After the war I had a hard time getting back on my feet. Money was tight and I had a family to support, I heard from an old friend that moving cattle from Texas to Kansas is about thirty dollars a head. It was good money so I took the jobs. When we got back my group asked me if I wanted to re-up.
I thought about it. I barely had sleep to even think straight, it took us half a year to get there and back, and we almost died on multiple occasions. After going over my first long drive I decided I didn’t want to re-up.
The first reason I don 't want to re-up is because the trips are too long. I heard from this man who has re-upped (Document A) that it takes twenty weeks to get from Brownsville, Texas to Abilene, KS. Roughly six months will pass
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I had less than ten hours of sleep per week. The hours that we didn 't sleep my crew, including James Cook (Document E), would mix chewing tobacco and saliva and put it over our eyelids to stay awake. Sleep deprivation caused by me to not think straight and feel sick. When you 're on a long drive you have to have full attention.
The biggest reason that I don 't want to re-up is because it is too dangerous. The weather is a really big part of how dangerous the Trip is. It was big swimmin’ and some of the cattle and horses would drown (Document E). We would also lose food from the weather. The buffalo chips would be too wet to make bread or coffee out of it.
The Indian Territory was also dangerous to go across. They saw us as trespassers and angry men would attack us (Document C). They had ferocious dogs that would end our cattle’s life and ours. It was a risk to go through Indian Territory but it is the fastest and best-calculated route to go on. The weather and Indians make it very hard to get there alive and successfully.
Re-upping could possibly kill me, cause me to be sick, and miss out on the growth of my family. I have enough money from the first cattle drive that I could live off of it for about a year. Re-upping would be dangerous and I could just find