When we arrived, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, father set one of the negroes to harnessing two mules to the small wagon, and announced that I was to go back with a couple of the men to bring in our game, for we could not well afford to lose so much fresh meat.
The day had been a long one before I found opportunity to crawl into my bed, for it was near midnight when we got back with the carcass of the bull.
When I opened my eyes next morning, I remembered the saw pit, believing I must spend another day at the slow task of making boards and joists from green wood, but father was at work cutting the carcass of the bull into thin strips, while John and Zeba were building a little scaffold on the prairie a short distance from mother's shelter.
This was the first process towards "jerking" beef, or, in other words, drying it in the sun, a method of preserving meat which I fancy has come down to us from the Indians. Before the morning was spent I discovered that there are more disagreeable tasks than that of pushing a crosscut saw up and then pulling it down.
Before all the meat had been cut into thin ribbons and hung on the scaffolding, we were covered with blood, and on the topmost branches of the pecans sat a dozen or more of those miserable turkey buzzards, awaiting an opportunity to come down and eat what was left of the carcass. It was necessary to keep as close a watch over those birds as we did over the wolves, else all our labor would have been speedily devoured. When there was an opportunity for a much-needed bath, father allowed no more than two of us to go into the stream at a time, obliging the others to remain where they might stand guard over the meat.
When night came, the ribbons of flesh were not wholly cured and we found it necessary to gather them up and store them in one of the wagons lest the dew spoil the flesh; in the morning we hung all the thin strips out again, standing over them jealously.
It seemed to me just then as if all our days and nights in Texas were to be spent standing guard over something. During the night we were forced to watch lest the wolves devour our sheep, and during the day we had to keep a careful eye over the turkey buzzards who seemed on the verge of starvation all the time. In addition to this labor, it was necessary to perform the regular work on the ranch, and thus it may be seen that we did not have much time for idling.