the classing for him.

The Texas Cattlemen's Annual Convention was a most important event in
our lives. It was held sometimes in El Paso, sometimes in San Antonio,
but oftenest in Fort Worth, and was attended by ranchmen from all over
the State, as well as by many from New Mexico, and by buyers from
Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas and elsewhere. Being held early in
spring the sales then made generally set the prices for the year. Much
dickering was gone through and many deals made, some of enormous extent.
Individual sales of 2000, 5000 or even 10,000 steers were effected, and
individual purchases of numbers up to 20,000 head; even whole herds of
30,000 to 50,000 cattle were sometimes disposed of. It was a meeting
where old friends and comrades, cattle kings and cowboys, their wives,
children and sweethearts, met and had a glorious old time. It brought an
immense amount of money into the place, and hence the strenuous efforts
made by different towns (the saloons) "to get the Convention."

Among the celebrities to be met there might be Buffalo Jones, a typical
plainsman of the type of Buffalo Bill (Cody). Jones some years ago went
far north to secure some young musk oxen. None had ever before been
captured. He and his men endured great hardships and privations, but
finally, by roping, secured about a dozen yearlings. The Indians swore
that he should not take them out of their territory. On returning he
had got as far as the very edge of the Indian country and was a very
proud and well-pleased man. But that last fatal morning he woke up to
find all the animals with their throats cut. Only last year Jones, with
two New Mexican cowboys and a skilled photographer, formed the daring
and apparently mad plan of going to Africa and roping and so capturing
any wild animal they might come across, barring, of course, the
elephant. His object was to secure for show purposes cinematograph
pictures. He took some New Mexican cow-ponies out with him, and he and
his men succeeded in all they undertook to do, capturing not only the
less dangerous animals, such as antelope, buck and giraffe, but also a
lioness and a rhinoceros, surely a very notable feat.

Amarillo in the Panhandle was then purely a cattleman's town. It was a
great shipping point--at one time the greatest in the world--and was
becoming a railroad centre. I was there a good deal, and for amusement
during the slack season went to work to fix up a polo ground. No one in