Deborah J. Lightfoot                            Author and Editor

For classroom use, the TRAIL FEVER Teacher's Guide (32 pages, 8-1/​2" x 11", saddle-stitched) by Pat Miller, M.Ed., has chapter summaries, vocabulary and concepts, discussion questions, Internet resources, writing prompts, quizzes, puzzles and more. Recommended for fourth-grade Texas history and social studies.

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Here's a sample chapter summary from the Guide.

Chapter 5: Trail Fever

Summary: After the Civil War, men returning home find themselves stone-broke or “cattle poor.” When cattle markets open in Kansas that pay $40 a head instead of the $3 they could get in Texas, men all over the state are either rounding up their own herds or riding with them for others. All have caught the “trail fever” that promises them adventure and wealth.

Vocabulary
drover—a person who drives cattle, usually along a trail to market
trail fever—a great desire to drive cattle across the Texas and Oklahoma prairies to Kansas

Concepts
strapped for cash—without money
cash money—coins or paper money

Questions
1. Why did people want to risk so many dangers to walk cattle hundreds of miles to market? (Because they could make money. After the Civil War many had nothing, so this was the chance of a lifetime.)

2. Name five dangers faced by cattle drovers. (Indian attacks, drowning in rivers, hail and lightning strikes, stampeding cattle, injuries in country where there was no doctor, quicksand)

3. There were no roads leading to Abilene, Kansas, or maps to guide the cattle drovers. How were they able to walk their cattle north and end up in the right place? (They followed the Chisholm Trail, blazed by the wagon wheels of a part-Cherokee trader named Jesse Chisholm.)

Internet Resources
George was itchin’ with trail fever and couldn’t wait to go. Here are some photos of folks who were already on the trail: Join a Cattle Drive.

Read a description of a cowboy’s day on the Chisholm Trail at The Cattle Drive.

Who would you want to hire if you were a rancher sending 3,000 of your cattle north? Name at least four of the jobs in a crew of drovers. (Trail boss, cook, point riders, flankers, swing men, horse wrangler. Read about them at Cattle Trailing, The Handbook of Texas Online.)

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Here's part of a quiz from the Guide.

Trail Fever:
The Life of a Texas Cowboy

Quiz on Chapters 4–6

1. While his brothers and father were away at war, George
a. helped his mother raise the younger children
b. built a new barn for the horses
c. branded the cattle and kept them from straying off

2. Children from farms and ranches didn’t go to school much because
a. they weren’t very smart
b. they were too busy helping at home
c. there were no schools except in the big cities

3. Just after the Civil War, Texas ranchers had little money because
a. so many cattle roamed the ranges, the cattle weren’t worth very much
b. they had spent all of their money building fences for their cattle
c. the cattle in Texas had all been eaten by soldiers

4. Abilene, Kansas, became a market for Texas cattle because
a. Kansans eat a lot of beef
b. it had a railroad
c. it’s near a river

5. There were no roads to take the cattle north, so the cattle drives
a. followed the Mississippi River
b. followed the North Star
c. followed the Chisholm Trail

6. Driving cattle was dangerous work. Which of these did NOT kill cowboys?
a. quicksand
b. malaria
c. stampedes

7. George Saunders thought he’d lost his first trail-drive job because
a. he got lost when the cattle stampeded
b. several of his cattle drowned at a river crossing
c. his horse was killed by lightning

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