We dressed the carcasses and hung up the meat on the branches of the trees to save it from being devoured by the wolves; after which, each of us carrying a peccary on his back, we set out for the long tramp home, I promising myself sorrowfully that never again would I go out hog hunting without taking due precautions against being worsted. [Illustration] I shall spend no more time telling of the hunting which Gyp and I did, even though I am strongly tempted to do so; for we often had rare sport, both on the prairie and in the woods, in search of all kinds of game. And there was game in great abundance, if we cared to go sufficiently far from home. One year after our arrival, however, there came to the banks of the Trinity four other families who staked out land and thus somewhat interfered with the freedom of our sport. It seemed to me, then, that the country was becoming too thickly settled, for I had to walk no more than five miles in order to reach the house of a man who had been our neighbor in Bolivar County. THE INCREASE IN MY FLOCK In the spring of 1844, one year after our coming into the republic, father decided to give me all his sheep as payment for the work I had performed on the ranch. By this time our flock of seventy-two had increased to a hundred and fourteen, and we had good reason to hope that it would be doubled in numbers before another season had passed. I then turned all my attention to herding sheep, driving them far out over the prairie where the grass was richest. There, day after day, Gyp and I remained, with no other covering than the sky above us, save when we spent our idle time putting up a temporary shelter here or there where we might be shielded from the too strong rays of the sun, or from the blasts of the norther. All the while my flock throve famously. It seemed to me fortunate, so far as my own enterprise was concerned, that the new settlers on the banks of the Trinity had not brought with them any sheep, for they did not expect to raise such animals, having heard that the western part of the state was better adapted for the purpose. [Illustration] Therefore I had no fear that the scab would come among my flock, because we were not in that section where strange sheep were likely to be driven from one point to another, and just so that I kept away from where the cattle were grazing, I had the entire northern portion of Texas for my own range, with no person to interfere. UNREST OF THE INDIANS We had heard rumors of an uprising among the Indians when we came to Fort Towson, on our way from Bolivar County. Again, when the new settlers arrived, they told us that the Comanches were in a state of unrest. All this promised evil for us who were living so far from a town or fortification.