r lunch at Brownsville and started out to go to this crossin'.
I knowed right about where this crossin' was and I says to the cap'n,
'Don't you reckon I better go and see if they was any sign?' We stayed
there about three hours and didn't hear a thing. And then the cap'n
said, 'Boys, we better eat our lunch'. While we was eatin', we heard
somebody holler, and he said, 'Boys, there they are.' And he said to me,
'Ben, you want to stay with the horses or be in the fun?' And I said, 'I
don't care.' So he said, 'You better stay with the horses; you ain't
paid to kill Meskins! I went out to where the horses were. The rangers
were afoot in the brush. It was about an hour from the time we heard the
fellow holler before the cattle got there. When the rangers placed
themselves on the side of the road, the Meskins didn't know what they
was goin' to get into!

"The Meskins was all singin' at the top of their voices and they was
comin' on in. The cap'n waited till they went to crossin' the herd, he
waited till these rustlers all got into the river behind the cattle, and
then the cap'n opened fire on the bandits. They didn't have no possible
show. They was in the water, and he just floated 'em down the river.
They was one man got away. I saw 'im later, and he told me about it. The
way he got away, he says he was a good swimmer and he just fell off his
horse in the water and the swift water took 'im down and he just kep'
his nose out of the water and got away that way. They was fo'teen in
that bunch, I know.

"The echo of the shootin' turned the cattle back to the American side.
The lead cattle was just gettin' ready to hit the other side of the
river when the shootin' taken place and the echo of the shootin' turned
'em and they come back across. Now, in swimmin' a bunch of cattle, if
you pop your whip, you are just as liable to turn 'em back, or if you
holler the echo might turn 'em back. It'll do that nearly every time.

"After the fight, the cap'n says to the boys, 'Well, boys, the fun is
all over now, I guess we'd better start back to camp.' And they all
mounted their horses and begun singin':

"O, bury me not on the lone prairie-e-e
Where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me-e-e,
Right where all the Meskins ought to be-e-e!"

420949

[Illustration: Mary Kindred]

MARY KINDRED was a slave on the Luke Hadnot plantation in Jasper,
Texas. She does not know her age but thinks she is about 80. She