Nearly all of Flood's old men were with him again, several of
whom were then in Forrest's camp. A fight occurred among a group
of saddle horses tied to the front wheel of the wagon, among them
being the mount of John Officer. After the belligerents had been
quieted, and Officer had removed and tied his horse to a
convenient tree, he came over and joined our group, among which
were the six trail bosses. Throwing himself down among us, and
using Sponsilier for a pillow and myself for footstool, he
observed:

"All you foremen who have been over the Chisholm Trail remember
the stage-stand called Bull Foot, but possibly some of the boys
haven't. Well, no matter, it's just about midway between Little
Turkey Creek and Buffalo Springs on that trail, where it runs
through the Cherokee Strip. I worked one year in that northern
country--lots of Texas boys there too. It was just about the time
they began to stock that country with Texas steers, and we rode
lines to keep our cattle on their range. You bet, there was
riding to do in that country then. The first few months that
these Southern steers are turned loose on a new range, Lord! but
they do love to drift against a breeze. In any kind of a
rain-storm, they'll travel farther in a night than a whole outfit
can turn them back in a day.

"Our camp was on the Salt Fork of the Cimarron, and late in the
fall when all the beeves had been shipped, the outfit were riding
lines and loose-herding a lot of Texas yearlings, and mixed
cattle, natives to that range. Up in that country they have
Indian summer and Squaw winter, both occurring in the fall. They
have lots of funny weather up there. Well, late one evening that