ifficulty we located the owners,
finding them anxious to meet buyers for their mature surplus cattle.
We spent a week along the Frio, Leona, and Nueces rivers, and closed
contracts on sixty-one hundred five to seven year old beeves. The
cattle were not as good a quality as prairie-raised north Texas stock,
but the pounds avoirdupois were there, the defects being in their
mongrel colors, length of legs, and breadth of horns, heritages from
the original Spanish stock. Otherwise they were tall as a horse,
clean-limbed as a deer, and active on their feet, and they looked like
fine walkers. I estimated that two bits a head would drive them to
Red River, and as we bought them at three dollars a head less than
prevailing prices for the same-aged beeves north of or parallel to
Fort Worth, we were well repaid for our time and trouble.

We returned to San Antonio and opened a bank account. The 15th of
March was agreed on to receive. Two remudas of horses would have to
be secured, wagons fitted up, and outfits engaged. Heretofore I had
furnished all horses for trail work, but now, with our enlarging
business, it would be necessary to buy others, which would be done at
the expense of the firm. George Edwards was accordingly sent for, and
met us at Waco. He was furnished a letter of credit on our San Antonio
bank, and authorized to buy and equip two complete outfits for the
Uvalde beeves. Edwards was a good judge of horses, there was an
abundance of saddle stock in the country, and he was instructed to buy
not less than one hundred and twenty-five head for each remuda, to
outfit his wagons with four-mule teams, and announce us as willing to
engage fourteen men to the herd. Once these details were arranged for,
Major Hunter and myself bought two good horses and struck west for
Coryell County, where we had put up two herds the spring before. Our
return met with a flood of offerings, prices of the previous year
still prevailed, and we let contracts for sixty-five hundred
three-year-old steers and an equal number of dry and barren cows. We
paid seven dollars a head for the latter, and in order to avoid any
dispute at the final tender it was stipulated that the offerings
must be in good flesh, not under five nor over eight years old, full
average in weight, and showing no evidence of pregnancy. Under local
customs, "a cow was a cow," and we had to be specific.

We did our banking at Waco for the Coryell herds. Hastening north, our
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