he steamboats down the Rio Grande. I just tell you they was no way of
shippin' cattle on a steamboat. They couldn't get 'em down the hatch and
they couldn't keep 'em on deck and they wasn't no wharf to load 'em,
either. I was there and I seen them boats too long and I =know= they never
shipped no cattle on them steamboats. After they crossed the Rio Grand
into Mexico, they might have been shipped from some port down there, but
all them cattle they crossed was =swum= across. They was big boats, but
they wasn't no stock boats. They shipped lots of cotton on them
steamboats, but they wasn't fixed to ship no cattle. They was up there
for freight and passengers. The passengers was going on down the Gulf,
maybe to New Orleans. They would get on at Brownsville. The steamboats
couldn't go very fur up the river only in high water, but they could
come up to Brownsville all the time.

"I was in the Ranger service for about a year with Captain McNelly, or
until he died. I was his guide. I was living thirty-five miles above
Brownsville. I was working for a man right there on the place by the
name of John Cunningham. It was called Bare Stone. You see, hit was a
ranch there. McNelly was stationed there after the government troops
moved off. They had 'em (the troops) there for a while, but they never
did do no good, never did make a raid on nothin'. I was twenty or
twenty-one. How come me to get in with McNelly, they had a big meadow
there, a big 'permuda' (Bermuda) grass meadow. Me and another fellow
used to go in there, and John Cunningham furnished Cap'n McNelly hay for
his horses. That's how come me to get in with 'im. Fin'ly, he found out
I knew all about that country and sometimes he would come over there and
get me to map off a road, though they wasn't but one main road right
there. So, one day I was over in the camp with 'im and I say, 'Cap'n,
how would you like to give me a job to work with you?' He said, 'I'd
like to have you all right, but you couldn't come here on state pay, and
under =no responsibility=.' I told 'im that was all right. I knew how I
was going to get my money, 'cause I gambled. Sometimes I would have a
hundred or a hundred, twenty-five dollars. Durin' the month I would win
from the soljers dealin' monte or playin' seven-up. They wasn't no craps
in them days. We played luck too; we never had no shenanigans,
a-stealin' a man's money. If you had a good streak o' luck, you made
good; if you didn't, you was out o'