Two days later Jack, pretty tired and riding a tired horse, came into camp after a long day, and was delighted to see Hugh standing by the cook fire, as usual smoking his pipe. Jack shouted a greeting and Hugh waved his pipe in salutation, and a moment later when the saddle had been thrown on the ground, and the tired horse was rolling, the two shook hands.
"Well," exclaimed Jack, "what's the news? Did anything happen to you on your way back with the cattle?"
"No," answered Hugh; "we just pushed 'em along as fast as we comfortably could, brought 'em to camp late at night, pretty tired, and didn't bother to bed 'em down or watch 'em. They got in hungry, and as soon as they had eaten a plenty they lay down and stayed down all night. When we got within five or six miles of the ranch I sent Rube in ahead and pushed the cattle on myself, and before very long your Uncle and Joe came out and we drove the herd down below the little lake and turned 'em loose there. That was yesterday afternoon pretty early. Rube and I went up to the bunk-house and gossiped a while with Mr. Sturgis, and then after we had had something to eat, we turned around and rode until dark and then camped, and came on here to-day."
"That was a good quiet trip," said Jack. "I am glad that nothing bad happened. There was no reason why anything should happen, for these cattle are almost on their own range; and they shouldn't be wild or uneasy. What's the news back at the ranch, Hugh? Did Uncle Will, or Joe, have anything special to talk about?"
"Not a thing," was the reply. "It's just as quiet there as can be. Joe's 'tending to his stock, what little of it there is there, and Mr. Sturgis, I reckon, just reads and writes. By the way, though, he did tell me that he went up on the mountains back of the house the other day and killed a yearling for meat. He said there were lots of elk there—big bunches of cows and calves. When I told him I was coming right back here, he sat down and wrote to you and asked me to take the letter along with two or three others that had come for you. You see, he sent Joe into the railroad for mail only two or three days ago."
Jack took the letters, and presently went off to read them. Two were from his father and mother, in New York, and one from his uncle. By the time he had finished reading them, supper was ready and the boys were crowding around the fire, filling their plates and cups.
After supper, Hugh, Joe and Jack were sitting together near the cook fire, Hugh smoking and the boys slapping viciously at the mosquitoes, which were pretty bad.
"I saw one thing to-day, son," said Hugh, "that interested me a little, and that was a buffalo carcass."
"Why, Hugh," exclaimed Jack, "I didn't know there were any buffalo about here. Of course, I've heard that there is a little bunch up in the Rattlesnake Mountains, but I've never seen any sign down this way."
"No," returned Hugh; "I don't guess there are any buffalo around here. The carcass to-day is the first I've seen for six or seven years. I remember about the time you first came out to the ranch we ran across a buffalo that had been killed not very long before. I figured that it had wandered out from the Rattlesnake Mountains and crossed the Platte, but I never knew what had killed it. I don't know what killed this one that I found to-day. It was killed this spring sometime, but had been dead too long for me to find out much about it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a very few buffalo up in the Rattlesnake hills; and every now and then, if one comes out and goes down to the Platte River, somebody takes a shot or two at it, and it gets killed. I haven't heard of anybody killing a buffalo around here for a good many years.
"I reckon I've told you, son, about what Uncle Jack Robinson used to say about buffalo on the Laramie Plains, and in this high country, away back long before I came out here, and in fact I guess when Uncle Jack was quite a young man—anyway, not more than a middle-aged man. He said that in his young days, when he first came into the country, the Laramie Plains and all this high country was full of buffalo, but that one winter there came a terrible snowstorm without any wind, and the snow lay four or five feet deep on the ground. After this snow came a change of weather, either a big thaw or a warm rain, and then a freeze, and the whole country was crusted over so that none of the animals could get down to the grass to feed. That winter, Uncle Jack said, killed just about everything in the country and, among the other things, the buffalo. He said that since that time there never had been any buffalo on the Laramie Plains, or in this high country. I always figured from what he told me that this big storm must have come in the winter of 1839-40. Uncle Jack said that for years after that it was hard to find any game up in this country, but, of course, as time went on the deer and the elk and the antelope got plentiful again, but the buffalo never came back."
"I suppose the fact is, Hugh," said Jack, "that by that time the people on the plains were killing them so that they had no chance to work back into the mountains."
"Likely that was so," assented Hugh.
"There's another thing about buffalo I want to ask you," said Jack; "though I think you've told me about it before. Some of the old books talk, as I remember it, about buffalo spending the summer up in the north, and then migrating south in the fall, spending the winter down in Texas or Mexico, and then going back again when spring came. I'm pretty sure you told me once that there was never anything like this."
"No," answered Hugh, "there never was; and if you'll think about it a little bit you'll see there couldn't be. It's a long way from the Canada line down to Mexico, and just as far back again. If the buffalo made journeys like that spring and fall, they'd never have time to do anything else, and they sure would never be fat. Of course buffalo shifted their ranges more or less, spring and fall. They'd move up into the high country on the flanks of the mountains, and often up mountain valleys in summer, and then in fall they'd drift east on to the prairie and get into breaks or broken country of one kind and another, and stop there. Sometimes they'd make quite long journeys and it would be hard for the Indians to find them, but they never started off to travel a thousand miles or so to avoid cold weather, and then turned round and came back to avoid hot weather.
"The buffalo didn't mind the cold very much; on the other hand, they like shelter in the worst weather. I've seen places on the flanks of the mountains in the broken country where the buffalo wintered—places they used to go to for shelter in the worst storms—where you would find the dung four or five feet deep. I remember one such place in a little side ravine running into a draw that goes down into the Rosebud, where I took the trouble to dig down into the dry dung, and I made a hole half as deep as I am tall, and didn't get to the bottom then. This was a sheltered place under thick pine trees, and all the signs showed that the buffalo used to gather there to get out of the wind and snow, and stand there pretty nearly as warm as they would be in a barn. Right within half a mile there was the best kind of feed."
"Don't you remember, Hugh," interrupted Jack, "that year we went up to the head of the St. Mary's River, how you showed me the place where the sheep used to come down and stand in winter?"
"Sure," said Hugh. "That's another sort of an animal, but it shows what I've said to you before, that all animals, except those that are hunting other animals, are very likely to live in a small range of country, and not to get away from it except at some change of the seasons, or when they are driven away. It's just the same with range stock—cows or horses. You ask Joe here, and I reckon he'll tell you the same thing."
"That's so," asserted Joe. "Everybody knows that a few horses will stop in a particular place and live there all through the summer, or all through the winter; they always drink at the same stream; they always feed about the same place; they go up on the same high point to stand and look. It's something like that, too, with the cattle; and I reckon it's that way with all animals."
"That's what I believe," said Hugh; "and I can tell you a story about something that I saw once, and that plenty of other people saw too, that seems to me to prove it.
"In the fall of 1866 I was working for the government, sort of half scout and half general handy man, and went with Lieutenant Stouch—a mighty fine officer he was—down into Kansas to build up old Fort Fletcher, which was on the north fork of Big Creek, and about sixteen miles below Fort Hayes.
"It was nice, bright, cool fall weather, and when we got to the place that had been picked out for the Fort, and went into camp, we saw quite a bunch of buffalo feeding in the stream bottom, hardly more than half a mile above us. Of course the country then was full of buffalo, and this was one of their great ranges. I suppose there must have been eight or nine hundred in this bunch.
"When Lieutenant Stouch saw this herd, he had what always struck me as a mighty smart thought, and a thought too that showed that he knew a whole lot about animals, and about the plains country; and yet he hadn't been out there very long, because the war was only just over and he'd fought through the war. It occurred to him not to meddle with these buffalo and that just as long as they stopped where they were, he could get fresh meat for his command with mighty little trouble. So he gave orders to the soldiers not to hunt up the creek, but to do their hunting downstream, and especially not to do anything to frighten these buffalo.
"He picked out a man and sent him to go up the creek to kill a buffalo, but told him not to show himself before he shot, nor after; just to kill the cow and then stay there hid, until a wagon came up for the meat. The man obeyed orders. When he fired, the buffalo he had shot at ran a few steps, and then stopped and lay down. Those nearest to it gave a jump or two and looked around, but as they saw no one they went on feeding.
"They were watching in camp, and when they saw what had happened they sent out a wagon to bring in the meat, and as it drove up slowly to the place, the buffalo near it just walked out of the way. The dead animal was butchered and loaded into the wagon and brought back to camp.
"This happened every day. Nothing occurred to scare the buffalo. They got used to seeing the people at work on the buildings and got used to the wagons.
"After a while, a couple more companies of soldiers came to the post; one company of cavalry and one of infantry. Lieutenant Stouch told the officers what he had been doing, and asked them to follow out the same plan. They did so, and the buffalo stopped right there. This went on until well into the winter, when one day in the morning Lieutenant Stouch sent for me and told me that a sergeant who had just come in from a scout had reported that he had met our buffalo herd traveling up the creek about fifteen miles distant. The Lieutenant told me he believed that these buffalo could be brought back, and asked me what I thought about it. I told him I didn't know, but they ought to be mighty tame, and I believed that they could just quietly be driven back.
"'Well, Johnson,' he said to me, 'I believe so too, and we're going to try it.'
"He took about twenty-five soldiers, and three or four of the officers went along, and we rode off up the creek, and after a while passed the herd and went down into the valley above it. There we scattered out all the way across the bottom like skirmishers, and commenced to walk slowly toward the buffalo. When they first saw us they stood and looked for quite a long time, and I thought it was mighty uncertain whether they would drive or whether they would run off over the bluffs, but after a little those that were nearest to us turned around and began to feed down the valley, working back the way they had come, and before night we had the bunch back on its old feeding ground just above the post, and when it got there we rode out of the valley and round over the hills to camp.
"That bunch of buffalo stayed there for two months longer, and for all I know they would have been there yet, if it hadn't been that, along in April, the Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer, came into the post for supplies, and some of his command ran into those buffalo and chased them to kill meat for the command, and they scattered out and never came back again.
"That bunch of buffalo stayed there in that one place for about six months, not scared, although animals enough were killed out of it to supply a hundred and fifty officers and men with fresh meat during all that time. I reckon there was an animal killed every day or two; only they were killed in a sensible way and the herd was never frightened."
"Well, well," said Joe; "that seems to me one of the strangest things I ever heard of; and it just shows how near buffalo are to being cattle. You can imagine a thing of that kind happening to a bunch of cows, but it's new to me that it could happen to buffalo."
"It seems to me," replied Hugh, "that it shows that wild animals don't spend all their time wandering over the country, as most people think they do, but each set of animals has some little range of country that's like home to them."
"Yes," said Jack, "I guess that's the fact; and yet I believe most people don't understand it at all. I've heard my uncle say the same thing about wild animals, and about some kinds of birds. I mean birds like partridges and quail, that don't go south in winter, the way most birds do."
"Well," exclaimed Hugh, "the fact is that most people don't know anything at all about how wild animals live, and of course they can't have right ideas about 'em. But here I've taken a whole lot of sleeping time talking to you boys about animals! We'd better quit now and turn in."
It was plain daylight, but the sun had not risen, when Vicente, Tulare Joe and Jack set out from the camp to ride circle through the rough hills to the northeast. They would gather whatever cattle they could find and bring them to the camp, which would be moved a short distance farther during the day.
Vicente was a Mexican, of at least middle age. His hair and mustache were jet black, but his side-whiskers were gray. With his stiff conical black hat and a little military cape which he often wore, sitting erect in his saddle, with an air of great dignity, he looked more like a Spanish hidalgo than an everyday cowboy of the plains. No one knew Vicente's history, nor where he came from. This was not especially because he was a silent man, for in fact he often talked quite freely, but however much he talked, he himself was never the subject of his conversation.
Notwithstanding his dignity, his unusual clothing and his more or less precise and elaborate manner, Vicente was a wonderful cow hand. If anything especially difficult had to be done, he was usually called upon to do it. If some steers had to be handled in a small corral, Vicente was likely to ride into the corral on his favorite gray roping horse, and to pick out one animal after another, throw and tie it, and then when all hands on foot had gotten through with it, and had bolted for the fence, Vicente would untie the steer and dodge it until it wearied of the effort to fight him and went back to crowd in among the other animals.
The younger cowboys stood somewhat in awe of Vicente, and never tried to play jokes on him, nor made fun of him as they did of each other; though of course they cheered and shouted if by chance he mounted a horse which bucked with unusual ferocity. No horse, however vicious, energetic or long-winded had as yet been found, so far as any one on this round-up knew, that was able to stir Vicente from his saddle.
Hugh once said that only once in his life had he seen a man who rode as well and as certainly as Vicente. This was an old Mexican known as "One-Eyed Juan" who used to live down at Bent's Old Fort on the Arkansas. It was said that if a particularly bad horse had to be ridden down there at Bent's Fort—one that none of the Mexicans or Indians could do anything with—Juan would mount it, and putting a silver dollar between the sole of each foot and the stirrup, would ride the beast to a standstill, and when he dismounted the silver dollars were always found in the stirrups. One who saw Vicente ride a bad horse could believe this story. He rode in quite a different way from the American cow punchers, even those who were never thrown. Some of them lopped about on the horse, riding on one thigh or the other, and some seemed wholly unconcerned as to what the horse did; but, while they rode well, and were never shaken from their seats, they did not ride gracefully, firmly and steadily as did Vicente.
The three men rode fast to the edge of the hills, and had little to say to each other, but when they reached the point where they must separate to look for the cattle, Joe and Jack, by common consent, turned to the older man and asked him for instructions. Vicente's English was extraordinary and, until one was familiar with it, not easy to understand; but, brokenly as he spoke, every one in this cow camp understood him, as indeed did every one in all the region round about, for he had lived here for a long time, and on all the range was a well-known personage.
"How shall we work, Vicente?" asked Joe. "You tell us and we'll try to do as you say."
"It looks to me best," Vicente answered, "that Joe rides along the edge of the hills looking up the valleys; and you, Jack, ride a mile or two back from the edge; and I'll go still farther back toward the divide, maybe up on the divide—anyhow, so as to see the heads of all the coulées. What cattle Joe finds and what cattle I find we'll drive along and turn down to Jack, and Jack will push along the bunch, while we try to get all the cows that are feeding in these ravines."
"We'll do that," said Joe; "and that means that I turn off now before we've gone very far, and take in these lower hills."
After they had ridden a mile farther, Joe turned to the north or northwest, while Jack and Vicente kept on until the Mexican pointed out a place where he said Jack had better start north by himself, while he went farther on.
Jack sat for a moment watching the little horse swinging easily along up the hill under the erect military figure; and then, turning to his left, he started to gallop over the ridges and ravines that cut the slopes. It was killing work for a horse, up and down, up and down, up and down. As much as he could, Jack tried to save his animal by taking the hills at an angle, but even at best it was such hard work that Jack felt obliged often to stop, to let the horse rest and breathe.
For some time he rode on without seeing any cattle, but presently in a narrow valley, where evidently water had stood late into the spring, he saw ten or a dozen cows and young stock feeding on a little flat from which they had nipped off all the tall grass, so that at a distance the green carpet looked as if it had been gone over by a lawn-mower.
The cattle saw him almost as soon as he saw them, and seemed wilder than any he had previously come across. In a moment their heads were down, and their tails up and they were bolting across the ridges at a lively gait. Their direction was just that which Jack was taking, or perhaps they bore off a little to the left, which would bring them down more toward Joe's line. At all events, there was no reason to hurry after them, for they would certainly be gathered by one of the three men.
As Jack looked up toward the hill he could occasionally see Vicente crossing an open space, going at a good rate and apparently thinking nothing of his horse. Yet, oddly enough—and Jack as well as others of the round-up boys had often wondered at it—Vicente's horses, even though he had a string of only six and seemed to work them twice as hard as any other horses on the round-up, were always in good spirits, fat and springy. Now and then on the hillside above, and always in advance of Vicente, he could see little bunches of cattle hurrying along. He kept a sharp lookout to his right, thinking that possibly some of those being driven by the Mexican might turn off and drift down the hill in his direction, and if they did so he did not wish to go so far, or so carelessly, as to leave them behind.
Keeping his eye out warily, both up and down the hill, he presently saw above him, rushing diagonally to the front, five black-tail deer, none of them with horns—apparently an old doe, two yearlings and two spotted fawns. They had been startled either by Vicente or by the cattle he was driving, and now were making great time down the hill and toward safety. Even for them the work of crossing these ridges was tiring, and before long Jack could see that the old doe's tongue was hanging out of her mouth and that she was beginning to lose her wind. Jack had no cattle immediately in front of him, and he was riding down into a rather wide valley with a flat bottom. As the deer were drawing near, and would apparently cross in front of him, he put his horse into a fast gallop in order to reach the top of the next ridge about the time the deer got there. This he succeeded in doing, and as he rode up on top of the ridge and drew rein just below some scrubby pine trees, he could see the deer coming at a gallop along the top of this ridge, apparently intending to follow it down to the lower country, instead of continuing their way across the ravines. Jack was partly hidden by the trees, and was making no movement. The deer kept on along the ridge, slackening their pace as they got near to him, until just before they reached the pine trees the two leading does were trotting, the two fawns had almost stopped and the old doe was coming along heavily in the rear. By the pines they all stopped and looked back up the hill, as if to try to learn what had become of the cause of their alarm. They were so close to Jack that he could readily have thrown a rope over the head of any one of them. Their red flanks were heaving and the old doe was quite tired. The little fawns, which could not have been more than six weeks or two months old, were the embodiment of grace and lightness.
After looking back for a moment or two, the deer seemed to feel that there was nothing more to fear from the enemy that had frightened them up the hill. Two or three times they looked at Jack, but neither he nor his horse moved, and after a stare or two the deer looked unconcernedly away. Presently, with a slow, almost slouching, gait, they started to walk on down the ridge toward some underbrush on the hillside; and in doing this they crossed the wind which was blowing from the southeast, and so, in their changed position, blew from Jack to them. As each deer walked into this tainted current it bounded into the air as if shot up by a gigantic spring, and coming down again, the headlong flight was resumed with every appearance of terror. It was not the first time that Jack had seen something of this sort, and Hugh had more than once spoken to him of the effect of the scent of man on wild animals; but to-day Jack wondered at it as much as he had ever done before. The deer had looked squarely at him without recognizing him as anything dangerous or hostile, but the instant that their noses told them that he was there, they raced off in headlong flight.
A few more ridges surmounted, and Jack came again upon the little bunch of cattle that he had started in the morning. Though still wild, they did not rush off in the same alarm that they had shown earlier in the day. Above them on the hillside and near the head of the same ravine were other cattle lying on the steep side hill, and Jack, riding up, started them on their way. These animals had evidently just lain down after feeding, and were not at all wild. It seemed probable to Jack that he might have to do some literal cow punching with these logy beasts, and he took them down the hill with him and started them forward about in the line that he was riding.
All through the morning this went on, and Jack had gathered forty or fifty head of cattle, while from what he could see on the hillside above him Vicente had a still larger bunch. It was impossible to get any idea of what Joe was doing, because the slope here was too gradual.
In the early afternoon it was evident that Vicente had turned his cattle down the hill toward Jack. Many of them showed themselves working down ahead of him, and now and then he could hear the whistles and calls by which Vicente was urging them on.
It was not long after this that Vicente was seen hurrying along the hillside up and down, gathering the cattle into a more or less close bunch, and then starting them down a ridge ahead of Jack. A little later, too, Jack began to see cattle coming from his left—from down the hill. He therefore stopped where he was, and getting up on as high a point as possible, looked over the ground to get an idea of the situation. Evidently this had been a pretty fruitful gather, for there must have been more than three hundred cattle brought along by Vicente and by Joe, and as yet it was only a little after noon.
After a time, as the animals got together in a fairly close bunch ahead of Jack, Vicente rode up to him; and presently Joe appeared from a ravine. The three stopped and got off and sat down on the ground, and Joe and Vicente rolled cigarettes. The tired horses panted and the sweat dropped from their saddle cinches.
"Lots of cattle here," said Vicente. "We bring in big bunch to-night; hard on the horses, though. Lots of places in this rough country where cattle can hide."
"Yes," agreed Joe, "that's sure so. I ought to have a fresh horse now; mine's near give out."
"Well," said Jack, "I've been having an easy time, I reckon. I haven't done much of anything except to keep right straight ahead. My horse is tired too, but not so tired as those you two have been riding."
"Suppose we get lot more cattle," said Vicente; "we'll have a bunch too big for you to handle; then we'll have to take 'em out of the hills and drive 'em to camp; but we've not much farther to go now."
"No," answered Jack; "I suppose it's not much farther, and I guess we can keep these going all right; but I'll have my work cut out for me if any of these cattle should be mean and try to break back, as they are liable to. I'll have to do some riding myself."
"Some of these cattle are pretty wild," said Vicente. "I started three or four bunches that tried hard to break back, but now that they're together in a big bunch they'll be easier to handle. Only, Jack, look out and don't lose any in these ravines."
"All right; I'll try," Jack promised.
A little later, the three mounted again and Jack rode down toward the cattle and put the bunch in motion. It was slow work to get them started, but as Jack went along he could see from the tops of the ridges he crossed that the range of hills along which they had been working bent away to the east just ahead of him, and that before long he would have the cattle on smoother ground where it would be easier to watch them and to keep them traveling straight. Now the ravines began to grow wider and shallower. Joe joined him with a few more head, and at length they got the bunch out into fairly flat country. A little later, Vicente was seen off to the right coming with a few more cows; and presently the herd with the three riders guiding it was traveling slowly along under its cloud of dust toward the camp, which they could now see ahead of them.
The sun was still pretty high above the western horizon when they drove the cattle down to the stream to drink, and after that began to work them over to where the main herd was feeding.
"I suppose," Jack said to Vicente, "that now we have got so many cattle we'll have to spend a day or two cutting and branding calves."
"Yes," replied Vicente; "I think so. Seems to me I saw a big lot of strays in this bunch that we've got ahead of us. Not many brands of people around here. I don't know where they come from. Some of the brands I don't know."
"That's right," put in Joe. "I've seen plenty of brands that are new to me. Say, Vicente," he went on, "there's a big fat maverick heifer among those that I gathered. I wonder if McIntyre wouldn't like to kill her for beef?"
"You sure she's got no brand on?" asked Vicente.
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Suppose you ride to camp and ask McIntyre, and maybe we can cut her out before we get to the herd."
"All right," said Joe; and galloped off in the direction of the camp.
Before long he returned, riding a fresh horse.
"McIntyre says to bring that maverick over to the camp, and we'll kill her there," he reported.
No sooner said than done. Vicente and Joe pushed their horses into the bunch of cattle and before long had cut out the unbranded heifer, which was very fat, and were driving her back to the camp. A little later the herd Jack was driving mingled with the main herd, and he also turned toward camp; but before he got there he heard a shot, and as he rode into the camp he could see two of the boys dressing the young cow.
The next day Jack was ordered to travel with the herd in company with Jack Mason and Rube. Mason was a man who had not been long in this part of the country. He was not a pilgrim, for he had been born among the mountains of the West, and had spent all his life in the fenceless country. As a very young man he had worked his way up to the north, and for several years had lived on or near the Blackfeet Reservation, and Hugh knew him well. When he found him in the round-up camp Hugh had spoken of him to Jack in high terms.
"He's harum-scarum," he had said, "but he's a good prairie man, and I don't think he's afraid of anything that wears hair or feathers. He does not always believe in obeying laws that he does not approve of, and I've heard he has been in trouble once or twice on that account; but he's a square man, and a man that it's safe for you to know, and to tie to under ordinary conditions. Sometimes, however, he goes off half-cocked, and when he does that I shouldn't want you to tie to him. He's a man that's growing better every day, but he needs experience and balance, and I don't believe there's any way for Jack Mason to get that, except by living in the world and finding out for himself a whole lot of things that he don't know yet.
"There's another thing about Mason," Hugh went on; "he's terrible stout, quick with his hands, and quite a wrestler. I mind the only time I ever saw him wrestle. The fellow that tackled him got a handful. It was at the Blackfeet Agency. A big husky chap came over from Canada and went around blowing about how good he could wrestle. He threw the blacksmith, who was pretty stout, and a big Indian that was persuaded to try him, and after he had done that he talked louder than ever. He was an Englishman that had been in the mounted police. Finally somebody who had seen Mason in a scuffle told the man that he couldn't throw Mason, and the Englishman wanted to bet he could, and at last got all worked up about it. Mason kept refusing and dodging and putting off, until the Englishman was about crazy to make a match, and at last Mason said he would go him. They put up five dollars a side to wrestle on the flat out in front of the stockade. When they got hold of each other, the Englishman started in to throw Mason quick, but however hard he tried, he didn't seem to stir him out of his tracks. But suddenly, while they were all watching and wondering what was going to happen, Mason give a kind of a twist and threw the Englishman over his head, and he lit on his back three or four steps away, with the wind all knocked out of him. It took five or ten minutes to bring him to, and then he was only just able to walk, and had to be helped back into the stockade. He didn't talk much about wrestling after that, and left in the course of two or three days.
"You notice Mason sometime when he's in swimming and see his arms and shoulders, and the pins he's got under him. He's stout, I tell you."
Mason was a good cow hand and a most cheery, delightful fellow. No matter how gloomy the situation, how hard the rain poured or the cold wind blew, he whistled and sang in hearty fashion, made jokes and laughed at those of others, and altogether got out of life a great deal of enjoyment.
Those who were to drive the herd went out early to relieve the night herders. They were in no haste to start the cattle, which were given some time to feed before being pushed along to the next camp. While the cattle were feeding they needed no special attention for they were not likely to try to wander until they had eaten their fill. So the three herders got together on a knoll from which a good view of the country could be had, and sat there watching the stock as it fed. Rube whittled tobacco, and time and again filled his old black pipe; but the two Jacks, being non-smokers, looked over the wide plain before them, and noted, as one may note if one sits down and stares at a landscape, the various things that were happening among the wild dwellers of that landscape.
Scarcely half a mile to the north was an old doe antelope which in the early morning light had seemed much interested in the cattle and trotted down toward them on a tour of inspection. Those who saw her felt pretty sure that hidden somewhere in the neighborhood she had a couple of little kids; and sure enough after the old mother had satisfied herself that there was no danger in those great groups of dark animals, her two tiny young ones came out from their hiding-place and played around her.
Along a distant hillside off to the south, Jack Mason's keen eye detected a moving object, and after watching it for a while he turned to Jack.
"There goes a wolf, traveling back after his night's hunting to find a place to lie by during the day," he said.
After it had been pointed out, they could see the great beast trotting smoothly along over the prairie toward some bushy ravines higher up on the hill.
"Except for the cattle and the wild animals," Mason said, "there's not much to be seen here."
"Not much," answered Jack. "It's lonely; but I like the very lonesomeness of it."
"Yes," responded Mason; "so do I. I don't know anything much better than to ride along over the prairie, or to sit alone on top of the hill and just see what goes on all about you. Most people wouldn't see anything, but the man that has got his eyes open sees a whole lot."
"Ho!" put in Rube, "you fellows talk as if you had never before been where it was lonely. I have; and there's too much loneliness out here for me. I'm getting to be like the fellow I heard of who was riding fence down in Texas on one of those big fenced ranches. He never saw anybody from week-end to week-end, and one time when he came into a ranch to get his supplies, he said it was so darned lonely out there that he'd got into the habit of taking off his hat and saying 'Howdy' to every fence post that he passed."
"Well," laughed Mason, "he must have suffered for lack of company; but I would never have that complaint."
"Hugh tells me that you've lived up in the Piegan country," said Jack, addressing Mason. "Were you up there long?"
"Three or four years. I expect I'll go back there before long. Six or eight years ago I drifted up from the south through this country, and finally brought up among the Piegans. I've been across the line a few times to the British, and have stopped a little while with the Bloods and the north Piegans. You know that in old times, when the first treaties were made, the Piegans split up on the question of where they should live. Some of them liked the country to the south of the line, and some that to the north. Originally all the three tribes of the Blackfeet came from way up north on the Red Deer River, or maybe still farther, to the east of that. I've heard old John Monroe—maybe you know him—"
"I should say so!" exclaimed Jack. "I lived in his lodge all one summer."
"Well," continued Mason, "I've heard old John Monroe tell a mighty good story about the way the Blackfeet came down from the northeast, and how they first met the white people."
Here Rube interrupted.
"I think we had better start these cows along. A lot of 'em have quit feeding and the first thing we know they'll be lying down, and then we'll have a hard time to get them to move. Better come on and start 'em now. The longer we put it off the harder work and slower it'll be."
"That's gospel," said Jack Mason. "We've got to whoop these cows up, and we haven't any time for writing ancient history now."
"Yes," agreed Jack, "I suppose we've got to move; but look here, Mason, I want to get you to tell me that story, if you will. I've an idea that I've heard bits of it up North, but if you can give it to me in a connected fashion I wish you would."
"Why sure," Mason answered. "I'd like to tell it to you the best I can; but you know very well that I can't tell it the way old John Monroe could. He's half Indian and that means that he's a natural sign talker; and then he's got a dash of French in him, that makes him willing to talk, and he talks well; and then I expect the Scotch—for old Hugh Monroe's father must have been Scotch, if the name counts for anything—gives him a sense of humor. So he's a rattling good story-teller. Of course, for me, and maybe for you, he's sometimes a little hard to understand, because he talks a language made up of English, French, Cree and Blackfeet. Sometimes I miss the connection, but his stories are always good. The best ones that I ever heard, though, were those that he told in Cree to Billy Jackson, and that Billy Jackson interpreted for me, for Jackson is no slouch of a story-teller himself."
As they talked, the men rode over toward the cattle and going about them started those that were lying down and at last got the whole bunch moving very slowly in the direction they wished them to go. Among the cattle were three or four partially crippled animals that had been lamed either by the horns of other cows in the crowding, or by falling in bad places. Most of the hurts were trifling and would soon pass away, but there was one two-year-old steer that had a very bad shoulder and could use only one foreleg. He could get along very slowly and with difficulty. As Rube and Jack passed each other, riding to and fro to keep the stock going, Rube pointed to the steer.
"I hate to drive that cripple," he said; "and I'd leave him in a minute if I wasn't afraid that the wolves or coyotes would kill him to-night."
"Yes," answered Jack; "I am afraid if he were left behind he would never see the morning light; even a bunch of coyotes could kill him without any trouble, for just as soon as they crippled his hind legs, he would fall over and they would eat him alive."
"I reckon," decided Rube, "the best that we can do is to keep him going, and if we get him into camp to-night, we'll let McIntyre say what shall be done with him."
About noon the boys came to a stream and, driving the cattle down to it, made up their minds that they would give them an hour or two of rest. When Mason came up, Jack spoke to him about the crippled steer and asked what he thought about it, repeating what he and Rube had said a little while before.
"You're right about that," said Mason. "I don't believe he'd last out the night; for, as you say, the coyotes would kill him. If he were well, he could stand off a bunch of coyotes, but as he is, he wouldn't last long. You talk about crippling up his hind legs. Do you savvy, Jack, how it is that a buffalo or a steer, or a cow, gets hamstrung?"
"I always supposed that a wolf just bit through that big tendon that runs down from the ham to the hock, and, of course, if that's cut or broken that cripples that leg entirely."
"Right you are," said Mason, "up to a certain point; but did it ever occur to you how big and tough that tendon is, and did you ever stop to think whether a wolf could bite through it with one snap of his jaws?"
"No; I confess that I never did. But now that you speak of it, it looks to me like a pretty good-sized contract for any animal to bite through that tendon at a single snap."
"That's what it is," answered Mason. "If you ever get a chance to try a knife on that tendon you'll find that unless the knife is sharp like a razor you'll have to put in a good deal of force, and do some little sawing to get the blade through the tendon. We all know that a wolf is big and strong and that he can bite tremendously hard, and that he's got sharp teeth. I believe that maybe a wolf has force enough in his jaws to break a man's wrist, if he caught it just at the right point, but I don't believe that there ever was a wolf whelped that was able to cut through that tendon at a single snap, unless by accident. Of course, he might partly cut through it, and the animal's struggles might break it, but I don't believe that would happen once in a thousand times. The way the wolves hamstring these animals, so far as I've been able to see, is by biting that tendon over and over again, and before long it gets all bruised and more or less shredded, and swells up and stiffens, and the animal is not able to use his leg. If this happens to one or both legs, the first thing you know the animal is down and that's the end of it."
"Well, that's news to me," declared Jack. "I never thought of that before. I always just took it for granted that a wolf, because he is big and strong, could and did cut through that tendon by a snap of his jaws; but the way you put it, it looks to me as if that would not be possible."
"I've seen a number of cases," Mason continued, "where animals have been killed by wolves and I've always been interested in hearing about this hamstringing, so I've paid particular attention to the condition of that part of the leg, trying to see whether the tendon was ever cut, and I never have seen a case when it was cut."
"That's a new idea to me," repeated Jack. "I'd like to get more light on it. Did you ever talk about it to Hugh? He's been on the prairie an awful long time."
"No; I don't think that I ever talked about it to anybody at all; but I'm like you, I'd like to know whether it is gospel or not. At all events, it's what I've seen, and I think it's reason, too."
"It does seem reasonable," said Jack. "Let's ask Hugh when we get in to-night. Meantime we'll try to push along this cripple and let McIntyre decide what's to be done with him."
It was late in the afternoon when the herd was turned out to feed near the camp; and at night, soon after McIntyre got in, Jack told him the story of the crippled steer, and asked what should be done with it.
"Whose is it?" asked McIntyre.
"One of the Sturgis steers."
"Well," said McIntyre, "you and old man Johnson can decide what's to be done with it; and whatever you say goes."
Hugh, when consulted, thought that the best thing was to leave it behind them on the prairie, and that it must take its chances of living or dying. With rest and feed it would probably recover, but if driven along with the herd it would be sure to get worse and finally would have to be killed.
"All right," McIntyre consented; "when we move from here we'll leave it, and let it take its chance. We'll stop over here to-morrow, and cut and brand."
That night as they sat around the fire, Jack asked Mason to tell Hugh what he thought took place when an animal is hamstrung, and then asked Hugh what his beliefs were about the matter.
"Why," replied Hugh, as he stuffed down the fire in his pipe with a callous forefinger, "of course, Mason is dead right. I supposed everybody knew that. Hamstringing buffalo and stock means, I suppose, crippling them by hurting that big tendon above the hock. I've heard that in old days sometimes the Mexicans, and maybe the Indians too, used to ride up behind a buffalo with a right sharp saber or machete and by making a strong downward stroke did actually cut the hamstring and hurt the buffalo so that it had only three legs to go on; but I never supposed that anybody thought a wolf could really cut a hamstring through in that way. It's just the way Jack Mason says, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and you'll find that most mountain men and most Indians who have seen anything will tell you just the same thing.
"I expect you read a whole lot in books that's written by men who never saw the things happen that they describe: they've read of them perhaps a good many times, and sort of take it for granted that what they've read is all right; but, really, they don't know what it means. I guess this hamstringing business is one of those things. As Mason says, it might happen now and then that a wolf's jaws that hit that tendon just right would partly cut it in two, and then the animal might break it in struggling, but that wouldn't happen often."
"There's another thing, Hugh," Jack said, "that I want Mason to tell you—about some things he's heard from old John Monroe—some stories about how the Piegans came from their old home in the North down to where they live now. I want to get him to tell us about that."
"Why, yes," replied Hugh, "those are right good stories. I've often heard old John Monroe and other old men talk about that. I supposed maybe I'd told you about it, but I don't know as I have."
"No; I don't think you ever told me the whole story, though I've heard you and other people up there talk about it as something that was perfectly well known."
"Oh, yes," answered Hugh; "it's well known all right. All the old men know about it, but lots of the young men don't know anything at all about it. They don't care much about those old stories. All they want to do is to be riding horses; or maybe some of them, if they should have a dollar or so, go off down to the Birch Creek and buy some whisky with it."
"Well, I suppose it's too late to hear the story to-night; but to-morrow night, if you feel like it, I'd like to have you tell us those stories, Mason. You would like to hear them over again, wouldn't you, Hugh?"
"Sure," said Hugh; "I'd like to mighty well."
"Me, too," said Tulare Joe, as he threw the stump of his cigarette into the fire and rose to go to his blankets.
When Joe learned that the camp was not to move the next day he told Jack that here was his opportunity to tan his deer hide, and that after the work of cutting and branding was over he would speak to McIntyre about doing this job of tanning. There were men enough to do herd duty, and the boys thought that in the few hours of daylight that remained after the day's work was done they could get the skin in fair shape.
"Of course," said Joe, "we can't make a good job of it; an Indian has all the time there is, and he does his tanning slowly and does it well. We'll have to be satisfied with a rough job, but anyhow we can get the hide fairly soft, and it can be worked on again later."
As soon as the outfit had got into camp in the afternoon, Joe went to the cook tent and borrowed Frank's spade, and going down near to the stream and choosing a place where the grass grew fairly thick, he began to dig a hole considerably larger than a water bucket. When he had made the hole a foot and a half deep, he got into it and tramped down the soil on the bottom, scraping up anything that was loose and finally leaving a fairly smooth and hard surface. While working at this, he asked Jack to go to the wagon and bring the skin, and also the skull of the deer, which was tied to one of the bows of the wagon near the hide. Jack presently returned with both.
"I didn't know you had saved the skull, Joe," he said; "it looks as if it had been partly cooked. Did you save it for the brains?"
"Just for that," was the reply. "You know, of course, that the brains is a pretty important part of the operation of tanning. I did think I might get the brains of a beef from some animal that we'd kill, but of course we never could be sure of having a chance to do our tanning just after the beef had been killed, so I thought I'd save this skull; and to keep it from spoiling I stuck it in the ashes that night we skinned the deer, and hauled some coals over it, and asked Frank not to throw it away if he found it. It sort of cooked and dried during the night, and doesn't seem to have spoiled a bit."
By this time the hole seemed to suit Joe. He took the deer's hide and cut the string which bound it to the willow hoop, then began to fold it—taking care not to break the skin—until he made it into a more or less square package, flesh side out, somewhat less in size than the bottom of the hole. He placed it in the bottom of the hole, and put on it a rather heavy stone to hold it in position. Then, taking a bucket, he went down to the stream and brought two or three bucketfuls of water which he poured into the hole until it was almost full.
"This hole is close to the camp, and nothing is likely to disturb the skin during the night," he said; "but the coyotes might find it, and I don't mean to take any chances, so I'm going to cover it up. Maybe Frank will lend us the tail gate of his wagon to put over it. I'll ask him, anyhow."
The cook, on being appealed to, declined to lend the tail gate of the cook wagon.
"Why don't you get the tail gate of the bed wagon and use that?" he suggested.
Joe at once did so. He carried the end gate out and placed it over the hole, and the boys put two or three heavy stones on it.
"Now," said Joe, "I need a sort of beam to use in scraping the hair off this hide, and I reckon one of these young cottonwoods will do. I wish we had a tree right here to rest it against."
"What's the matter with that box elder over there with the low fork? If you make your pole long enough you can rest it in that fork."
"Right you are," said Joe. "I'll go down and get one of those young trees and you'd better come along, because that green wood is pretty heavy, and if we cut a long pole it'll take us both to pack it over."
The grove was only fifty yards away, and Joe soon felled a young tree, which was six or eight inches through at the butt. Cutting fifteen feet off the larger end, he and Jack carried it over and soon wedged it in the fork of the box elder, only a short distance from the hole where the hide was soaking.
"Now," Joe explained, "I've got to peel this stick, because any little lumps on the bark are likely to make us cut the hide."
They set to work and in a few minutes the lower five or six feet of the pole was free from its bark and shone white in the sun. They looked over the wood, and shaved down one or two little lumps until the surface of the peeled wood was quite smooth.
"There," exclaimed Joe; "that's all we can do to-night. My scraper is in my bed. I tied that up to the bows of the wagon until it got dry; and to-morrow, after our work is done, it won't take long to scrape the hair from the hide and to put on the brains. I'd like to have a day more to work on the thing, but we've got to do the best we can in the time we have."
The next day, after the work was over and the horses turned out, Joe repaired to the hole where the hide was soaking, and Jack went with him. Again they had recourse to the cook, who, after some grumbling, gave them half a dozen nails.
When the tail gate of the wagon was removed, the boys discovered that much of the water in the hole had soaked away into the soil, and the top of the stone on the deer hide was above the water. The hide, however, was still covered. After the stone had been removed and the hide taken out, they found it perfectly soft and pliable.
Joe carried it down to the stream and thoroughly rinsed it there, thus removing all the earth which clung to it. When he took it from the water he squeezed from it all the moisture that he could, then carried it up and hung it over the leaning pole, hair side out, and head toward the upper end. Now, with a stone, he drove a couple of nails into the pole and to them he fastened the head of the hide. Then he produced his scraper. Jack at once recognized it as a part of the deer's foreleg—the double bone that runs down from the elbow to meet the deer's wrist—what is usually called the knee. Of course Jack knew that in the hoofed animals the bone of the upper arm, which is called the humerus, is altogether hidden within the body and that the joint of the foreleg close to the body corresponds with man's elbow. Joe's scraper was the bone running from this elbow down to the deer's knee, and Jack was interested and somewhat astonished—for he had never before thought about the matter—to see what a splendid natural scraper this bone made. He said as much to Joe.
"Didn't you ever notice," asked Joe, "how often an Indian uses some natural and common thing for a tool in his work? I've seen that often, and it always made me wonder. Now you see this tool, in its curved shape and with that thin edge there of one of the bones, makes a great scraper. It's almost like a drawing-knife; and then look at the two handles on the ends—ain't that fine? The Indian that showed me how to tan, scraped the edge of his bone and made it a little sharper than this one is; but I reckon this will do all right; anyhow, we'll try. Of course, if we hadn't saved this bone from the deer's leg, we could have used a beef rib, or even the back of a knife; but this is the best and handiest thing I know of."
"That seems to me about a perfect tool for this work," declared Jack; "and I wonder at it too."
Joe took the leg bone of the deer and standing before the skin which hung over the pole, flesh side to the wood, began with long even strokes to scrape the hair from it. To Jack's surprise this came away readily and evenly, leaving the naked hide smooth and white. From time to time Joe shifted the skin, and gradually removed the hair from the whole hide down to the very edges, though on the head and ears the work was more raggedly done than on the neck, back and sides. Before very long, though, the skin was absolutely hairless, and as white on the hair side as it was white on the flesh side when Joe turned it over. It was quite free from superfluous tissue, for the boys had cleaned it well before stretching it.
After the hair had all been removed, Joe took the hide down to the stream and gave it a thorough washing, kneading it together as if to get out of it all the animal matter that had been left on it, and finally, weighing it down with stones, left it there to soak. Meanwhile he sent Jack back to the cook tent to bring a wash basin with a little warm water; and when Jack returned, he found that Joe had split the deer's skull. In a moment the brains of the animal were turned into the warm water, where they were crushed and pulverized by the boys' fingers until the water was all whitish and looked like soapsuds with a few white particles floating in it.
"Really, these brains ought to be heated for a while over the fire," explained Joe; "but we haven't much time to fuss, and maybe the hot water will answer just as well. What we want to do is to get these brains as fine as we can, and then we must build a little fire and warm the mixture again, and then put it on the skin."
They got together a few small sticks and chips and built a little fire; and then set the basin on it, having a bucket partly full of water close by.
Then Joe went down to the stream where he had left the hide soaking, and after shaking it about in the water to free it from any sediment that might have caught on it, he lifted it up and brought it to the grass near the fire, and then folded it over to make a long narrow piece. He took hold of one end, and Jack of the other, and they twisted it and wrung out almost all the water. It was surprising to Jack now how little the hide looked like the deer skin of an hour before. Two or three times the hide was unfolded and stretched out and then doubled again and the boys put all the power of their arms into the wringing process.
"The best way," said Joe, "would be to knot the skin around the limb of a tree and twist it just as hard as a man can twist; but we can't do that now."
When all the water possible had been wrung from the skin, it was unfolded, and Joe told Jack to help him stretch it and get it again to something like its natural shape. They worked for some time at this, pulling against each other, across and sidewise of the skin, and one hand pulling against the other at the edges; then, when the skin had again taken somewhat the shape of the dried hide of the day before, it was spread on the grass as flat as possible.
Now Joe added water to the brains in the basin which were just steaming, until he had increased the quantity of the mixture about three times; and carrying the basin over to where the hide lay, he began to take the fluid in his hand and to spread it smoothly over the hair side of the skin, rubbing it in as he did so.
When Jack saw what was being done, he took hold also, and soon the whole skin was covered with the mixture, which was rubbed in and kneaded with the knuckles, especially near the edges of the hide and about the head and neck.
"They say," explained Joe, "that the main part of the tanning is the way you put the brains on, and the way you work the thing dry afterward."
By this time the sun was getting low.
"I don't know whether we'll be able to finish this chore to-night or not," Joe said. "After the brains have been put on, it ought to be left in the sun to be set up and then it ought to be dried; but I'm afraid we can't do that. We'll have to quit now before very long."
After the brains had been thoroughly applied, Joe began to fold and roll up the skin until it was in a tight ball; and then he sat down and made a cigarette.
"That's about as far," he said, "as we'll be able to go to-night. Before we go to bed I'll spread the skin out, and to-morrow we'll have to let it dry in the wagon. I'm afraid it won't be much of a job of tanning: it's had to be done too fast and spread out over too much time. If we were going to lie over here to-morrow, I'd give it a good soaking in water and then start in to work it soft and dry; but that's something that'll have to wait."
This was what had to be done; and the next morning when Jack looked into the cook wagon where the hide was again tied to the bows, he saw that it had greatly shrunk, and though it had the color of buckskin, it looked almost like a piece of rawhide.
A few days later, Jack and Joe, having two or three hours which they could devote to finishing their tanning, again set to work at the hide. As soon as they came into camp, Joe looked up a place in the shade where the water was deep, and put the hide there to soak. Then, when they were able to get at it, they gave it a thorough washing and rinsed it many times in the water, and then took it over to a nearby tree which had low branches on it. Here one end of the hide was doubled about a branch and the other fastened to a short stout stick, and first Joe, later relieved by Jack, twisted the hide rope against the branch until the water was again all out of it. Once more it was taken down as before and pulled and stretched on its edges until it was brought back nearly to its natural shape. Then Joe, taking off his shoes and stockings, sat down on the ground and began to pull the hide this way and that, often throwing the hide over his feet and slowly dragging it over the feet toward the body. He rubbed the hide between his hands, shifting the hands constantly, and with a motion as if he wished to break up the fiber of the skin. Jack watched him and when he saw the purpose of this manipulation sat down beside him and helped.
"The northern Indians, Joe," he said, "have what seems to me a better plan than that—they have a rope running from the top of a pole down to a pin in the ground and pull the hide back and forth over that. Or I've seen them tie up a buffalo shoulder-blade with a big hole cut in it to a pole, and, passing the deer skin right through the hole in the bone, they pull it backward and forward through that. It's a labor-saving scheme; I guess very likely it doesn't make quite as good buckskin as your way, but it saves a whole lot of elbow-grease."
"I should think it would," answered Joe; "and what's the matter with trying that rope scheme right now? I'll go to my saddle and get my rope and we can drive a pin in the ground here; and between you and me I believe we can soften that thing in pretty short order."
While Joe had gone for the rope, Jack whittled a long sharp pin notched at the larger end; and after Joe had fastened the rope to a branch above, they drew it tight down to the pin and fixed it there securely, and in a few moments were hard at work softening the hide by pulling it backward and forward against the rope. It was extraordinary how soft and limp the hide became and how soon it began to look like real buckskin. When the hide was quite dry and they took it off and felt it, Jack congratulated Joe on having done a mighty good job of tanning.
That night in camp he showed the buckskin to Hugh, who praised it highly, and said that when smoked it would make part of a good shirt.
"You've got to smoke it, though," said Hugh, "or else every time it gets wet it will stiffen up and be just like a board, and will have to be rubbed soft again."
"Oh, I know, of course, it's no good until it has been smoked," replied Joe; "but in this camp we've got to do our tanning when we can, and there won't be any chance to smoke it until the next time we lie over somewhere."
"Well," suggested Hugh, "why don't you wait until you get your other buckskin? Then you can sew them together to make a kind of bag, and build a small smoke and fix your bag up over the fire so that the smoke will go into the mouth of the bag."
"That would be a good idea," said Joe. "I guess we'll wait for our other buckskin first."