ng horses frequently, one day out I had left Red River
in my rear, but before me lay an uninhabited country, unless I veered
from my course and went through the Chickasaw Nation. For the sake of
securing grain for the horses, this tack was made, following the old
Chisholm trail for nearly one hundred miles. The country was in the
grip of winter, sleet and snow covering the ground, with succor for
man and horse far apart. Mumford Johnson's ranch on the Washita River
was reached late the second night, and by daybreak the next morning I
was on the trail, making Quartermaster Creek by one o'clock that day.
Fortunately no storms were encountered en route, but King Winter ruled
the range with an iron hand, fully six inches of snow covering the
pasture, over which was a crusted sleet capable of carrying the weight
of a beef. The foreman and his men were working night and day to
succor the cattle. Between storms, two crews of the boys drifted
everything back from the south line of fence, while others cut ice and
opened the water to the perishing animals. Scarcity of food was the
most serious matter; being unable to reach the grass under its coat of
sleet and snow, the cattle had eaten the willows down to the ground.
When a boy in Virginia I had often helped cut down basswood and maple
trees in the spring for the cattle to browse upon, and, sending to the
agency for new axes, I armed every man on the ranch with one, and we
began felling the cottonwood and other edible timber along the creeks
and rivers in the pasture. The cattle followed the axemen like sheep,
eating the tender branches of the softer woods to the size of a man's
wrist, the crash of a falling tree bringing them by the dozens to
browse and stay their hunger. I swung an axe with the men, and never
did slaves under the eye of a task-master work as faithfully or as
long as we did in cutting ice and falling timber in succoring our
holding of cattle. Several times the sun shone warm for a few days,
melting the snow off the southern slopes, when we took to our saddles,
breaking the crust with long poles, the cattle following to where the
range was bared that they might get a bit of grass. Had it not been
for a few such sunny days, our loss would have been double what it
was; but as it was, with the general range in the clutches of sleet
and snow for over fifty days, about twenty per cent, of our holdings
were winter-killed, principally of through cattle.

Our saddle sto