Get a Shovel, There’s a Good Horse Under Me

[Subdeacon Joe]

Found on FB

 

"I came to El Paso in 1879. They were having sandstorms then and they have been having sandstorms ever since, but here lately it seems like the wind has sorter lost its strength. I remember one time we were riding in with a pack mule and an Indian scout. The wind had been blowing for three days and nights and sand had covered up the grass and most of the mesquite bushes ... Yes, the country still had grass then; it hadn't all been grazed off. That pack mule was the only one of us that could follow the trail. She went ahead.

 

As we rode along through the sandhills between Fort Hancock and El Paso, I noticed the mule got shy, and then the lead ranger stopped. He was right over the crown of a man's hat sticking out of the sand. It looked like a new hat, and when the ranger got down to dig it out, the rest of us stopped to watch.

 

Well, sir, when he uncovered the brim and went to lift the hat up, he discovered a man's head inside it. We got down and worked carefully to scratch the sand out of the man's ears and eyes and mouth and nose. He gave a little cough and said, 'Get a shovel. There's a good horse under me.'"

 

---- with a twinkle in his eye, Texas Ranger Jim Gillette tells a story about the wind in West Texas, as recounted by J. Frank Dobie in "Tales of Old-Time Texas," 1928. Shown here: Jim Gillette in the 1880s.

 

[PaleWolf Brunelle, #2495L]

 

[watab kid]

i remember that ,