[The following post is from J. Marvin Hunter's Frontier Times Magazine, August, 1938 issue.]

I am just an old Texas pioneer, who loves to spin a yarn, like the rest of the old boys who have lived through the "good old days" of the Texas frontier into the present time with all its modern changes—leaving us old-timers to live with our memories.

I was born January 21, 1866, in Travis county, Texas, eight miles from the capital city, Austin. My father, R. C. Perry, joined the Texas Rangers when he was sixteen years old. He belonged to Company D, under Captain Jack Hays. He was drawing a pension for his service in the Mexican War at the time of his death.

My mother was Sara Ann Kegan, a daughter of James Kegan. who came with his family with a colony from some place in Missouri, in 1826, to colonize Washington county, Texas. Grandfather received a Spanish land grant (4445 acres) about eighty miles east of the city of Austin. Mother was the widow of Mike Burcher; she had eight children when she and my father were married. She had two children by my father, making her the mother of ten.

About the earliest thing that I can remember is trying to build a loop with a piece of cotton clothes-line rope. I don 't know how long it took me to learn to build a loop and make it hold, but I reckon I tried it out on about everything on the place. Then, one day, when I was about five, I was standing by the fence—still building loops— when an old cow came by in a long lope. I swung my small lasso "high, wide and handsome" with my left hand. It caught! jerked taut, and throwed me about ten feet. The blamed critter ran off with my rope!

By the time I was sixteen I was considered one of the best ropers in the country—even if I was left-handed— and I was a "top hand" on the range.

I remember once, I rode out to work with two other ropers. We all swung our loops about the same time, and I'll be hanged if we weren't all three lefthanded!

In 1885 I worked with Jim Dooley at Fort Clark, Texas. I helped drive a herd to Brackettville. Then I worked in the spring round-up that began on the Nueces river. Jim Valentine was wagon boss for the Northern outfit that came to work the round-up. Among the boys that I remember most on that round-up were: The Halls, Nate, the owner of the NH brand, and Dick and Pete Hall; then there were the Thurmans, and the Barksdales, B. B. Moeuer, who later became Governor of Arizona, and his brother; and Will Witt, who worked for Joe Cude, the Tree Brand outfit. I knew Will years later in Duncan, Ariz. Dick and Pete Hall were killed by Ben Trailer near Ash Fork, Arizona, in 1891. Trailer was arrested, but came clear because the bodies could not be found. Seven years later the bodies were found, but Trailer had disappeared. There are people alive today who know the truth about that murder. But I am getting ahead of my story.

Well! When that spring round-up that I was talking about was over, a Captain Jones (he was a Ranger, but none of the boys knew it then) brought a bunch of riders with him and went over that same range we had been over and rounded tip 400 head of "burnt brands”, (brands burned so badly that they could not be recognized), and sold them at what he called "a sheriff's sale."

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After that round-up I went to Bandera county and went to work for Albert Maverick. Yes, the same Mayerick whose son, Maury Maverick is a Congressman from Texas now. Henry McKeen was general manager of the Maverick outfit then which included a large, well managed farm, as well as a big cattle spread. We gathered 300 head of steers that fall and traded them to Charles Schreiner at Kerrville for the same number of dry cows. The dry cows were driven to San Antonio and put in the West End Lake pasture for breeders. The steers, I allow, went over the old Chisholm Trail, with thousands of others to the markets in Kansas City and other points.

I worked for Maverick two or three months, then drifted West. Then Columbus Kountz hired me to drive a herd of horses from Kimble county west, across the Pecos river, into Reeves county. His brother, Sebastian Kountz, went with me, and we took 40 head to Toyah, near the T. & P. railroad, which was the first railroad to be built in that part of Texas.

Then I went to work for the NH outfit, which was wintering south of Toyah. Jap Farr, of Blanco City, was foreman for the NH's, and I was strawboss. In 1886, we swam 1500 head of cattle across the Rio Grande, at the point where the great Elephant Butte Dam is now. In October that same year, we delivered the cattle to the NH ranch in Socorro county, New Mexico. Some of the boys who were with us on that long big, long, drive, were: Fred Grostette, a Frenchman who had come from New Mexico to help with that drive, George Grabtree, Bird Terrel. Billy Laird, Jim Daughtry and Bill Yarbrough. I remember these names most because of the things that happened to these fellows, but it would make a book to tell all of it in detail.

Ed Beater was with us too. Later he became sheriff at Springerville, Arizona, and killed one of the Slaughter boys, and in turn was killed by another of the Slaughters.

Most of those boys died with their boots on, and amongst them was Fred Grostette. Fred died defending his sister's honor—which any honorable man would have done. He was killed by Garrett Davis, a rough-neck bully who needed killing: Fred killed Garrett and shot John Davis after he himself had been shot through and through. I didn't see that killing. If I had I expect I would have unlimhered my own Colt 45 had I a chance to kill that Garrett Davis myself, and have always been sorry I didn't do it.

Texas was pretty well tamed by my time, but Arizona and New Mexico, while peaceable enough, still relied on "gun law" a great deal. Most of the Indians in Arizona had been quieted down, except the Apache Kid, a halfbred renegade who still went on the war path once in a while.

I, like other pioneers, have been in some mighty tight places with Indians and outlaws and others, where my knowledge of the trusty old Colt 45 saved my life, but I have managed to escape with a whole hide somehow.

While roaming around west of the Rio Grande I worked with the NH outfit in New Mexico: visited my half brother at Carlisle, where 600 miners were at work: worked with the Brood cattle outfit at Mud Springs, with Sam Rains and Frank Willis; worked with the LC outfit at Mule Springs: the LC's had sold a third interest in 5000 head of cattle, and some of the herd had to be moved to what was called the Pipe Line Ranch, so named because water was piped to it from Silver City. The LC's sold and shipped 880 head of prime beef stock, to Kansas City on December 21, 1886: that was the first shipment of cattle to he made by railroad out of Silver City, New Mexico.

We punchers who had helped in that historical shipment, went back to the headquarters ranch and celebrated the event with a New Year's dance; we danced 1886 out and 1887 in. There wasn't many ladies at that dance---in fact there wasn't many in this country then—but I danced with all that were there and had the time of my life.

I went hack to Texas and in the fall of 1887, I met Miss Josephine Hillman at Bandera, and we,were married February 8, 1888.

In 1892, I brought my wife and two children back to Arizona, where I went to riding range for the CA Bar outfit of the Gila river. I never worked with a finer bunch of boys than the CA Bar's: Bob Casey. Mose Dedrick, Tom Capehart, Burk Hardin, Joe and Jack McAllister, Johnny Clay, Steve Nickerson Billy Woods and Charlie Johnson. Most of those boys are dead now.

The CA Bar gathered 12,000 head that fall, and shipped them froth Deming, most of them at least, as the shipping pens at Duncan and at Lordsburg were too small to hold the herds.

That same fall the Hart Brothers of the 24 Circle sold 6,000 head for $6 a head, but before they got all delivered the price went up to $16. They sure lost a lot of money on that deal.

Josephine and I and the children went back to Bandera, Texas, and stayed around twenty years. We knew lots of people in and around Bandera, and have lots of relatives there yet. Tom Phillips and P. M. Wilson are brothers-in-law of mine, and there is Johnny Phillips, Du Jackson, the Mansfields, Jim Ike Jones, Andy and Herman Mansfield, Charlie Montague, Jack Hamilton (who issued my marriage license), Ike Stevens, (the old time sheriff), Major Sanders. Sheriff Hicks, the Laxsons, the Walkers, Joe and Fayette Miller, Bill Hinds, Britt Means, and the Keese family. These are just a few of my old friends down there in Texas, and most of the older ones of them are dead now.

We had a family of eleven children. Ten of them are still living. We lost a little girl, four years old, in 1897. Our oldest and our youngest are still single and at home with us; the rest are married and "Gone With the Wind," as you might say. My son, Charlie, is a World War veteran, and almost totally disabled. It breaks my heart to look at him sometimes, and breaks my heart to think what that war did to a lot of our good American boys; but they were all red-blooded Americans! None of them wanted to sit at home and "knit" while the others were fighting for the "peace of the nations ." Which. makes me right proud of all of them.

My wife has just returned from a visit to friends and relatives down there in Texas. I couldn't go with her this time. She has told me about the wonderful time she had, and it makes me sort of homesick. It calls to mind the "good old days" and all those clear old friends that I would love to see and spin yarns with again.

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