We were there when the country was young and wild, and we knew the smell of gunsmoke and buffalo-chip fires.  Some were there because they chose the free, wild way, and some were born to it, and knew no other.

To live with danger was a way of life, but we did shot think of it as danger, merely as part of all that we must face in the natural order of living.  There was no bravado in our carrying of guns, for a man could no more live without a gun in the Texas of the 1850's than he could live without a horse, or without food.

We learned to live like the Indians, for the Indians had been there first and knew the way of the land. We could not look to anyone for help, we must help ourselves; we could not look to anyone for food, we must find our food and prepare it ourselves.

Now there was no more time.  Westward the land was open, westward lay our hopes, westward was our refuge.  Those were years when half the world grew up with the knowledge that if everything went wrong they could always go west, and the West was foremost in the thinking of all men.  It was the answer to unemployment, to bankruptcy, to adventure, to loneliness, to the broken-hearted.  It was everybody's promised land.

We pointed the cattle west into the empty land, and the brindle steer took the lead.  He had no idea where he was going, but he intended to be the first one there.  Three thousand five hundred head of mixed stuff, with Tap Henry and Pa away out there in front, leading the herd.

The wagons took the flank on the side away from the dust.  Tim Foley's boy was driving a wagon, and his wife drove another.  Aaron Stark's wife was driving a third, and Frank Kelsey was driving Tom Sandy's big wagon.

Tom and Rose Sandy were coming with us.  Zeb Lambert had been right about Sandy, for when he heard of our move he promptly closed a deal on an offer for his ranch, sold all his stock but the remuda and some three hundred head of selected breeding stock, and threw in with us.

He brought two hands with him.  Kelsey had been with him ever since Tom Sandy had come to Texas riding a sore-backed mule, and the other hand was Zeno Yearly, a tall Tennessean.

Tilton, Cole, and Poor rode one flank, and two of Pa's other hands, Milo Dodge and Freeman Squires, the other.

We had been making our gather before Tap Henry returned, so getting on the road was no problem.  Above all, speed was essential.  Now that we had determined to leave, there was no sense in delaying and awaiting an attack, if it came.