TX BIOS:  M. C. De La Flor
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   FOLKSTUFF - RANGELORE
   
   Phipps, Woody
   
   Rangelore (Spanish)
   
   Tarrant Co., Dist. #7 [87?]
   
   Page #1
   
   FC
   
   M. C. De La Flor, 47, residing at 907 Valley St., Ft. Worth, Tex., was
   born in Eagle Pass, Tex. His mother remarried when he was but eight
   months, and his stepfather, who was a cowboy, took the family to the
   Madero Ranch in [Coahuila?] State, Mex. De La Flor was taught to ride
   and rope at an early age, and was used as a regular cowboy before he
   was 12. His step-father took the family away from the ranch and into
   Texas in 1902, but returned in 1906. When he was 23, he left the
   Madero place to work on the William ranch near [Langdry?] in Texas.
   Two years later, he left the Williams ranch and the range, and has
   never returned. His story:
   
   "Sure, I worked the [ranggein?] both Texas and Mexico. Did you ever
   know how many different ways there are that the American cow poke and
   the Mexican vacquerro work cattle, and their habits. Americans whirl
   their ropes to the right, then overhead, then casts. Mexicans whirl to
   the left and cast in an unbroken circle. That is, no what you call a
   'flourish.'
   
   Mexicans pull a knife to fight, but Americans jerk a gun out to fight
   with. I don't mean just to hit with, either. I've seen a whole lot
   more fights with a knife than I have a gun because I was with the
   Mexicans more. Then, Americans mount a hoss on the right side while a
   Mexican mounts on the left. Sure causes trouble when a feller tries to
   mount one a different way than they're used to, too. Well, I wouldn't
   say that an American really mounts a hoss because they put their hands
   on the saddle horn, then while holding to that and pulling up, they
   jump up with their feet and light in the saddle. The Mexican aint so
   ambish. He just climbs on.
   
   "Now to get back to me. I wasn't born right on a ranch, but was born
   in Eagle Pass, Texas, on March 14, 1890. My dad died some few weeks
   before I was born, and my mother married a Mexican cow puncher when I
   wasn't but eight years old.
   
     NOTE: C12 - Texas
     
   00022She and my dad were both Spanish, but he was a Mex'. His name was
   Campo, and he had a boy two years older than I. His name was
   Guadalupe, Campo, and a tougher cow puncher than he never lived. He
   wasn't so mean he just couldn't get along with people, but he was mean
   to his hosses and cattle, and tough with men. Why, after he was 16 or
   17 years old, the Maderos put him on the payroll as a gunman, or, as a
   watchman. That was what they called their gunmen.
   
   "My step-dad had been used to the range life so long that he wanted
   Guadalupe and I to grow up, litterally 'In the saddle.' Soon's I was
   old enough, I was taught to sit a hoss. Soon's I was big enough to
   climb up into the saddle, I was given a little old pony to ride, the
   same as all the rest of the kids on the ranch. All the Mex' kids on
   the Madero were treated like that, and were punching cows at an age
   when kids of nowadays would run from a cow, and be scared to death of
   a hoss.
   
   "The Madero, where my step-dad took us when he went to Mexico, ran
   around 40,000 head in the 'MMM' iron. You make it like this: . It's
   crazy looking, but you just try and make it into some other brand.
   Those Maderos knew their onions when it came to ranching and brands.
   While their neighbors were as a rule, honest, the Madero was forced to
   keep about 10 watchmen to keep those who weren't honest, honest where
   the Madero beef was concerned. The rustlers from other places were
   what made it hard.
   
   "The Madero was close to Parras, in Coahuila State, and Leonardo
   Santos ran the big Santos Ranch near Patos, Coahuila. I don't know
   anything else about the ranch, but let me tell you. One day, along in
   the evening when the Mex'es liked to take a sort 00033of a nap, one of
   the watchman was taking his in the shade of a tree, where he figured
   he'd be out of sight if one of the foremen happened along. Well, a big
   roar of moving cattle woke him up. Then he got into a position where
   he could see the herd, he saw a bunch of the Santos men driving off a
   herd of Madero cattle. While Santos had bought Madero cattle before,
   and the watchman knew it, he figured he'd better get to headquarters
   and let the boss know about it.
   
   "I was hanging around the bunk house when he got there, and his hoss
   was a lather from one end to the other. I knew some thing unusual was
   up, and I knew too that if there was, none of the kids would get in on
   it so I just stayed out of sight. Pretty soon, the foreman come out
   and hollered the crew up. They all mounted their hosses, some of them
   barebacked. Then they rode off as hard as they could. Well, I had my
   pony with me, and as long as I could keep them in sight, I follered.
   Pretty soon, they got out of sight and I had to trail.
   
   "That trailing business was the money because the Madero gang ran into
   a trap and Jose Torres got killed. You see, the Santos men had a back
   watch, and when the Maderos ran into it, they had a devil of a time.
   The Santos men were no match for the Maderos, though, and they soon
   had to run for it. I was just a kid, and I never knew how many of the
   Santos men bit the dust, but I imagine several must have. Nothing was
   ever done to Santos in the courts around Parras. Might have been at
   Patos, but I never heard of it.
   
   "I said before that all the kids were put to work. Well, when corn
   planting time came, I planted corn. Had a sack slung over my shoulder,
   filled with corn, and I kept my left hand spilling it in the row while
   my right reached into the sack for more corn. 00044While I wasn't
   [planting?] something, I was hunting lost calves. My job was to bring
   them in on my little old pony, and put them into the feeder lot. There
   was a regular man to handle the calves. He was an old hoss buster that
   had ruined himself on wild hosses.
   
   "That was a dangerous business. That busting wild hosses. And yet, I
   wanted to do that worse than anything else under the sun, and since my
   step-dad was all for it, he helped train me. I first trained oxen to
   the plow. You wouldn't think that was very dangerous, but it was. The
   main reason was because you couldn't tell when one of them might get
   mad and try to kill you.
   
   "Next thing, I set about training mules. The mules the Maderos had,
   must have been the stubbornest in the world because I sure had a hard
   time with them. By the time I was 11, though, I was ready for the
   hosses. I'd already had a little experience with pitching, because my
   step-dad changed my little pony for one of the Spanish hosses when I
   went to handling the mules so's I could outrun them when they took a
   mind to run. This Spanish hoss would pitch a little every morning, and
   I got used to that.
   
   "Spanish hosses were about all there was in that part of Mexico, and
   the only kind there was on the Madero hoss ranch. I say hoss ranch
   because that was what it was called, but it was a part of the main
   Madero itself. The men on the hoss ranch just worked around where the
   hosses liked to run wild. round the hills. The man that took me over
   to teach, while on the hoss ranch, was Juan De La Torre. Just about
   the time he'd taught me pretty good, he had a little trouble. He was
   pretty mean to them, and one day while riding one, it reared way up
   high. Juan pulled hard on the 00055reigns, and the hoss fell over
   backwards. He'd taught me how to leave the saddle, and always keep
   myself in a position where I could leave, but he never left, and was
   crushed to death when the hoss fell on him. That was one of the best
   lessons I ever had because I saw what could happen when a man was too
   mean to his hoss. I never did like to mistreat them, and never liked
   to see others, but you had to keep your lip around the cow punchers,
   or they'd give you a lesson in keeping quiet.
   
   "While on the hoss ranch, I saw [Gregorio?] Segovia bust a wild hoss,
   that turned out to be a race hoss. He was named 'Alazan Postado.' The
   Alazan was his name, and the Postado meant 'A little dark,' in
   Mexican. Alazan won a lot of money for Gregorio. I didn't see many of
   his races because we moved to Texas pretty soon after, but I did see
   Gregorio do a lot of riding. He was about the best rider on the place,
   and I've seen him rope many a coyote or deer.
   
   "You know, a deer can outruna hoss if you give him room, but if
   Gregorio could get close to him before he knew anybody was around,
   Gregorio could catch him and rope him. The Spanish hoss is noted for
   his first burst of speed, and can outrun many breeds in the short run.
   
   "When I was about 12, my step-dad decided to go to El Paso to give
   Guadalupe and myself a little schooling. He got a job in an El Paso
   slaughter house, moving cattle into the killing floor and knocking
   them out. I went to school, alright, but Guadalupe run off and went
   back to the ranch. That seemed to be alright with my step-dad, because
   he stayed on and didn't send for Guadalupe. I went on to school 'til
   he decided to go back in 1905. 00066"This time, when I got to the
   Madero, I was hired as a bronc buster, and put on the hoss ranch to
   stay. Of course, I didn't bust hosses all the time, because the
   Maderos only broke enough to keep the riders in riding stock. They
   figured when each man had eight in his string, he had enough. Then
   too, some of them broke their own mounts. They liked to do that,
   figuring their hosses would do better if they only had one rider to
   get used to.
   
   "I stayed on the hoss ranch 'til I was 23, but the rest of it was all
   the same. When I wasn't busting hosses, I was in the shade of some
   tree. A man could sure got lazy in that part of the country. One day,
   after we'd rounded up a sizable herd, and had it in some brand new
   corrals that we'd just built, I laid down and was pounding my off-ear
   when I heard a roar and felt the ground shaking. I was over a small
   rise from the corrals to get away from the smell and racket, and when
   I heard this roar, I knew a stomp was coming right at me. I knew it,
   but there shouldn't of been one on that day because it was one of the
   prettiest days a man could want. Not even a cloud moving anywhere, and
   the sun just pouring down.
   
   "I jumped up and grabbed my hoss, just as the herd mounted the rise. I
   managed to get out of the way alright, and knowing that I had to have
   some help to stop the stomp, I rode for the bunk house where most of
   the men were supposed to be at that time. They were there, and at my
   yell, they came out like bees out of a hive, Gregorio in front. I
   yelled what the herd was doing, then turned around and beat it back.
   Just to show you what Gregorio 00077could do when he had to, and what
   a good hoss he always kept, he beat me to that herd. There were a
   number of small hills in that country, and we could hear the herd as
   it ran. This time, the herd had turned a couple of times to keep from
   running through some brush, and we were able to catch it by cutting
   across the country. Gregorio passed me as I reached the tail end of
   the herd, and by the time I got to the flanks, he had got out in front
   and turned the leaders into a mill. It takes a little time to do that,
   of course, because you have to get to the leaders and keep shoeing
   them 'til they start turning. After the mill gets going good, though,
   a cow puncher's worries are over because then the herd will run 'til
   it gets tired, then stop and lay down.
   
   "We had a lot of other stampedes, but none so bad as that one. It took
   us 14 hours of hard riding to get it back together again. Gregorio
   made us stay right at it, because he had a contract to have so many
   head at the border on a certain day, and if he didn't have it, he'd
   lose money. It was a 350 mile drive to the border to start with, and
   the men were just resting before getting started. I heard some of the
   older herds say that they'd found mountain lion tracks around the
   corral, and that was what started it. [nother?] thing that made it so
   tough was, when it stampeded, it was inside the corrals, and had to
   tear them down to get out. That's the way a stampeding herd is. It
   will tear down anything it can't go around. Many a man has lost his
   life because he [happene?] to get in front of the herd and his hoss
   lost it's footing.
   
   When I got to be 23, I quit the Madero and went to Texas. 00088There
   were several reasons. One was that I saw I never would get anywhere on
   the Madero, and another was that Francisco Madero, who had been
   President, had been shot. As long as he was President, the Maderos
   fared right well, but after those [Huorta?] guards shot him, I
   wouldn't have given a doodly-bob/ (That's a quarter) for the ranch so
   I left. And, sure enough, The Madero Ranch is now a bunch of
   homesteads.
   
   "I crossed the border at Langtry, Texas, and hired to A.P Williams as
   a cow puncher. He ran around 1,000 head near Del Rio, and told me he
   had to have straight shooters who didn't run every time somebody said
   'boo' at him. Well, I was never too brave, but I had to have a job,
   and I knew it wasn't so bad as all that on a ranch.
   
   "After I got to the outfit, I found out why he wanted gunmen. His
   place was right on the border, and the Mexican rustlers ran herds
   across his place into Mexico. While running them across, they'd take a
   head or so of William's beef. Williams didn't like that, so he was
   trying to keep about six men with him who'd battle when the time came
   to battle.
   
   "We never did have any trouble though, but one time. A herd came
   through one night, when we had gathered a few head on our first day of
   the Spring roundup. It was along in May, 1914, we figured they seen
   the small bunch, but never figured why they left it. We went ahead,
   and about four days later, when we had a little over 200 head
   gathered, a couple of them came over and drove it off. That happened
   in the night, and the next morning, we came out to the herd, and it
   was gone! Well, since we were prepared for any kind of trouble, we
   just trailed the herd. We came on it near Langtry, where the men were
   just fixing to drive it across. 00099"We never did see the men, and
   figured they must have left the herd when they seen us coming. We
   tracked them down to the water of the Rio Grande, and saw where they'd
   come out on the other side. After we run the tally. Williams said
   there were 14 head missing, but that we were lucky to get any of it
   back so just forget it.
   
   "Ranching on the Williams place was just like ranching on the Madero,
   excepting that Williams had all American cow punchers except me. That
   was the only difference besides the number of cattle handled. We had
   stamps, hosses to break, fences to mend, calves to feed, cattle to
   brand, and everything else was just the same. After two years on the
   Williams place, I left the range.
   
   "I'm staying with my oldest boy here in Fort Worth now, at 907 Valley
   Street. If I have time, I might yet enter the hoss busting contests in
   the rodeo because I figure I'm still as good as I ever was, while I
   might need a little brushing up. I don't know what I'll do yet, and
   you can't tell either, because I change my mind with the wind. Once I
   set my mind on something to do, though, I stay in the saddle 'til I've
   rode my hoss. Busting hosses taught me that.

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