TX BIOS:  Mr. Charlie Weldon, Ballinger, TX
   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.
   
   0001
   
   Interview
   
   Range-lore
   
   Emma D. McAden
   
   Ballinger, Texas Tales - Anecdote (ranch life)
   
   RANGE-LORE
   
   Ranch Life sixty years ago, as told to me by Mr. Charlie Weldon, born
   in 1863:
   
   "Well, let's see, I was fifteen years old when I started to work on
   the O. H. Triangle ranch, owned and run by the Coggins brothers, Sam &
   Moody. The ranch house was down on the Concho river twelve miles from
   Fort Chadbourne.
   
   "During the winter months we had horses to break and of course we rode
   trail some, but the main thing was to have our horses ready for the
   round-up which started in May. We took turns at guarding the horses,
   for the Indians were bad to come in and drive them off. Well, in them
   days we broke
   
     NOTE: C12 - 2/1/[?] - Texas
     
   00022our horses on moonlight nights because somehow we got the idea
   that they could be tamed and made better cow ponies if broke on those
   nights.
   
   "Along in the spring of '78 we were starting out on the round-up and
   the Indians closed in on us from both sides, going to take our horses.
   I was told to go to the wagons - but not me; truth is, I was afraid to
   leave the grown men so I stayed with them. The battle was awful, the
   soldiers came from Fort Chadbourne to help us, and after we had driven
   the Indians back to the river and every thing was [DEL: quited :DEL]
   quieted down, the soldiers took fourteen bodies from the river, but we
   didn't lose our horses.
   
   "After the round-up, was the long, hard trip overland to Kansas City
   to market. That spring we were gone one hundred days, because after we
   got our cattle up in Oklahoma a train come along and nearly scared
   them critters to death and they went every direction. It took more'n a
   week to get them started out again. They was so nervous that the rest
   of the trip was sure hard; could not make more than five or six miles
   a day.
   
   "That spring I got my wages raised from $25.00 a month to $35.00 a
   month. So in the fall of '88 I married Sally Chamberlain. We, (her
   family and me), went in a wagon to Brownwood to get the license. We
   got all our supplies 00033from Brownwood and always took several
   wagons and three or four men went on horseback to guard the supplies
   from the Indians."
   
   ***********
   
   REFERENCE:- Charles Weldon, Ballinger, Texas. Interviewed September
   28, 1938.

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