第43章 A FAMILY REUNION(2)

Before we had been there long, one day there was a call among the prisoners for volunteers to form a roustabout crew.Well, Ienlisted as a roustabout.We had to report to an officer twice a day, and then were put under guard and set to work.The kind of labor I liked best was unloading the supplies for the prison, which were landed on a near-by wharf.This roustabout crew had all the unloading to do, and the reason I liked it was it gave us some chance to steal.Whenever there was anything extra, intended for the officers, to be unloaded, look out for accidents.Broken crates were common, and some of the contents was certain to reach our pockets or stomachs, in spite of the guard.

"I was a willing worker and stood well with the guards.They never searched me, and when they took us outside the stockade, the captain of the guard gave me permission, after our work was over, to patronize the sutler's store and buy knick-knacks from the booths.There was always some little money amongst soldiers, even in prison, and I was occasionally furnished money by my messmates to buy bread from a baker's wagon which was outside the walls.Well, after I had traded a few times with the baker's boy, I succeeded in corrupting him.Yes, had him stealing from his employer and selling to me at a discount.I was a good customer, and being a prisoner, there was no danger of my meeting his employer.You see the loaves were counted out to him, and he had to return the equivalent or the bread.At first the bread cost me ten cents for a small loaf, but when I got my scheme working, it didn't cost me five cents for the largest loaves the boy could steal from the bakery.I worked that racket for several months, and if we hadn't been exchanged, I'd have broke that baker, sure.

"But the most successful scheme I worked was stealing the kidneys out of beef while we were handling it.It was some distance from the wharf to the warehouse, and when I'd get a hind quarter of beef on my shoulder, it was an easy trick to burrow my hand through the tallow and get a good grip on the kidney.Then when I'd throw the quarter down in the warehouse, it would be minus a kidney, which secretly found lodgment in a large pocket in the inside of my shirt.I was satisfied with one or two kidneys a day when I first worked the trick, but my mess caught on, and then Ihad to steal by wholesale to satisfy them.Some days, when the guards were too watchful, I couldn't get very many, and then again when things were lax, 'Elijah's Raven' would get a kidney for each man in our mess.With the regular allowance of rations and what I could steal, when the Texas troops were exchanged, our mess was ragged enough, but pig-fat, and slick as weasels.Lord love you, but we were a great mess of thieves."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 fall there came an early squall of Squaw winter, sleeted and spit snow wickedly.The next morning there wasn't a hoof in sight, and shortly after daybreak we were riding deep in our saddles to catch the lead drift of our cattle.After a hard day's ride, we found that we were out several hundred head, principally yearlings of the through Texas stock.You all know how locoed a bunch of dogies can get--we hunted for three days and for fifty miles in every direction, and neither hide, hair, nor hoof could we find.It was while we were hunting these cattle that my yarn commences.