Produced by Al Haines
Author of "Reminiscences of a Ranchman"
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910
Published September 10, 1910
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
The author acknowledges his indebtedness to the editors of periodicals in which some of this material has appeared, for permission to use the same in this volume.
From San Antonio to Fort Griffin, Joe Loving's was a name to conjurewith in the middle sixties. His tragic story is still told and retoldaround camp-fires on the Plains.
One of the thriftiest of the pioneer cow-hunters, he was the first torealize that if he would profit by the fruits of his labor he must pushout to the north in search of a market for his cattle. The Indianagencies and mining camps of northern New Mexico and Colorado, and theMormon settlements of Utah, were the first markets to attractattention. The problem of reaching them seemed almost hopeless ofsolution. Immediately to the north of them the country was tracklessand practically unknown. The only thing certain about it was that itswarmed with hostile Indians. What were the conditions as to water andgrass, two prime essentials to moving herds, no one knew. To be sure,the old overland mail road to El Paso, Chihuahua, and Los Angeles ledout west from the head of the Concho to the Pecos; and once on thePecos, which they knew had its source indefinitely in the north, apracticable route to market should be possible.
But the trouble was to reach the Pecos across the ninety interveningmiles of waterless plateau called the Llano Estacado, or StakedPlain. This plain was christened by the early Spanish explorers who,looking out across its vast stretches, could note no landmark, and leftbehind them driven stakes to guide their return. An elevated tablelandaveraging about one hundred miles wide and extending four hundred milesnorth and south, it presents, approaching anywhere from the east or thewest, an endless line of sharply escarped bluffs from one hundred totwo hundred feet high that with their buttresses and re-entrant angl