If cowboying was easy, nobody would want to do it

The Texas Quote of the Day is a reminder that old-time cowboys faced many different kinds of hazards: 

"Well, I never froze on the trail, but I did starve for water, and I don't mean maybe either. It was my first drive, too - that was what made it so hard on me. In the spring of 1869 we left Pick Duncan's ranch with a bunch of W Cross L's for the head of the Concho to go from there to the Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. We left that good, clear Concho with one barrel of water, intending to refill at Hackberry water hole, mid-way on the plains.

Halting to answer the cook's 'come and git it' at noon, we went on until dusk, when we pitched camp (no where near that water hole) and when supper was finished, so was the water - fourteen men and not a drop, not to mention the stock, and three days to go.

We did not bed the cattle as planned but hit the trail all night and at nine o'clock next morning we stopped to rest an hour; then prodded 'em up and on toward that water hole. Finally when within a mile of it the boss said he would ride ahead and reconnoiter. He was back right now with 'It's so confounded dry you could bury a man in the cracks, they're so deep.' That settled it. We kept the herd hoofin' until three o'clock, halting for another hour, then trailing it straight through until the next day noon when we hit the canyon, twelve miles from Horsehead Crossing.

The cattle got wind of the water and pulled out plumb pert. It was half an hour by sun when we got there, and when we got to that river not one of the fourteen boys could speak above a whisper and several could not shut their mouths for swollen tongues. If any of you have ever been as thirsty as we were, you know just how good water just plain, brackish, alkali, Pecos River water can taste. It was so good we laid up three days drinkin' our fill and enjoyin' ourselves.

Water logged, full of good grub, rested and fresh as daisies, we started up the Pecos to the falls. There the horse wrangler, named Kuykendall, dismounted on herd and stood his gun by a bush. Remounting, he caught it by the barrel, the hammer caught in the brush, pulled back and blew his head off. We buried him and continued on to Hondo, thence to Denver where we delivered the cattle.

------ Charlie Harmon, an old Texas cowboy, quoted in an interview in February, 1930.

From Traces of Texas Facebook