noon
Over this government road had come a number of herds of Texas cattle , all of them under contract , which , in reaching their destination , had avoided the markets of Wichita and Ellsworth . I crossed their trail with my Colorado natives , -- the through cattle having passed a month or more before , -- never dreaming of any danger . Ten days afterward I noticed a number of my steers were ailing ; their ears drooped , they refused to eat , and fell to the rear as we grazed forward . The next morning there were forty head unable to leave the bed-ground , and by noon a number of them had died . I had heard of Texas fever , but always treated it as more or less a myth , and now it held my little herd of natives in its toils . By this time we had reached some settlement on the Cottonwood , and the pioneer settlers in Kansas arose in arms and quarantined me . No one knew what the trouble was , yet the cattle began dying like sheep ; I was perfectly helpless , not knowing which way to turn or what to do .