It's all right, boys!
We'd changed horses in Cherokee and made the drive and were fixin' to go up the river with them. The first man to get his horse was Reid Blackwell. That horse pitched with him and he bucked off down towards where the herd was.
I was the next one to get saddled and I was in a hurry. Earl Albright had loaned me a pair of spurs. They said, "Fish, you can beat that." I was on old Chico and I knew he could buck. I usually held him up when I first got on him and spun him out of it. Well, I got on him with them steels and he let off down through there at just a pretty good crow hop.
Montie came out of the bushes down there. He'd drove up as close as he could on the south side of the river in his station wagon and walked across. When I went down, he was a laughin' and he said, "That horse throwed me one time.
I said, "He had about all I could stand coming off that hill."
Montie told me, "Pull your saddle off. We need you up at that Dumas country. We can't get help up there and we are going to have to send you."
The next boy just trotted down that hill. He said, "They fire you? The boys they they fired you. Earl Albright said, 'If they fired those boys, I won't work for them another day.' Earl and Suckerrod, together, they both crawled out of that rope corral. I looked up there and he said, "They said they wouldn't work another lick if they fired you."
I hollared up there and said, "It's alright, boys! It's alright."
Montie said, "What is it, Fish? What is it?" I told him they thought he might be firing us and he hollared up there, "It's alright, boys. It's alright."
They went on to catching horses. They had both crawled out of the rope corrals and Suckerrod was a tall man. His name was Suckerrod Smithers. His name was Rod, Suckerrod came because of his height. Before he came to the JA, the manager heard there was a new man coming on the wagon. He asked the wagon boss what the new man looked like. The Red River was running a little stream about ten foot wide. He said, "You see that water out there. He could fall down and catch himself on the other side and not get wet." He wasn't that tall, but it was close.