Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler

by Pardee Butler

The wagon-bosses were frequently rough, overbearing men, who not only went armed, but who often treated their drivers tyrannically. They not only cowed the boys with abusive language, but with frequent threats of whipping, or shooting, which they sometimes fulfilled.

Father never carried arms about his person in any of his trips across the plains. But there was something in his quiet, determined manner that enabled him to rule even the most headstrong of the wild young fellows who usually drove the freighting teams. He was once traveling along, for a short time, in company with a train much larger than his own, whose wagon-boss was a big, burly, swaggering fellow, who was drunk much of the time. Each train was driving along behind it such oxen as were unfit for work, and some of the other cattle became accidentally mixed with father's drove. The boss, who was already partially drunk, had ridden on to a ranch to get more whisky. Father called on his own boys, and the boys of the other train—on the plains the drivers were often called boys, even though they were middle aged men—to help separate them. But those of the other train refused to help. They tried in vain to separate them, until they were tired out. As they neared the ranch father walked up to the well to get a drink, and there sat the drunken boss on his horse. When he saw father, he exclaimed, with a great oath, "—— —— ——, what you driving my cattle off for?"

"I asked your boys to help separate them," replied father, "but they refused, and I and my boys have worried ourselves out at it. If you will order your boys to help we will try again."

"—— —— you, go back and get them cattle out, or I'll send you to —— !"

Father looked him steadily in the face, and said quietly, "I would like to see the irons you would do it with."

"—— —— go back and get them cattle out, or I'll shoot you as sure as —— !" shouted the fellow, jerking out a revolver with a great flourish.

The frightened boys stood back, expecting to see him shoot, but father, without moving, coolly replied, "If you want your cattle out, you will get them out yourself; I will do nothing more about it."

The fellow, cowed by father's cool, determined gaze, put his revolver back in his belt, rode off, called his men, and they drove the cattle out themselves.

In October, 1862, father decided to make a winter trip, because he could earn more money than in the summer. The owners of the train intended wintering their cattle on the buffalo grass in the Colorado valleys, which they found cheaper than wintering them on corn in Kansas. The drivers were mostly Ohio boys, who drove teams because they wanted to reach the Pike's Peak gold mines. The oxen were a lot of wild Texas steers, and it took about half a day to get them yoked up the first time, so that they only traveled about eight miles out from Atchison the first day. George did not go that trip, but father took him to town to help them start—because he said that if George was only ten, he knew more about handling wild oxen than all those green Ohio boys—and sent him home the second day out. It had been a very pleasant fall; but I never saw it turn cold so suddenly as it did that day. I remember that I spent several hours gathering in squashes and covering up potatoes; and when I returned to the house at 3 p. M. every leaf on the trees and every flower in the garden was frozen stiff, pointing straight out to the southeast. It was the only time I ever saw a frozen flower garden in full bloom. It sleeted nearly all night, and the Texas cattle, frightened and chilled by wind and sleet, were so wild that father and all the boys had to herd them all night to keep them from stampeding. Their clothes were wet and frozen, for they were not very warmly dressed, and George said he never suffered so much with the cold in his life as he did that night.

It was a hard and stormy winter, and the Ohio boys, unused to such a life, suffered badly, many of them freezing their hands and feet. When they reached Denver the cattle were taken to the valleys, and father traded his own cattle for mules. Loading his two wagons with hides, so as to make money both ways, he and the two boys who had driven his teams started for home. I have heard him say that he never saw weather so cold, but that he could keep from freezing by walking. So by dint of much walking he succeeded in reaching home without being frozen. Their wagons were so full of hides that they had to sleep on the ground, and he said that on waking in the morning he often found himself buried in snow. Wood was scarce, and they sometimes had to haul it quite a distance to build their camp fires at night, and it was sometimes so stormy that they could scarcely cook.