The worst job was to get the boat into the river, the mouth of it being stopped up with a raft, or "drift" about eighteen miles long.
My only show was to snake her across the prairie from the head of Willson's creek, a distance of five miles—and that I concluded to do if it took all the oxen in Matagorda county.
As I needed a partner in my new enterprise, I managed to find one in the person of an old irishman by the name of "Big Jack." He only had a capital of eighteen dollars but I agreed to give him half of the profits—which I figured on being very large. You see my intentions were to swap for hides, pecans, etc., which I would have hauled overland to Willson's creek and from there to Indianola by sail boat.
Our plans being laid we struck out for Indianola to buy our goods—all kinds of articles that we thought would catch the negro's eye, including a good supply of tanglefoot—which I am sorry to say cost me dear, besides being the cause of smashing my little scheme into a thousand fragments.
We finally started back from Indianola with our load of goods; and Jack being an irishman, couldn't resist the temptation of taking a "wee drop of the critter" every fifteen or twenty minutes. The consequences were everything but edifying.
I hired Anthony Moore, a gentleman of color to haul the Blood Hound and all of our traps to the river.
We fixed rollers under the boat and after getting her out high and dry on the ball prairie, found that we didn't have oxen enough to carry out the job.
While Anthony Moore was off rustling for a couple more yoke of cattle, I hired a horse to ride up to the Post Office after my mail, but before starting I gave Jack a raking over for remaining drunk so long. He hadn't drawn a sober breath since leaving town.
When I returned next evening Jack was gone—no one there but my faithful dog, Ranger.
I found Jack had taken a negro's skiff and pulled down Willson's creek, taking all of my snide jewelry, tobacco, etc. along. I traced him up to where he had sold a lot of the stuff. He sold an old englishman a lot of tobacco for seven dollars that didn't cost less than twenty. Being discouraged I sold the Blood Hound to Anthony Moore for twenty-five dollars, right where she lay, on the open prairie.