The Missing Pocket-Book

 Fort Worth, August 5, 18—. One hundred and seventy-five thousand head of cattle are being slowly drifted and driven from the drought-parched sections of Northwestern Texas into Jacks County, along the waters of the West Fork of Trinity. The herders who accompany them demand that they must have grass and water, or blood. The farmers, who will be greatly damaged by the passage of these immense herds, are arming and say the cattle shall not come in—that they must be driven back at all hazards. To permit them to pass means fences destroyed, crops ruined, and the meagre supply of water exhausted; to turn them back means death to the cattle and financial disaster to the men who own them. To-day the news was carried from house to house, and the farmers are turning out to a man, resolved to rendezvous on Bear Creek and forbid[2] the driving of the cattle through their lands.