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Before -300 Texas ranchers last week, Tojie Harrell, president of Fort Worth's big Traders Oil Mill Co., made a short speech. Said he: "In 1953 I realized all of us would meet somewhere, but I thought it would be in the poorhouse instead of like this." The occasion was a party in honor of Tojie Harrell and his part in preserving an old Texas tradition: that a Texan's word is as good as his bond. After the ranchers had eaten all the fried chicken they could hold and had sung themselves hoarse, they gave him a "cow shower" as a token of their esteem: a brand-new ranch Jeep and a truckload of 25 prime Angus calves.

Tojie Harrell had indeed almost put them all in the poorhouse. Two years ago, whole herds of Texas cattle suddenly developed a deadly disease called hyperkeratosis, and cattle died by the thousands. The disease was finally traced to cottonseed cake pellets sold by Traders Oil Mill Co. The cake had apparently been poisoned by chlorinated naphthalene in a machinery lubricant used by Harrell's feed company (TIME, March 30, 1953). Legally the cattlemen might have had a hard time collecting; chemical tests on dead cattle rarely show the naphthalene because the fatal quantities are so minute. Furthermore, since most feed contracts are on a handshake basis--with no writ ten guarantee of purity--the company might have squirmed out from under on the ground that the oil company making the lubricant had changed the formula without notice. Instead, President Harrell assumed full responsibility. Said he, in a letter to all of his customers: "This situation did not result from a mistake by our company. However, when a man buys our feed, he expects it to be good feed."

Harrell set up teams to handle all claims, had every cattleman come to his office to settle on a figure. To each, Harrell offered a mutually acceptable price for every cow or steer lost, signed and handed over each check personally. One rancher filed a claim for 1,500 head, walked out with a check for $57,000. A widow, whose herd had been wiped out, got enough for a new herd.

With the payoff completed, the grateful ranchers decided to honor Harrell. Feedman Harrell, who had lost 40 Ibs. sweating out the payments, would not say just how much the disease had cost him or how it would affect his company, but he admitted that the payment ran "into the millions." Said a small rancher at the party last week: "He didn't have to do anything. He could have told us to go to hell."

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