ive us some insight into
their experiences, Bob Blades leading off.

"I was in a cow town once up on the head of the Chisholm trail at a
time when a church fair was being pulled off. There were lots of old
long-horn cowmen living in the town, who owned cattle in that Cherokee
Strip that Officer is always talking about. Well, there's lots of
folks up there that think a nigger is as good as anybody else, and
when you find such people set in their ways, it's best not to argue
matters with them, but lay low and let on you think that way too.
That's the way those old Texas cowmen acted about it.

"Well, at this church fair there was to be voted a prize of a nice
baby wagon, which had been donated by some merchant, to the prettiest
baby under a year old. Colonel Bob Zellers was in town at the time,
stopping at a hotel where the darky cook was a man who had once worked
for him on the trail. 'Frog,' the darky, had married when he quit the
colonel's service, and at the time of this fair there was a pickaninny
in his family about a year old, and nearly the color of a new saddle.
A few of these old cowmen got funny and thought it would be a good
joke to have Frog enter his baby at the fair, and Colonel Bob being
the leader in the movement, he had no trouble convincing the darky
that that baby wagon was his, if he would only enter his youngster.
Frog thought the world of the old Colonel, and the latter assured him
that he would vote for his baby while he had a dollar or a cow left.
The result was, Frog gave his enthusiastic consent, and the Colonel
agreed to enter the pickaninny in the contest.

"Well, the Colonel attended to the entering of the baby's name, and
then on the dead quiet went around and rustled up every cowman and
puncher in town, and had them promise to be on hand, to vote for the
prettiest baby at ten cents a throw. The fair was being held in the
largest hall in town, and at the appointed hour we were all on hand,
as well as Frog and his wife and baby. There were about a dozen
entries, and only one blackbird in the covey. The list of contestants
was read by the minister, and as each name was announced, there was a
vigorous clapping of hands all over the house by the friends of each
baby. But when the name of Miss Precilla June Jones was announced, the
Texas contingent made their presence known by such a deafening
outburst of applause that old Frog grinned from ear to ear--he saw
himself right then pushing that ba