Page 93 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

men from the various outfits
attacked a band of about 40 Indians, killing all but nine. They “recovered” 65 head of stock only to discover that these Indians had been returning from Mexicoandwereinnocentoftheraids. However, the Texans kept the stock anyway. Neither Bell nor Erskine made any mention of
190 to have the herd ferried over.
The decline of the cattle market continued, and by 1855 the California price for Texas cattle had dropped to $6 to $7 a head. There would continue tobeafewdrives,however,untiltheoutbreakofthe Civil War, and after the war was over there was a
192
the Goodnight-Loving Trail.
Despite the thousands of emigrant wagons and
hundreds of livestock herds that had traveled part or all of Cooke’s Wagon Road to California, the pas- sage remained demanding and dangerous, existent watersupplieswerefrequentlyinadequateorunreli- able, and the distance was unnecessarily long. Most Congressional members recognized the need for improvement, and California representatives and citizens demanded it. If the young California state, admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, was to remain an equal partner in the Republic, major improvements in land transportation routes and mail service were imperative.
trouble for the Franklin party, and the James outfit had no engage- ment with the Indians but had lost approximately 100
191 interesting to It is also
189
cattle thus far to other causes.
A few nights later, camped only four miles behind
Erskine, Bell and others calculated that the value of the losses for 1854 alone would amount to over $100,000 and that three-fourths of the cattle and other stolen property were in the hands of the In- dians. Indeed,eventhe“friendly”PimaIndians stole from the cattle drives. Erskine gave many presents of steel needles and strong thread only to learn later that the entire box of over 1,000 needles and nearly every knife in camp had been stolen.
The Indians were not the only source of monetary drain on the cattlemen driving between Texas and California. After failing to lure his cattle across the Colorado River with a “decoy” ox, James paid $850
brief revival of the trade.
note that in later years there was a kind of reverse flow of cattle along the trail, with Arizona cattlemen driving east to El Paso and thence along a branch of
and on September 5
Chapter 3
79