Chapter 2 My
ApprenticeshipDuring the winter of 1865-66 I corresponded with several of my
old comrades in Texas. Beyond a welcome which could not be
questioned, little encouragement was, with one exception, offered
me among my old friends. It was a period of uncertainty throughout
the South, yet a cheerful word reached me from an old soldier crony
living some distance west of Fort Worth on the Brazos River. I had
great confidence in my former comrade, and he held out a hope,
assuring me that if I would come, in case nothing else offered, we
could take his ox teams the next winter and bring in a cargo of
buffalo robes. The plains to the westward of Fort Griffin, he
wrote, were swarming with buffalo, and wages could be made in
killing them for their hides. This caught my fancy an
