It did not take us very long to remove our saddles and bridles from our horses and carry them up on the porch. Then we shook hands with Mr. Davenport and his son Bob, and took the chairs that were promptly brought out to us.
“You are very young men to be travelling around this way,” said the invalid. “I shouldn’t think that your parents would permit it.”
“Well, I don’t know that we have any parents to say what we shall do. We are alone in the world, with the exception of Tom here, who has an uncle in Mississippi. We have come a thousand miles to buy some cattle; but I don’t think, from what I have seen of your cattle, that we shall want any.”
“Oh, this drought is simply awful,” said the invalid, rising up in his chair. “We haven’t had a drop of rain for sixteen months, and if it keeps on much longer we shall all die in the poor-house. The route you came led you through a portion of my herd. I want to know if you ever saw such a sorry looking lot of cattle as they are?”
This seemed to be the opportunity that Mr. Davenport was waiting for, and he began and told us all about those troublous times in Texas during the past two years, and he said that the drought and the farmers were to blame for it. There had been a period in the history of the State when the stockmen had things all their own way; when their herds roamed over almost two thousand square miles of territory, going wherever grass and water were most abundant, and attended by only a few Mexican vaqueros, whose principal business it was to see that their employer’s outfit did not become mixed up with cattle belonging to somebody else. But, of course, this state of affairs could not continue forever in a country like ours. The soil of Texas was as well adapted to agriculture as it was to stock raising, and it was not long before people began to find it out.
When the tide of immigration begins setting toward any State or Territory, it is astonishing how quickly it will become filled up. In a very short time the farmers grew to be a power in the cattle lands of Texas. Of course they settled along the water courses, or as close to them as they could get, and when they selected their land they fenced it in and turned it up with the plough, thus depriving the cattlemen of just so many acres of pasture, and in some instances shutting them off from the streams.
Of course, too, bad blood existed between these two classes from the very first. The cattlemen saw their limits growing smaller day by day, and they did not take it very much to heart when their half wild cattle broke through the fences and ruined the fields upon which the farmers had expended so much labor; but they got fighting mad when the farmers sued them in the courts and were awarded heavy damages for their crops. Neighborhood rows and civil wars on a small scale were of common occurrence, and during this particular summer the long to be remembered drought came, and I could rest assured of one thing, and that was, matters were going to be brought to a climax. It was surely coming, and the farmers would find out one thing, and that was, that Mr. Davenport, even if he was half dead from consumption, could shoot as well as anybody.
For long months not a particle of rain fell upon the parched soil, and when the school-lands, on which large numbers of cattle grazed, were utterly barren of verdure and rendered worthless for years to come, and all the little streams went dry, the ranchmen saw ruin staring them in the face. The sufferings of the walking skeletons, which represented every dollar they had in the world, were terrible in the extreme, and grass and water must be had at any price. The nearest point at which these could be had was on the West Fork of Trinity. It was true that the most, if not all, of the land in that vicinity had been turned into farms and fenced in, but what did the desperate cattlemen care for that? Grass and water were the free gifts of Heaven, and, if necessary, they were ready to fight for their share.
What it was that induced Mr. Davenport to say all this to me, an entire stranger, I cannot imagine, unless it was because he was so excited by the financial distress which he saw hanging over him that he must tell it to somebody. Sometimes during his narrative he would get up out of his chair and pace back and forth on the porch as if all his old strength had come back to him. His eye would kindle, until I made up my mind that if all the ranchmen were like him there would be some shooting before the summer was over. For myself I heartily wished I was safe back where I belonged.
“Do you own this land where you are located?” I asked, feeling that I must say something.