The Missing Pocket-Book; Or, Tom Mason's Luck

The Sheriff and the Cattlemen.
BY HARRY CASTLEMON
AUTHOR OF “THE GUNBOAT SERIES,” “ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES,” “WAR SERIES,” ETC.
PHILADELPHIA HENRY T. COATES & CO.
Copyright, 1895, BY PORTER & COATES.
THE MISSING POCKET-BOOK; OR, TOM MASON’S LUCK.
CATTLEMEN AND FARMERS READY FOR WAR.
Fort Worth, August 5, 18—. One hundred and seventy-five thousand head of cattle are being slowly drifted and driven from the drought-parched sections of Northwestern Texas into Jacks County, along the waters of the West Fork of Trinity. The herders who accompany them demand that they must have grass and water, or blood. The farmers, who will be greatly damaged by the passage of these immense herds, are arming and say the cattle shall not come in—that they must be driven back at all hazards. To permit them to pass means fences destroyed, crops ruined, and the meagre supply of water exhausted; to turn them back means death to the cattle and financial disaster to the men who own them. To-day the news was carried from house to house, and the farmers are turning out to a man, resolved to rendezvous on Bear Creek and forbid the driving of the cattle through their lands. Large squads have gone to the front, and they are well-armed and desperate. Sheriff Reins will be on hand to-morrow, and so will a company of militia under command of Captain Fuller. Several conflicts, involving the loss of six or seven lives, have already taken place between the cattlemen and the farmers, the particulars of which have not yet found publicity.
Of all the boys into whose hands this story may fall, and who make it a point to read the daily papers, I venture to say that not one in a hundred will remember that he ever saw the above despatch, which was flashed over the wires one bright summer morning a few years ago; but if those boys had been on the ground as I was, and witnessed the thrilling and affecting scenes that transpired before and after that despatch was written, they would have seen some things that time could never efface from their memories.