Mr. Wiley got the "G. B." at once and a Mr. Logan was put in his place. Now this man Logan was a very good man but he was out of his latitude, he should have been a second mate on a Mississippi steamboat.
I worked with Logan one trip, until we got back to the ranch and then I settled up for the first time since going to work, nearly two years before.
An old irishman by the name of "Hunky-dorey" Brown kept the store and did the settling up with the men. When he settled with me he laid all the money, in silver dollars, that I had earned since commencing work, which amounted to a few hundred dollars, out on the counter and then after eyeing me awhile, said: "Allen, Pool & Co. owe you three hundred dollars," or whatever the amount was, "and you owe Allen, Pool & Co. two hundred ninety-nine dollars and a quarter, which leaves you seventy-five cents." He then raked all but six bits into the money drawer.
To say that I felt mortified wouldn't near express my feelings. I thought the whole pile was mine and therefore had been figuring on the many purchases that I intended making. My intentions were to buy a herd of ponies and go to speculating. I had a dozen or two ponies, that I knew were for sale, already picked out in my mind. But my fond expectations were soon trampled under foot. You see I had never kept an account, consequently never knew how I stood with the company.
After pocketing my six bits, I mounted "Fannie" a little mare that I had bought not long before and struck out for W. B. Grimes' ranch, a few miles up the river. I succeeded in getting a job from the old gentleman at fifteen dollars per month.
Mr. Grimes had a slaughter house on his ranch where he killed cattle for their hides and tallow—the meat he threw to the hogs. About two hundred head per day was an average killing. Did you ask kind reader, if those were all his own cattle that he butchered? If so, will have to say that I never tell tales out of school.
After working around the ranch a short while Mr. Grimes gave me the job of taking care of his "stock horses," that is mares, colts and horses that wern't in use. There were about two hundred head of those and they were scattered in two hundred and fifty different places—over fifty square miles of territory and of course before I could take care of them I had to go to work and gather them up into one bunch.
A little circumstance happened shortly after going to work at the "W. B. G." ranch which I am going to relate.
An old gentleman by the name of Kinchlow, who owned a large horse ranch up on the Colorado river in Whorton county, came down and told Mr. Grimes that his outfit was fixing to start on a horse "hunt" and for him to send a man along, as there were quite a number of "W. B. G." horses in that country.
As I had the job taking care of the horses, it fell to my lot to accompany the old gentleman, Mr. Kinchlow, to his ranch fifty miles distant.