The herd could not possibly start before the middle of
April, so telling my friends that I would be on hand to help gather
the cattle, I saddled my horse and took leave of the hospitable ranch.
After a week of hard riding I reached the home of a former comrade on
the Colorado River below Austin. A hearty welcome awaited me, but
the apparent poverty of the family made my visit rather a brief one.
Continuing eastward, my next stop was in Washington County, one of the
oldest settled communities in the State. The blight of Reconstruction
seemed to have settled over the people like a pall, the frontier
having escaped it. But having reached my destination, I was determined
to make the best of it. At the house of my next comrade I felt a
little more at home, he having married since his return and being
naturally of a cheerful disposition. For a year previous to the
surrender he and I had wrangled beef for the Confederacy and had been
stanch cronies. We had also been in considerable mischief together;
and his wife seemed to know me by reputation as well as I knew her
husband. Before the wire edge wore off my visit I was as free with the
couple as though they had been my own brother and sister. The fact
was all too visible that they were struggling with poverty, though
lightened by cheerfulness, and to remain long a guest would have
been an imposition; accordingly I began to skirmish for something to
do--anything, it mattered not what.
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