04/01/2026
Good read!
The Texas Quote of the Day, by an old trail cowboy, is so wonderfully written. PLEASE read this:
"Things rocked on very well until we reached the Arkansaw River between La Junta and Pueblo, Colorado. It got so stormy up there in the breaks of the Rocky Mountains that we had every night, nearly. Oh, but I did wish I was back in good-old Texas plowing corn or hoeing cotton, but alas, I was not, and was made of too good of stuff to show the white feather. On we went with a slow but steady gait toward Montana.
My real troubles was yet to come. When we reached the Arkansaw River we went up it three or four days before we crossed. When finely we put into it, it was about level full, as the snow had been melting up in the mountains long enough to swell it until it was a raging torrent. I waited as long as I could before I went in. I didn't get far before my horse got tangled in some drift and sank to rise no more. I had taken off my boots and most of my clothes for fear of something like this. The first thing that come handy was a four year old steer. I got him by the tail and away we went for the other side, which we reached after a so long a time. I promised myself I'd never swim the Arkansaw any more.
I had lost my saddle, bridle, blankets and spurs and was broke. What to do I didn't know, but I kept my troubles to myself, and the boys began to guy me about riding ba****ck until Scanlous John came to my rescue. He told me to ride on the chuckwagon until he could buy me a saddle. He told me the company would pay for me a new outfit. So I felt some better. In the course of a week he sent to Pueblo and got me a new outfit out and out. Then I was one of the boys ---- a new $45 saddle. But I promised myself that I'd never go up the trail with a herd anymore, that swimming them rivers was a little bit too dangerous for me.
Finely we came to the last river. It was the worst of them all, and I would not have tried to swim it for all the cattle up there. 'Tis noted for its swiftness and it has two currents. The top current is some two feet deep, and the under current runs twice as fast as the top. 'Twas the noted Yellowstone River. When you got below the top current nothing comes back up. 'Tis such a suck to it that to sink in the Yellowstone is a gone fawn skin. When we got there, the other two herds had not crossed. They seemed to be waiting for us. We crossed close to Miles City. It makes the cold chills run over me now to think of that cold water.
One day I went to town just to see what it was like. I had wrote home to mother from way down the country at Pueblo and I told mother to write to me at Miles City. A letter from her was waiting me. She said that boy I had the trouble with that forced me to leave Texas had got well. She begged me to come home. I drawed $50 of my money and sent it to mother. A desire to go back kindly got next to me, but I was determined to go through or know the reason why. So on August 22nd we landed at the headquarter ranch of the XIT in Montana."
---- ---- Jim McCauley, "A Stove-Up Cowboy's Story," published in 1943. Jim was born in Anderson County but was living in Parker County when he embarked on the life of a cowboy and made this trip at the age of 17.
I can't find any photos of Jim McCaulley, specifically, but here are some cowboys branding on the XIT ranch in Montana --- and Jim McCaulley could be one of them. There's no doubt that some of them are Texans.
