On our arrival back, Moore went right to work gathering up everything on the range in the shape of cattle, so as to "close-herd" them during the summer. His idea in doing that was to keep them tame. During the winter they had become almost beyond control. The range was too large for so few cattle. And another thing buffalo being so plentiful had a tendency to making them wild.
About the first of June Moore put me in charge of an outfit, which consisted of twenty-five hundred steers, a wagon and cook, four riders, and five horses to the man or rider. He told me to drift over the Plains wherever I felt like, just so I brought the cattle in fat by the time cold weather set in.
It being an unusually wet summer the scores of basins, or "dry lakes," as we called them, contained an abundance of nice fresh water, therefore we would make a fresh camp every few days. The grass was also fine, being mostly buffalo-grass and nearly a foot high. If ever I enjoyed life it was that summer. No flies or mosquitoes to bother, lots of game and a palmy atmosphere.
Towards the latter part of July about ten thousand head of "through" cattle arrived from southern Texas. To keep the "wintered" ones from catching the "Texas fever," Mr. Moore put them all on the Plains, leaving the new arrivals on the north side of the river. There was three herds besides mine. And I was put in charge of the whole outfit, that is, the four herds; although they were held separate as before, with the regular number of men, horses, etc. to each herd.
I then put one of my men in charge of the herd I had been holding, and from that time on until late in the fall I had nothing to do but ride from one herd to the other and see how they were getting along. Some times the camps would be twenty miles apart. I generally counted each bunch once a week, to be certain they were all there.
About the first of October, Moore came out and picked eight hundred of the fattest steers out of the four herds and sent them to Dodge to be shipped to Chicago. He then took everything to the river, to be turned loose onto the winter range until the next spring.
When the hardest work was over—winter camps established, etc., I secured Moore's consent to let me try and overtake the shipping steers, and accompany them to Chicago. So mounted on Whisky-peet I struck out, accompanied by one of the boys, John Farris. It was doubtful whether we would overtake the herd before being shipped, as they had already been on the road about fifteen days, long enough to have gotten there.
The night after crossing the Cimeron river we had a little indian scare. About three o'clock that afternoon we noticed two or three hundred mounted reds, off to one side of the road, marching up a ravine in single file. Being only a mile off, John proposed to me that we go over and tackle them for something to eat. We were terribly hungry, as well as thirsty.
I agreed, so we turned and rode towards them. On discovering us they all bunched up, as though parleying. We didn't like such maneuvering, being afraid maybe they were on the war-path, so turned and continued our journey along the road, keeping a close watch behind for fear they might conclude to follow us.
We arrived on Crooked Creek, where there was a store and several ranches, just about dark. On riding up to the store, where we intended stopping all night, we found it vacated, and everything turned up-side down as though the occupants had just left in a terrible hurry. Hearing some ox bells down the creek we turned in that direction, in hopes of finding something to eat.