over the idea, and well he might be, for a finer lot of saddle horses were not in the possession of any trail drover, while those purchased in Dodge could have been resold in San Antonio at a nice profit.  Many of the horses had run idle several months and were in fine condition.  With the allowance of four men and a cook, a draft-book for personal expenses, and over a thousand horses from which to choose a mount, I felt like an embryo foreman, even if it was a back track and the drag end of the season.  Turning everything scot free at night, we reached the ranch in old Medina in six weeks, actually traveling about forty days.

But now, with the opening of the trail season almost at hand, the trials of past years were forgotten in the enthusiasm of the present.  I had a distinct recollection of numerous resolves made on rainy nights, while holding a drifting herd, that this was positively my last trip over the trail.  Now, however, after a winter of idleness, my worst fear was that I might be left at home with the ranch work, and thus miss the season’s outing entirely.  There were new charms in the Buford contract which thrilled me,—­its numerical requirements, the sight of the Yellowstone again, and more, to be present at the largest delivery of the year to the government.  Rather than have missed the trip, I would have gladly cooked or wrangled the horses for one of the outfits.

On separating, Lovell urged his foreman and myself to be at the depot in good time to catch our train.  That our employer’s contracts for the year would require financial assistance, both of us were fully aware.  The credit of Don Lovell was gilt edge, not that he was a wealthy cowman, but the banks and moneyed men of the city recognized his business ability.  Nearly every year since he began driving cattle, assistance had been extended him, but the promptness with which he had always met his obligations made his patronage desirable.

Flood and I had a number of errands to look after for the boys on the ranch and ourselves, and, like countrymen, reached the depot fully an hour before the train was due.  Not possessed of enough gumption to inquire if the westbound was on time, we loitered around until some other passengers informed us that it was late.  Just as we were on the point of starting back to town, Lovell drove up in a hack, and the three of us paced the platform until the arrival of the belated train.

“Well, boys, everything looks serene,” said our employer, when we had walked to the farther end of the depot.  “I can get all the money I need, even if we shipped part way, which I don’t intend to do.  The banks admit that cattle are a slow sale and a shade lower this spring, and are not as free with their money as a year or two ago.  My bankers detained me over an hour until they could send for a customer who claimed to have a very fine lot of beeves for sale in Lasalle County.  That he is anxious to sell there is no doubt, for he offered them to me on my own time, and agrees to meet any one’s prices.  I half promised to come back next week and go down with him to Lasalle and look his cattle over.  If they show up right, there will be no trouble in buying them, which will complete our purchases.  It is my intention, Jim, to give you the herd to fill our earliest delivery.  Our next two occur so near together that you will have to represent me at one of them.  The Buford cattle, being the last by a few weeks, we will both go up there and see it over with.  There are about half a dozen trail foremen anxious for the two other herds, and while they are good men, I don’t know of any good reason for not pushing my own boys forward.  I have already decided to give Dave Sponsilier and Quince Forrest two of the Buford herds, and I reckon, Tom, the last one will fall to you.”

The darkness in which we were standing shielded my egotism from public view.  But I am conscious that I threw out my brisket several inches and stood straight on my bow-legs as I thanked old man Don for the foremanship of his sixth herd.  Flood was amused, and told me afterward that my language was extravagant.  There is an old superstition that if a man ever drinks out of the Rio Grande, it matters not where he roams afterward, he is certain to come back to her banks again.  I had watered my horse in the Yellowstone in ’82, and ever afterward felt an itching to see her again.  And here the opportunity opened before me, not as a common cow-hand, but as a trail boss and one of three in filling a five million pound government beef contract!  But it was dark and I was afoot, and if I was a trifle “chesty,” there had suddenly come new colorings to my narrow world.

On the arrival of the train, several other westward-bound cowmen boarded it.  We all took seats in the smoker, it being but a two hours’ run to our destination.  Flood and I were sitting well forward in the car, the former almost as elated over my good fortune as myself.  “Well, won’t old Quince be all puffed up,” said Jim to me, “when the old man tells him he’s to have a herd.  Now, I’ve never said a word in favor of either one of you.  Of course, when Mr. Lovell asked me if I knew certain trail foremen who were liable to be idle this year, I intimated that he had plenty of material in his employ to make a few of his own.  The old man may be a trifle slow on reaching a decision, but once he makes up his mind, he’s there till the cows come home.  Now, all you and Quince need to do is to make good, for you couldn’t ask for a better man behind you.  In making up your outfit, you want to know every man you hire, and give a preference to gray hairs, for they’re not so liable to admire their shadow in sunny or get homesick in falling weather.  Tom, where you made a ten-strike with the old man was in accepting that horse herd at Dodge last fall.  Had you made a whine or whimper then, the chances are you wouldn’t be bossing a herd this year.  Lovell is a cowman who likes to see a fellow take his medicine with a smile.”