TX BIOS: Robert Lindsey
   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
   
   Pioneer [DEL: [??] :DEL] history
   
   Phipps, Woody
   
   Rangelore
   
   Tarrant Co., Dist. 7.
   
   Page 1
   
   FEC
   
   [Robert Lindsey?], 65, born Lewisville, Tex. Feb. 18, 1872; son of a
   traveling cattle trader who in 1876 took his family with him. At 11
   Robt. worked on the [Denton County?] Payne Ranch, a roamer all his
   life he never stayed long in one place; he has worked in railroad
   construction and other trades; is now manager of the Donna Motel, 1014
   1/2 Main St., Ft. Worth.
   
   "I wasn't born on the range but the longest I've ever lived in a town
   since I was big enough to recollect is since I came to Ft. Worth about
   three months ago. I was born in Lewisville, Tex. on Feb. 18, 1872 but
   my dad moved us out when I was about four years old. We took to the
   road with him, and he bought and sold cattle. The way he'd do was to
   to go to a place, make a deal for so many head to be deliverd, go to
   another and buy the critters with a contrast for delivery on the date
   the first rancher wanted the critters. Anyway to make money in cattle
   without running a ranch, he done it; except tossing a wet rope. He
   never slicked a head that he knew of.
   
   "We traveled around the country with a chuck wagon and a small remuda
   of hosses which he also dealt in. Being around hosses all the time and
   practically growing up with them, I nacherly undertook to ride as many
   as I could, getting to be a fair rider that way. I can't recall the
   first time I ever rode a hoss, but I don't believe I was much over
   four at the time. When I got up to six years old dad almost turned the
   remuda over to me. He still kept me off the wild ones he'd annex at
   times. In fact I never did get to ride a wild one as long as dad had
   any say over it.
   
     NOTE: C12 - 2/11/41 - Texas
     
   00022"Dad had dealings with a lotta ranches but he dealt with the
   Payne Ranch in Denton County so much that I got to know all the
   waddies around it and when I was 11 they put me on as a regular cow
   poke. That sure didn't do my ego no harm. I strutted around there fit
   to kill. The Payne outfit had its headquarters at Pilot Knob and run
   1,000 to 1,500 critters. Not such a big place but a waddy had as many
   head to deal with as if he worked on a big ranch because you can only
   deal with so many at a time anyway.
   
   "There were hosses aplenty because old man Payne tried to get all the
   hoss flesh around him [?] could buy or catch. One time when mules got
   cheap he had over [DEL: 8000 :DEL] 800 head on the place. If you had a
   young mule and wanted to sell it, he'd buy it, regardless of the
   market price and hold it 'til the market suited. We trapped every wild
   hoss hat came in that country. Trapped and creased them. The creasing
   business was pretty close going because a six shooter had to be used.
   The way we'd do was to have the best shot place a shot in the neck
   [DEL: muslcle :DEL] muscle which would numb a hoss long enough to let
   somebody else tie it up 'til it come to. Then we'd bust that hoss
   right out where we caught him. Partly bust him and finish the job at
   the hoss remuda.
   
   "Any hoss that didn't come up to a good standard, old man Payne sold
   him off. That way every waddy had six-eight hosses that really were
   cow hosses. The reason he wanted the best hoss flesh for his rannies
   was because he knew that the better a hoss a man had the better work
   he was able to do. It took real good hosses to do good work with
   critters because a hoss had to know how to keep on a cow's trail that
   a waddy roped and missed while cahsing it through a herd. 00033If the
   hose was a good cutter it'd stay on the critter's tail as it ran
   through the herd 'til the waddy got into a position to make another
   cast. Some of the hosses seemed to take great delight in chasing a cow
   and wouldn't lose track of it. Then another thing a good cow hoss has
   to know is when to set down after the waddy has made a cast out in the
   open, away from a herd. The main place to rope a running critter was
   on one of the front legs, then the hoss would sit down which would
   throuw the cow over on it's side. Then before the cow could get up and
   run again that hoss has to be fast enough to get the cow poke to the
   cow in time to tie it's other three legs up so it can't get up. When
   that's done, the cow poke is in a position to brand the critter.
   
   "The branding is done with an iron rod that has the particular brand
   of that ranch on one end. Usually the brand is several figures or
   letters. Sometimes its an odd design, but all the brands are
   registered at the State Capitol, and each brand is different and
   private. This brand is heated, then placed on the cow to burn the
   design into the hide in a way that it'd never wear off and you'd be
   able to recognize it years later whether the cow was alive or you just
   saw the hide. Of course cow pokes never built a fire every time they
   caught a cow unless it was out of roundup season which is in the
   Spring and Fall. The reg'lar way was to roundup all the critters on
   the range twice a year at the times I mentioned and cut out the
   unbranded ones, brand 'em then cut out the sale critters that the
   owner wanted to cash in on. Of course that'd be the stock in the best
   condition to trail drive.
   
   "The Payne Ranch never trail drove any critters. Instead old Man
   Payne'd sell to some other cattlemen that was driving a herd through
   00044in that way he never had to leave the ranch and took no losses on
   going through the Territory. While I don't recall any of the men's
   name that did drive herd through I recall that we'd have to add some
   [kkind?] of a figure to all those that he bought. A 6 or 8 or
   something.
   
   "When I was 15 I got a job on the old Slaughter ranch at Ochiltree,
   Texas. It was a big one with 96 sections init and I don't know how
   many head of cattle. I was teamed up with George Clay and we run
   around together when not working. Just to give you an idea about how
   many cattle were on the place, George and me spayed 6,000 three year
   old heifers. Spaying a heifer is the same as castrating a steer. It
   makes 'em fat as all get out an gives 'em more pep. After a couple
   years on the Slaughter Ranch my next range job was with Lucy Tully, a
   cattle dealer that operated out of Denver, Colo. I was hired to take
   charge of a train of cattle out of Denver to Alliance, Nev. A couple
   of stops from Alliance I'd got hungry and we was at a small stop where
   I could get a lunch but we didnot have time. I asked the conductor if
   we could wait 'til I got a bit, he said, "Speak to the engineer". I
   asked him and he said, "Yes sir, we're tipping our hats to Tully men.
   Tully just got a $40,000 judgement against the road for letting a
   train load freeze." What they'd done was to unload a train load of
   cattle right in a blizzard when the train was stopped and the cattle
   not being used to that kind of weather froze.
   
   "After the cattle was turned over to Tully's man in Alliance I was
   standing in a saloon and a trampy young fellow walked up to me.
   Expecting him to put the bum on me, I didn't expect him to say what he
   did. He said, 'Do you want a job?' I thought he said, 'Do you know
   where I can get a job?' and I said 'No, I'm looking for a job myself.'
   00055"He said, 'Hell, that what I ask ye!' That was a hoss of a
   different color so I took him up. His name was Joy and he had a small
   ranch out of Alliance. I reckon he had around 2,100 head in the 'JY'
   brand. I didn't work but a couple of months for him because he was so
   grouchy and the place was so lonesome. You'd go days and days there
   without seeing a man and every hill you topped you'd see another that
   was bigger.
   
   "I did take a little of the grouch out of the old man though. One day
   I'd just got up from the breakfast table when his son come arunning in
   and said, 'Don't go out where pop is because he's mad today and he
   might take a notion to kill you.' Not packing a six-shooter., I was
   just a little leery; the only thing I could find that would protect me
   was an old style hoss collar. I picked that thing up and peeped out
   the door. You can imagine my surprise when I saw him down in the hoss
   lot, a pitch forking the hosses 'til several of them were down. I
   couldn't stand that so I ran down to him and hollered, 'You stop
   that!' He looked at me and said, 'Alright Then after a bit he said, 'I
   thank you for what you just done. I have one of them spells oncet in
   awhile and I can't help myself.' Later on in the day the boy hunted me
   up out on the range and said, 'I knew that if anybody could stop him,
   you could, because he was ranting around like that one time, and a
   Texas cow puncher like to beat him to death.' When I decided to ramble
   on, a couple of months after I joined, I told the kid first. He said,
   "Dont tell the old man but just go on because he'll be awful mad and
   he might up and kill you'. Since that wasn't my way of doing, I went
   right into the house to tell him. He just took it quiet like and the
   old lady with 00066her two girls set up to bawling over it. He finally
   said, 'If you ever want a job, your old job is open'. I went down the
   road to the Demer Ranch and the old man put me right to work. He was
   awful inquisitive about what he'd heard me and old man Joy had done
   but I told him it wasn't nothing. The Demer Ranch was worse than the
   Joy place. He run about 6,000 head of cattle in the bar circle iron;
   you make it by putting a bar inside a circle. A winter and summer on
   that place gave me enough of the Nevada Country so I drifted back to
   Brown County, Texas, and went to work on a spread owned by a nephew of
   mine.
   
   "There wasn't enough money for all of us in it since there were only
   1,000 sheep and a 150 head of cattle on 1,800 acres so after about
   four years I bought me a pool hall and quit the ranch.
   
   "In a pool hall you sit around and talk about things. One of my
   customers was a W. S. (Bill) Foscett, who didn't talk much to anybody.
   One day I was talking about the Dalton ranches in Palo Pinto County
   and wondering if they had any connections with the Dalton outlaws. I
   was talking about Bob Dalton and asked Bill if he ever heard of him.
   He said, "Yes I knew him well. Truth of it is I outlawed with him a
   little."/ [?] I rode 75 miles to identify him after a couple of little
   marshalls at Chickasha shot him. The way it happened. Bob and a couple
   other fellows was living out in a cabin out of town. They had a woman
   with 'em and since they wasn't trying to raise nothing, the marshalls
   decided they were boot-legging and went out to see.
   
   "They was a ditch that run for about 300 yards from the cabin, and
   when the marshalls showed, Bob run down that to get away. The
   00077marshalls saw him and a lucky shot kilt him. They went on to the
   cabin and the woman come out running and hollering. 'Now you've done
   it. You've kilt my hired man.' Then marshalls like to a fought right
   there, each claiming the other shot him. They'd done it so they
   decided to go in the the cabin and look around. When they got there
   the other two men had got away but they found three of four seamless
   [?] masks full of money. Then they like to have had another fight over
   who shot Bob. Each claiming he did so to collect the reward. That was
   when I was a Territory Marshall out of Fort Smith, Arkansas."

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