t was not long before trouble was brewing between our men and
the natives which culminated in one of our men shooting and killing one
of the bad men of the hole. Fearing more trouble and not being in the
best possible shape to meet it, burdened as we were with five hundred
head of cattle we broke camp at once and proceeded on our journey north.
We arrived at the ranch where our herd were to be delivered without
further incident and with all our cattle intact and after turning the
herd over to their new owners and spending several days in getting
acquainted with our northern neighbors, the Nebraska cowboys whom we
found hot numbers and a jolly all round crowd of cattle men, we left for
Arizona on the return journey by way of Wyoming, Colorado and New
Mexico, arriving home in good shape late in the fall without further
incident, and were soon engaged in range riding over our own ranges
again, and getting everything in shape for the winter, but we had to be
out on the range off and on all winter. Then in the spring came the
usual round ups, cuttings and brandings, during which time all our men
were needed at the home ranch. I had long since developed into a first
class cow boy and besides being chief brand reader in Arizona and the
pan handle country. My expertness in riding, roping and in the general
routine of the cow boy's life, including my wide knowledge of the
surrounding country, gained in many long trips with herds of cattle and
horses, made my services in great demand and my wages increased
accordingly. To see me now you would not recognize the bronze hardened
dare devil cow boy, the slave boy who a few years ago hunted rabbits in
his shirt tail on the old plantation in Tennessee, or the tenderfoot who
shrank shaking all over at the sight of a band of painted Indians. I had
long since felt the hot sting of the leaden bullet as it plowed its way
through some portion of my anatomy. Likewise I had lost all sense of
fear, and while I was not the wild blood thirsty savage and all around
bad man many writers have pictured me in their romances, yet I was wild,
reckless and free, afraid of nothing, that is nothing that I ever saw,
with a wide knowledge of the cattle country and the cattle business and
of my guns with which I was getting better acquainted with every day,
and not above taking my whiskey straight or returning bullet for bullet
in a scrimmage. I always had been reckless, as evidenced by my riding of
Black Highw