Manuscript Page 36

Cherry Creek. There was a one-room cabin, a store room, corrals and a horse pasture. There was also a nice spring which supplied drinking water. I usually came home from school after the ranch work began and would pick up my string of horses at the ZT Ranch in the Valley and join the crew at the PBs. Orville always left my horses at the home ranch and I would ride one, pack one and lead the others to the PBs.

The crew I joined was always a real mixture of people. One year we had Ky Wilhoit from Texas but most recently from Hollywood where he had played parts in some western movies. Ky loved to sing and kept the outfit entertained with his many interesting songs. In the 1970s Ky had some land in Glendale, California and was furnishing cattle, horses, mules and buffalo to the movie studios for use in filming movies.

We also had Jack County, all five feet of him. Jack was an orphan. He had been born in Texas and was found in a basket on the front steps of the court house in Jack County Texas which accounts for his name. Under the circumstances, he was a ward of the county and they gave him his unusual name. Besides being so short Jack had a very prominent nose which was always getting broken and was therefore very crooked. He could not sing but he could ride, rope and tell great stories. He was flanking calves one day in a rocky canyon and managed to let a big calf break his nose again. It did not phase him. He just kept on working.

Another crew member was Jesse Ellison who was a genuine cowboy and the most reckless rider I ever saw. Jesse was married to the sister of George Hunt, the first governor of Arizona. Jesse was the son of Colonel Ellison who owned the Q Ranch for many years and about whom there were many stories. Jesse said he left home at the age of eleven because his father was so mean and cruel. He was raised by the Apache Indians. The Lupe Family of Whiteriver considered Jesse to be a member of their family.

When Jesse was working on a ranch he was never given a good horse to ride because he was so reckless he might break one of the horse's legs. It was no different on the ZT. Jesse rode the poorest horses in the outfit. One day we were riding on Squaw Peak Mesa when a bunch of wild cattle jumped out of a thicket. Jesse Ellison immediately took after them. The cattle just dived off the edge of the mesa and Orville yelled, "Let 'em go!" Jesse paid no attention to Orville. He was right on the heels of the cattle as they went over the edge of the mesa. The rest of the crew went to the trail that zig zagged down an extremely steep mountain side. At the bottom was Turkey Creek and when we got there Jesse had all the cattle in the corral and was sitting on his horse in the gate. No mountain was too steep and no cattle too wild for Jesse Ellison.

We had riders from adjoining ranches riding with us because there was always some stray animals mixed in with ours. R. M. Grantham rode with us on many occasions. R M owned the Q Ranch and I remember his plaited rawhide rope particularly well since it was sixty feet long. R M was a "dally man." The rest of us used thirty to forty feet of cotton, nylon or hemp rope and we tied it solidly to the saddle horn. R M would throw his loop and then wrap the