"If you don't mind, I'd rather not have you say anything about what I have told you, to any one here, for, as I say, I do not want to be carrying tales."
"All right," promised Jack; "I'll keep quiet. But say, it seems to me that this thing is one of the biggest jokes that ever was. I think a lot of Mason and it seems to me that he was in great danger if he was quarreling with Claib Wood; but you seem to have brought him back perfectly well and sound."
The young Englishman grinned.
"Oh, yes; I brought him back."
All day long the men kept with the herd, and all day long the young Englishman was practising throwing the rope, so that toward evening he had a good idea of how to handle it, though oftener than not he missed the object at which he was throwing. At the same time he was learning the eccentricities of the rope, and a little more practise was likely to make him reasonably skilful. All the boys insisted that practise, practise, practise was the only way in which he could become expert, and Donald determined that he would devote much time to this work for the next two or three days.
That night at the fire, Jack, with a grave face, and having warned Donald to be careful, began to ply Hugh and McIntyre with questions about Claib Wood, asking how bad he was, whether he had killed many men, and other pointed and pertinent questions. He seemed most anxious for all possible particulars as to Claib Wood.
All the time he was watching Jack Mason, who, sitting by the fire with an awl and a piece of buckskin string, was mending a pair of ripped shoes. Mason, however, gave not the slightest evidence of interest in the conversation, and at last Jack was obliged to abandon his examination of the two older men, feeling that he had wholly failed in his efforts to make Mason respond.
The next day was devoted to cutting cattle and branding calves, and Jack told Donald that this was his chance to practise roping. Jack very hospitably, since Donald was to be the guest of his uncle, gave him his own rope which was in excellent condition, and provided himself with a second one, which had been used only a few times and so was somewhat hard and stiff. Donald was much interested in the work, and anxious to see how it was done, and Jack promised that, so far as he could, he would look after him, and coach him in the work of catching calves.
"But you'll have to look out for yourself and do the best you can," he added, "for there is no time for school-work on the round-up. Very likely you'll make lots of breaks, and the fellows will make lots of fun of you; but that you'll have to stand. They're all good-natured, but everybody that makes a mistake or blunder gets laughed at in a cow camp. It isn't likely that you'll be able to catch calves by their feet. What you'd better do for a starter is to try and catch 'em by their necks, and not throw 'em, but just sort of lead and drag 'em over to where the boys are."
"All right," agreed Donald; "I suppose that's the best thing that I can do. I don't understand this business of catching animals by their feet, and you'll have to tell me about that, before long. I'll try to catch them by the neck, and lead them over; but I haven't a great deal of confidence that I'll do much with it."
The men who were cutting that morning were Charley Powell, Jack Danvers and Jack Mason. Before long it happened that Jack drove a cow and calf over toward the Sturgis bunch, and as Donald was nearby Jack beckoned to him.
"Put your rope on the calf and lead it over to the fire," he called as Donald rode up.
Donald made ready to catch the calf and, though a little slow, he made a good throw before the calf was near the bunch; but unfortunately the loop was so large that the calf jumped through it and was following its mother into the Sturgis herd when Jack, shaking with laughter, threw his rope, caught the calf by the feet and started it for the fire. Donald, much mortified, slowly gathered up his rope and overtook Jack before he had reached the fire.
"That must have seemed a pretty stupid thing to you, but what was the matter?" he asked.
"Why," explained Jack, "your loop was too big, and the beast ran through it. If you had had experience enough you would have seen that your loop was too big, and that it was going beyond the calf's head, and by jerking up your throwing hand you could have stopped the loop so that it would have fallen just over the calf's head, and it would have run against the noose with its chest and been caught. Usually you can get right close to a calf and then throw with a small loop and a rather short rope; but, as I tell you, this is all a matter of practise."
"I am going to watch you," said Donald, "and the next time you cut a calf out, I will try it over again."
"That's right," declared Jack. "If you stay with it you will certainly get there."
But Donald had to learn the lessons of experience. With the next calf that he tried to rope he did better, but, being unable to control his rope properly, the calf's head and forefeet went through the loop. He threw up his hand too late and caught the beast around the middle, and it gave as lively an exhibition of bucking as a three-month-old calf could furnish. The cow had gone on into the bunch and Jack was watching her, and, fearing lest she should turn about and come out to fight, he put his string over the calf's head and led and dragged it to the fire while Donald meekly followed at the other end of his rope.
The boys at the fire shrieked with laughter when they saw what had happened, and declared that they would not cast the rope loose; while Donald did not know how to free it.
"Just put that rope under the iron here, and we'll mark it for keeps," one boy shouted.
Donald made no response except to smile and shake his head. He took it all very good-naturedly, and when his rope was turned loose gathered it up and again helped Jack drive the calf to the bunch.
"That's all right," said Jack. "You are improving; but you have got to keep on practising. It does not take one day nor one year to make a man a good roper. Now I am no roper myself, and yet I have been doing it pretty nearly every summer for the last five or six years."
Donald's third trial was successful. He rode up pretty near to the calf and threw with a short rope and, catching the beast, he turned his horse and dragged the calf up to the fire. When he got there he was received by the boys with more laughter and louder shouts than before. They declared that this could not be Donald; that it must be some one else disguised to resemble him, for it was perfectly well known that Donald never caught calves except around the middle.
Jack, however, was greatly delighted with his new friend's success, and congratulated him warmly on the progress that he was making.
All through the morning they worked hard and all were glad when dinner time came and there was a chance for a little rest. Most of the men saddled fresh horses and those holding the herds were relieved and had an opportunity to get something to eat. Jack and Donald were sent out to hold the Sturgis bunch, and while they were out there, and a little later when they pushed the cattle off to one side to feed, Donald asked Jack to tell him something more about the art of roping.
"You men here catch your calves by the feet, and I've heard," said Donald, "that there are men who can catch any foot of a running animal, if you ask them to. That seems perfectly impossible to me; and in fact it seems to me impossible that anybody could catch the feet of a running animal, but of course I've seen it done to-day."
"Yes," replied Jack, "it is done all the time. It is easy enough to catch an animal by his fore feet, or his hind feet, or by one fore foot or one hind foot, but I am not enough of a roper, and I don't believe I ever shall be, to pick up any foot when I am asked to."
"Well, I can't expect you to tell me how to do things that you say you cannot do yourself, but I would like to understand how to catch an animal by the feet."
Jack laughed.
"Why, that's like most other things in the world: awful simple when you know how to do it, or even how it is done. You just throw your rope so that the animal steps into it either with his hind feet or with his fore feet, as the case may be, but you've got to pull your rope just at the right time. That is to say, if the beast puts his fore feet into the noose lying on the ground, and you leave the noose lying there, why the critter won't get caught. You've got to give a lift and pull on your rope just at the right moment."
"That seems simple enough," declared Donald; "or at least it seems as if it would be simple enough to a man who knows how to rope."
"Yes," said Jack, "but it takes some judgment. You've got to put your rope in the right place, and then, as I said, you've got to pull on it at the right time. You may see boys catching animals by any foot before we get through this round-up, and it is constantly done on the prairie with horses that are mean. If you want to learn how to rope, and to see roping well done, you'd better watch Vicente, or Tulare Joe, who was raised in California with the Mexicans there. He handles a rope better than anybody else in the camp, except Vicente and Juan who are Mexicans. As for Charley Powell and Jack Mason and myself, we are just plain ordinary ropers that can catch horses and cows most of the time but can't do any fancy tricks with a rope the way those Mexicans can. I've seen one or two Mexicans do things with a rope that made my eyes stick out about a foot; but some Americans are pretty good. They tell of a man down on the plains—in Nebraska, I believe—who once when roping calves in a corral, caught and took to the fire a hundred and ten calves in a hundred and ten throws. He didn't miss a single throw."
"I should like to see something of that kind; but for the present I guess plain roping will occupy my attention. There is another thing I want to ask you. Are the Indians good ropers?"
BRANDING IN THE CORRAL.—Page 170
Photo by Mrs. A. C. Stokes, Lame Deer, Mont.
"Fair," answered Jack, "but nothing to brag of—nothing great. They do as well as any of us ordinary cowboys. There is an interesting thing about that—something that Hugh once told me—that a good many years ago, when Hugh first came into the country—that was in 1849—the Indians could hardly rope at all. All the same they used to catch lots of wild horses by just running them down. The country then was full of wild horses. In the spring when the wild horses were poor and weak, the Indians used to take their best horses and start out and find a bunch of the wild horses and chase them as hard as they could, and finally catch them. But they did not know how to rope them. They used to make big hoops of willows and tie the noose of the rope to such a hoop with small strings; then when they had run down an animal, so that they could ride up alongside of it, they would pass the hoop over its head and pull back on the rope; the strings which tied it to the hoop would break, the noose would run up, and the animal could be choked down.
"Of course, they could never catch good horses; those that they got were mostly colts or mares heavy with foal, and animals that were particularly weak from lack of food and the winter's cold.
"The Indians that I've seen did not appear to me to handle their horses very well, and they have no more feeling for a horse than they have for a saddle or a travois. They never consider that a horse has any feelings: it is simply a tool to help them get about and to bear burdens. The Indians are really kind-hearted, but my notion is they just don't happen to think of the suffering they may cause the horse. Indians are kind to each other and to their friends, but I don't think you could call them kind to animals."
"I suppose that is a matter of education," suggested Donald.
"I suppose so," answered Jack. "Besides that, when you are all the time struggling with an animal, or a lot of animals, and trying to make them do something that you want them to do, and that they don't understand, you get kind o' mad at them because they don't mind you. You forget that they don't understand, and you are likely to be brutal to them. Now, for example, I was thinking to-day that it would be a good idea for you, after you get to know how to use a rope a little better, to practise on some of these cows, catching them and throwing them, but I don't suppose a cow very much enjoys being thrown, and it is a question which is the more important, for you to have practise in throwing cows, or to spare the cow the grief of being thrown. I don't suppose it is very pleasant for an animal running at full speed to be checked up and made to turn a somersault and hit the ground like a thousand of—beef we'll say."
"No," Donald said slowly; "I guess not; and I think the question you have suggested is rather a nice one."
"Well, we needn't worry about that. There will be plenty of chances for you to practise on cows before long; and meantime you've got to learn to catch calves."
The boys had an idle, easy time watching this bunch of cattle which was constantly being added to by animals cut out from the big bunch. Before evening all the cattle had been separated and Jack and Donald rode back to the camp together.
Supper over, the boys sat about the fire lazily smoking and talking. After a while there was a pause, which was presently broken by McIntyre.
"I met one of the boys from the Bar Lazy A to-day when I was riding. He was going back to the ranch. Said he had been sent in with a message and spent a day or two in town. I asked him if he had seen anything of Claib Wood, and he said yes, he met him a couple of nights ago; that Claib was full, and looked as if he were hunting trouble. Then he said the next day they had quite a little excitement in town—let's see, Mason, that must have been about the time you were there. Did you hear of any excitement?"
Mason had looked up quickly when McIntyre began to speak and then lowered his eyes and was looking at the fire.
"Why, no, Mac," he replied; "I didn't see anything that excited me very much. The town seemed about as usual—dogs lying in the sun, asleep; two or three men reading a month-old newspaper; lots of flies buzzing in the windows; passenger comes in once a day going east, once a day going west, and freight trains happen along occasionally. Not much excitement in town."
At this answer, the usually grave McIntyre slapped his thigh and burst into a loud guffaw.
"Bully for you, Jack Mason!" he cried. "You've got some sense of humor, darned if you ain't. Why, boys," he went on, addressing the group, "this is what Red Casey of the Bar Lazy A told me. He said that the other morning—meaning the morning Jack Mason here got to town—he was settin' in Jim Decker's saloon playin' a little game of poker with Slim Jim Rutherford, when Jack here come into the saloon. Claib Wood had been drunk all the night before, and had just come in for his morning nip. Jack here walked up to him and they talked for two or three minutes and then Claib tried to draw his gun. In a jiffy Jack grabbed him and held him and called to Ross to take both guns away; and then after a minute Jack picked Claib up and threw him across the room so hard that when he hit the wall and fell on the floor his arm and collar-bone were broken, and his shoulder was out of joint. Claib hit the wall so hard that the boys thought he was dead; but it seems not, and it's a darned pity too. Now, Jack Mason, why didn't you tell us all this when you came back from town?"
The boys shouted with laughter, but Mason said nothing—only continued to look at the fire.
When the tumult of cheers and jokes had somewhat died down, McIntyre repeated his question, but without receiving an answer. Then he turned and looked over toward Donald.
"Say, boys, there's another criminal here, it seems to me. Here's this Britisher that came out the other night with Jack Mason. He must have known all about the thing, and I would like to know why he didn't tell us. He's tryin' to learn how to be a cowboy, but he sure will never learn to be a good cowboy until he's ready to give the news, and to make fun of any other puncher that he gets a chance to josh."
After a moment, Donald spoke.
"Well, Mr. McIntyre, I am new at the cowboy business," he said. "I have only been trying to learn it for a day or two, and so I cannot be expected to do my work very well. I did tell one boy when I got here, and it made him laugh so much that I got a little scared and asked him not to say anything about it until the news reached the boys in some other way. Isn't that so, Jack Danvers?"
"Sure," vouched Jack. "Donald told me the whole story the morning he got in, and I wanted to make a whoop and hurrah about it right off, but he begged me not to, because he didn't want to be counted a gossip. Don't you remember last night, when I was asking you men all those questions about Claib Wood? I was watching Jack Mason all the time to see if he would make any sign, but he never let on that he had even seen Claib Wood when he was in town."
This speech of Jack's called forth a series of yells of delight from the little company. Many jokes were made; and Jack Mason, becoming somewhat embarrassed, finally rose and went to his blankets. The other boys soon afterward dispersed to their beds.
The next night Jack, Vicente and Tulare Joe went out on night herd for the second relief. It was very dark, the sky was pitchy black and the wind blew now and then in swift gusts.
"It's a mean night," Joe said as they rode along, "and I wouldn't be surprised if we had trouble with the cattle."
"It sure looks as if it were going to storm," Jack agreed; "and nobody can tell just what that will mean."
When they reached the herd, the men whom they were to relieve declared that so far the cattle were all right, but feared that the threatening storm would start them moving. Some of them decided that they would stay with the cattle until the storm broke, or passed over. "It's going to storm," they said, "and there's no use in going back to camp and getting into our blankets, only to be called out again in a few minutes." There was thus a double guard, and the men followed each other at shorter intervals than usual, singing, talking and calling, in the effort to give the cattle, which as yet were quiet, the confidence which so often seems to come from the proximity of a human being.
Presently it began to rain a little, and the wind blew harder, and in fierce gusts, with lulls between them. During such lulls, the wind could be heard coming far off, and in the blasts of wind the men to the windward of the cattle could not hear the sounds made by those to leeward.
By this time the cattle had begun to rise to their feet and to walk about, bawling. Then some of them, singly or by twos and threes, started out from the main bunch to walk away to leeward, only to be turned back by the men who came across them. Then, little by little, the whole bunch began to move along, but still only at a walk.
Jack spoke to Vicente in what he thought was a loud tone of voice, but the wind snatched his words away and Vicente, putting his hand up to his ear, leaned over toward Jack, who repeated his question.
"Shall we try to hold them, or just let them drift, and stay with them?"
"Must let 'em drift," shouted Vicente, "but keep 'em together. Pretty soon some boys from camp will come. Must let 'em drift until storm stops, or they get shelter. The best thing is for three of us to get ahead, and go slow with the wind, and one man get on each side."
Jack rode off to speak to such other men as he could find, and presently from up the wind came the sound of galloping hoofs, which then slowed down to a trot, and in a little while almost the whole force of the camp except the cook and the night horse wrangler were about the herd, moving along at the same pace with it, guarding it carefully in front and carefully on either side, and leaving the rear of the herd open.
The wind blew with the violence of a tornado and the occasional spits of level rain which accompanied the storm stung the face. One or two men who had been slow about tying on their hats lost them with little prospect of ever recovering them. The cattle were uncomfortable and moved along bellowing, but showed no disposition to run. On the sides they sometimes tried to scatter, but the line of boys riding there kept them turned back.
This went on for some hours, until Jack thought that daylight must be near. His slicker was on his saddle, but at no time had it seemed to rain hard enough to justify his stopping and putting it on, for at every moment there had seemed either something to be done, or a possibility that quick action might be required; so by this time he was pretty wet and pretty cold, but he thought little of this in his anxious watching of the cattle. Presently, however, he happened to turn his eyes upward, and saw three or four bright stars looking down at him from the sky, and he gave a whoop of joy for he knew that the storm had about blown itself out. Soon the wind began to fall and then the eastern horizon to lighten, and before very long the bright sun rose in a clear sky, and their troubles for the time were over.
The weary cowboys turned the herd and drove the cattle back over the trail they had followed, until they reached their old bed ground. There they turned them loose under the charge of two or three men, and all the others returned to camp for breakfast, which, as a matter of fact, was now dinner, for it was high noon.
"Boys," said McIntyre while they were eating their meal, "we may as well stop here now and rest up; but, Jack and Joe and Donald, as soon as you've eaten, you three go out and relieve those fellows on herd, and let them come in and get some dinner. After these boys have slept two or three hours, I will send men out to relieve you."
The cattle, like the cow punchers, were tired, and as soon as they had grazed a while they lay down, showing no disposition to move. The boys, therefore, took a commanding position on a hill and holding the ropes of their horses allowed them to feed about them.
"Of course, that was not a stampede, Joe?" asked Donald uncertainly.
"Not much," said Joe. "That was just plain ordinary drifting; but there was one while, just before the cattle started, when I thought that it was nip and tuck whether we would have a stampede or not. It would not have taken much to start those cattle off, and it sure would have been a bad night to ride in front of 'em and to turn 'em."
"I don't see how a man could ride fast over such a country as we crossed," Donald said.
"Well," said Jack, "could, or could not, he'd just have had to. It's a ground-hog case when a stampede is on."
"But I should think you'd break your neck; and kill all your horses."
"Well," declared Joe, "sometimes a man falls and breaks his neck, and oftener still a horse falls and breaks his neck or a leg, but of course the cattle have got to be turned. That's what we're hired for, and it's our business to do our work."
"You spoke before about turning the cattle. Where do you want to turn them to, and why do you want to turn them?"
"We want to turn 'em to get 'em to mill, and if we once get 'em milling, the trouble is pretty well over."
"I am sorry to seem so dull," said Donald, "but what do you mean by milling?"
"Why, we want to turn the cattle and get 'em running around in a circle. The hind ones will follow the lead ones, and if you can turn the lead ones, and keep 'em turning, after awhile they just keep running around and around in a circle and the hind ones follow 'em, and as you can understand, they don't get very far away."
"Now, certainly," exclaimed the Englishman, "that is very clever. I never should have thought of that. But how do you manage to turn them? Of course, you cannot go in front of them, because they would run over you and kill you."
"You do go in front of 'em; and without you go in front of 'em, you surely can't turn 'em. What a puncher does is to get right up even with the head of the herd and maybe a little in front of it, and then to keep edging over so as to push the head of the herd away from him. Likely too he's got to make some gun play, because, of course, the flash and noise of the shots close to 'em will tend to push the cattle over. Sometimes men go right in front of 'em and try to stop 'em by shooting, but I never saw much good done in that way.
"I reckon if you ask Vicente, or any of the older men here—McIntyre, for example—he'll tell you that it counts for more to try to push the cattle over from one side than it does to go in front of 'em and try to stop 'em. If you do that they may turn; but what's just as likely to happen is that they'll split and go off in two or three bunches—and that's likely to mean that the whole country has got to be ridden again to gather up these scattered cattle."
"It must require an extraordinary amount of courage on a black night such as last night to ride in front of, or even up at the head of, a herd of frightened cattle going as hard as they can," said Donald. "I am sure that I could not have ridden fast last night and guided my horse at all. I could not see my horse's ears, to say nothing of the ground in front of him."
"No," Jack said; "I guess you couldn't. I've never been yet in a real stampede, but I'd be willing to bet that the cow puncher who rode at the head of a stampede and tried to look out and guide his horse on to good ground would not be worth very much a month to his employer. How is that, Joe?"
Joe laughed.
"I guess he'd be worth about seventy-five cents a month; and he'd have to furnish his own grub, too."
"But what do you mean?" asked Donald.
"Why," explained Joe, "a man riding fast and at night don't try to pick his ground—he can't try to pick the ground. He leaves that to his horse; it's up to him to watch the cattle, and it's up to the horse to keep on his four legs. If the rider doesn't watch the cattle and the horse doesn't keep on his legs, why horse and rider both are out of it, and of no use to anybody."
"That's just what I supposed," said Jack. "I remember once a good many years ago Hugh gave me a lecture on horses, and the use they make of their eyes; he told me about how many falls young stock have before they are broken, and how much use horses must make of their eyes. You can see that if you put a blind on a horse, he will stand perfectly still, no matter how wild he is, and will let you do 'most anything with him. Take the use of his eyes away from him, and a horse is pretty nearly afraid to move."
"Sure thing," declared Joe, as he scratched a match to light a cigarette that he had just finished rolling; "a prairie or a mountain horse can go along in the dark without anybody guiding him a great deal better than he could if driven by the sharpest-sighted man."
"Donald might like to see it, but I hope with all my heart that we won't have a stampede on this round-up," Jack said.
"I hope not," replied Joe. "I have known of one man being killed and several men being hurt in stampedes, and if I can keep out of 'em I mean to do it. Now, look here, if one of you fellows will lend me his watch I'll set here and look after these cattle for an hour, and you two can go to sleep; then, after an hour, I'll call one of you and sleep myself, and an hour later he can call the other. By that time likely there'll be somebody out to relieve us."
"No," protested Donald; "you and Jack sleep, and let me watch. I have done less work than any one since I came here, and I can sit on this hill in the sun and see what the cattle are doing. If they make any movement I can call one of you."
"All right," assented Joe; "that'll suit me, if you feel like it."
Jack and Joe stretched themselves out on the ground and with their hats over their faces were soon breathing heavily in deep sleep. Donald sat on the hill and watched the cattle, but as time passed he grew more and more sleepy until finally he had almost made up his mind to stretch out and close his eyes—not really to sleep but just to think. However, as he looked at his watch just before this desire became overpowering, he saw that only ten minutes remained of his vigil, and so kept himself awake until it was time to call one of the others.
Joe on being roused shook himself, rose and walked a few yards back and forth in either direction and then, thoroughly awake, sat down and began to roll and smoke cigarettes.
Before the time came to call Jack, Mason and Charley Powell appeared on the scene, saying that they would stay with the cattle until it was time to bed them down. The other three gladly mounted their horses, trotted into camp and threw themselves on the ground in the shade, where they slept until the cook shouted the call for supper.
After the meal was over Jack sat down by the fire close to the Mexican.
"Vicente," he said, "I was mighty glad I bumped up against you last night, for I had no idea what had to be done. Of course, when I recognized your horse I knew that you could tell me."
"Yes," drawled Vicente between puffs of his cigarette, "last night, most had cattle running, what you say estampeda. Pretty lucky the other men got there. If once those cattle had started, we'd have had to ride hard."
"There was one while," said Jack Mason, "that I was plumb lost. I was riding that little whittley-dig pony of mine, and he stepped in a hole and fell down and I rolled off. It was so black I couldn't see anything. Reaching around I happened to feel the horse. I mounted, but I was all turned around. I didn't have an idea which way the cattle were, and I couldn't see nor hear 'em. Of course I knew the only thing to do was to let my horse find the cattle; and that's what he did; but until I got close to 'em I didn't know where they were, nor anything about 'em."
"Mighty queer," commented Hugh, who was listening, "the way a man can get turned around, if he can't use his eyes. I reckon I've told you, son," he added, turning to Jack, "about the only time I ever got lost. It was on pretty nearly level ground that I had never been on before, and in a blinding snowstorm. Well, sir, I had no more idea of the direction of the sun, moon or stars than just nothing at all. For a little way I traveled by the wind, and then I stopped and made up my mind that I'd wait until something happened; and I did have to wait for twenty-four long hours before I got a glimpse of the sun."
"I had something like that happen to me once in thick timber that had been burned over," Jack Mason said. "It was a cloudy day on a kind of plateau, and every tall straight stick looked like every other tall straight stick. A mighty mean situation to be in."
"It must be a terrible sensation," said Donald, "to lose all sense of direction. Long ago, before I had ever been much out of doors, I used to carry a compass and to consult it frequently, but of late years I have rather abandoned that practise."
"When the sky is clear you don't need a compass or anything else," said Jack, "because you can look at the sun or the stars; but, of course, if it's cloudy, or rainy, or snowy, that's different. If a man is in a country he knows, or knows anything about, and gets lost he can follow the ravines and creeks down to the main stream."
"Well," put in Hugh, "a man isn't in much danger of being lost just as long as he keeps his wits about him; but just as soon as he gets scared and loses his wits and begins to think that the sun is in the wrong place, or the compass is wrong, or the waters are running uphill, then he's in a bad way, because he's pretty close to crazy. The main thing is to keep your head, and then you'll come out all right; but in these days, when there are so many fences and roads and railroads all over the country it would be pretty hard to be lost, I expect."
"Yet back East," said Jack, "every now and then we hear about men and women and children being lost in little pieces of swamp and woods almost within hearing of their houses. Of course, these are people who have never thought of taking care of themselves out of doors, and get lost just as soon as they get where they can't see things that they recognize."
"Such people ought not to be allowed to wander away," drawled Jack Mason; "they ought to have people to look after them. But then I suppose back East there are so many houses and so many people that it's hard to get out of sight of 'em."
"No," laughed Jack; "there are a good many people there, but it isn't quite so bad as you say."
Hugh knocked the ashes from his pipe, rose to his feet, and stretched.
"Well, good night, boys; I'm going to hunt my blankets," he said.
The others soon followed him and the fire was deserted.
Jack was destined to be disappointed in his hope that he would not see a real stampede.
Toward evening of the very next day the sky clouded over in the late afternoon and there was a little rain. Night fell damp and drizzly, but there was nothing to lead any one to believe that there would be trouble. Jack went on night herd with the last relief, and with him rode Charley Powell, Donald and Mason. The herd was quiet, and the boys whom they relieved started back to camp, while the four who had come out began to ride about the cattle at a walk. For an hour or more the quiet continued, and there was no warning of any excitement.
Half asleep, Jack was riding along, when suddenly from the bed ground came a drumming of hoofs and a rattling of horns, constantly growing louder, and Jack knew that the whole herd were rushing directly toward him. In an instant, everything that he had ever heard about stampedes flashed through his memory, and he knew that the first thing he must do would be to get out of the way of the rushing cattle, and then that he must stay with the leaders.
The mind works quickly in such a case, and the horse, which often knows as much about handling cattle as the rider, is ready to do the right thing. With the first sound of the rushing herd, Jack's legs closed on his horse and it felt the spurs, and a short dash to one side took horse and rider out of the path of the dense mass of cattle which swept close behind them. Automatically, as it seemed, the horse turned and kept along with the bunch. Jack remembered that for a little while it was useless to try to do anything except keep up; he must wait until the cattle had become strung out, the swiftest ones leading and the others following. To try to turn the closely packed herd as it started would be hopeless. The only thing to do was to let them get well strung out, and then to ride up close to the leaders and push them over to one side.
In a short time Jack could tell from the sound that most of the bunch was behind him. He began to swing over to his left, so as to get close to the leaders. He thought that they must have run a mile.
Pushing up to the leaders, and constantly riding closer to them, he shouted and began to shoot his pistol, and as he drew nearer he was gratified to know that the cattle were crowding away from him. He was right with the leading animals. It was pitch dark and nothing could be seen, but the sound of the pounding hoofs, the clatter of horns as they struck against one another, and the puffing and snorting, told him that he was close among them.
Suddenly and without warning, Jack's horse turned a somersault. Jack flew a long way, and alighted on his back with a thump that almost knocked the breath out of him. Almost as he hit the ground, he heard his horse scramble to his feet and gallop off. He had no time to think about whether he had his breath or not, or whether his horse were lost. He was thinking of the cattle that were following the leaders he had just left, and realizing that in a few moments the whole bunch might run over him. He ran a few steps in the hope that he could get away, climbed a little bank and began to shout, to fire his gun and to shake the skirts of his slicker. He could hear cattle passing on both sides of him. Every now and then one would come near enough to be seen as a dim shadow; and as the animal saw the dancing, shouting man it would give a loud snort and jump sidewise, while Jack would jump the other way, sometimes almost in front of another animal which perhaps would snort and make a sweep of its horns or turn and kick at him. For a little while Jack had more excitement than had ever been compressed into a like space of time in his experience. He had no opportunity to think much of the danger, or to get frightened. All he could think about was to make all the noise he could, and to frighten away from himself the already terrified cattle.
Presently the rush of the cattle ceased. Jack reloaded his six-shooter, and then had time to collect his wits and to begin to wonder what had happened. He had seen nothing to make the cattle start, and did not know why they had done so. He had little or no idea why his horse had fallen, but when he began to move about, it was apparent that the animal had run into a shallow gulch which it had not seen, and thus had tripped. It was lucky for Jack that he had not tried to stick to the horse after it was evident that it must fall, but had let go and tried to get away from it. It was lucky also that he had clung to his six-shooter, for without doubt the shots that he fired after he was afoot had helped to turn the cattle from him.
Jack knew that it could not be far to camp, but his tumble and the excitement of the last few minutes had caused him wholly to lose his sense of direction. He knew that the only thing for him to do was to stay where he was until daylight broke, and then to make his way back to camp on foot. As soon as he could see, and so get his bearings, there would be no trouble in finding camp, where he could get a fresh horse; and as soon as day came the boys would of course start out to find the cattle.
It was still drizzling. Jack walked about a little to find some place to sit down and presently stumbled over an elevation which his hand told him was an ant-hill—one of those heaps of coarse sand a foot and a half or two feet high, which the ants throw up in high country. On this Jack sat down, for the ants would not be stirring until the hill had dried off, and he knew that it would not dry until the sun came up. Oddly enough he did not feel stiff or sore, and he concluded he must have landed on some big clump of brush which had broken his fall.
He sat there a few minutes, meditating on what had happened, when presently very faintly he heard the hoof-beats of a slowly jogging horse, which was drawing nearer and nearer.
"I wonder," thought Jack, "if that's my horse going back to camp? It would be great if I could catch him and ride in. The cattle are gone, and they can't be found until day."
The hoof-beats drew nearer and nearer, and presently seemed to be passing Jack, not very far off. He hurried toward the sound, calling out as he did so:
"Whoa, lad! Whoa, lad!"
"Hello, who's that?" came Donald's voice.
"Come over here, Donald," called Jack. "My horse fell with me and has gone off, and I'm waiting here for daylight to come to get back to camp. Where have you been?"
"Why," explained Donald, "I tried to follow those cattle, but they all ran away from me; and now I'm trying to get to camp, but my horse don't want to—he seems to want to follow the cattle."
"Well, I've had more excitement here in the last half-hour than any man is entitled to. When my horse fell I thought that whole bunch of cattle was going to run over me, and I've been jumping around here as hard as I could, trying to keep them off."
"I hope you didn't get hurt when your horse fell with you?"
"No," said Jack, "I must have hit a soft spot. I'm all right, but I'd like to get back to camp, so as to start out with the boys when it gets light, and try to find the cattle."
"I want to find camp, too," replied Donald; "but I don't know whether I can. My horse doesn't seem to want to go that way."
"Do you know in which direction camp is?"
"Yes; it's off that way," Donald answered, pointing.
"I'm all turned around," admitted Jack, "and I don't know where the camp is; but I'll tell you what I'd do if I wanted to go to camp—I'd put my reins down on my horse's neck and let him go in the direction he wants to go. The chances are that he knows where camp is a great deal better than any of the rest of us."
"That may be true," replied Donald; "but suppose, on the other hand, he takes me off four or five miles farther away; what then?"
"Well, if you're not willing to trust him, get down, and if we can find my ant-hill again we can sit there until day comes. It certainly can't be very far off." Jack looked around the horizon. "I believe that's day coming now," he said, pointing to a place where the sky seemed a little lighter than elsewhere. "If it is, we won't have long to wait before getting our direction."
Donald dismounted, and they sat there on the ground waiting. Presently the light grew, and it was now certain that this was the dawn; so the east was found and the points of the compass were located. Gradually it grew light. As soon as they could see a short distance, the boys started back to the camp, Jack walking over the damp ground, of which he picked up a few pounds on his shoes and spurs, so that at short intervals he was obliged to stop and clean off the mud. By this time, however, it had stopped raining, and the soil began to dry. Presently, when it was good daylight, though before the sun had risen, they met half a dozen men from the camp, starting out to look for the cattle.
McIntyre heard Jack's story with a broad grin; but he frowned as he thought of the cattle scattered, no one knew where.
"Did you see anything of Jack Mason?" he asked.
"No," answered Jack; "nothing. Two or three times as I was pushing in to turn the cattle, I thought I heard somebody yell behind me, but I could not be sure, for I was making all the noise I could myself."
"Well," said McIntyre, as he turned his horse, "go in and get something to eat and fresh horses, and then come on. It may take us a long time to gather those cattle, or maybe Mason has 'em wound up somewhere now."
The cowboys rode off, and Jack and Donald were soon in camp eating breakfast. Jack's slicker in his fall had been split from neck to skirt and until mended would be useless. Hugh, who with the cook and horse wrangler had remained in the camp, saw it, and told Jack to leave it with him, and he would sew up the tear. "It won't be of much use," he commented, "in real rainy weather, but it'll keep you dry in a drizzle."
Hugh had smiled at Jack's story of his attempts to dodge the stampeding cattle, and had told him that he was mighty lucky to have got off as he did.
A little later, Jack and Donald, mounted on fresh horses, rode out to take the trail of the stampeded cattle, but they had gone only a short distance, when from the top of a hill they saw, far off, a bunch of cattle coming.
One of the first men they saw when they met the herd was Jack Mason, and the two young men rode up beside him to ask an account of his adventures, and to relate their own.
"I was following along not far behind you, Jack," said Mason. "You were advertising your place by shooting and hollering, and I was trying hard to get up to you, to try to help push over the lead cattle and get 'em turned. All of a sudden, though, your light seemed to go out. There were no more shots and no more yells, and I made up my mind something had happened to put you out of business. Before very long I got up to the leaders and managed to crowd 'em over and over until at last I got 'em running in a circle, and then before long, of course, the circle got smaller and smaller until they all got packed together and then they had to stop. They didn't get very far beyond where you left 'em, not more than a mile and a half, I should think, and I didn't have any trouble holding 'em there until daylight; and soon after that the boys came up, and here we are again. But what happened to you? I suppose your horse fell, because he was with the cattle when day come. One of the boys has got him there now."
Jack told again of his fall, and as before the story was laughed at and he was congratulated on his escape.
"Well," said McIntyre, as the party got into camp, "we seem to be anchored to this place. We'd better move to-day. You boys go out and ride a short circle and we'll camp to-night over on Sand Creek."
That night in camp the talk was all of stampedes; there was the usual speculation as to what caused them, and all agreed that no one could tell why cattle stampeded.
Jack Mason was asked whether anything had happened to start the cattle, so far as he could see, and both he and Donald declared that they knew of nothing that could have alarmed the cattle.
"I saw something funny a number of years ago, down on the prairie," said Hugh. "I was working for Cody and North, on the Dismal River, and one time when we were taking some beeves into town south of the range, near Cottonwood Creek, these beeves stampeded. It was a bright moonlight night, and you could see quite a long way. I had been riding around the beeves and had stopped my horse and was sitting quiet on him, watching the cattle, when, suddenly, a little off to one side, I saw an antelope. He must have seen me about the same time and have wondered what I was. He trotted up pretty near me and then trotted away again, and made a circle and came around near the cattle, and when he got pretty close to 'em he whistled, and away the beeves went. It didn't take 'em half a minute to get started, and they were headed straight toward the tent and the wagon. I crowded 'em off so that they missed the wagon. They were not much frightened, and ran only a little way. I suppose they were just startled for a minute."
"I was in a beef stampede down there one time," said Tulare Joe. "These were big beeves, ready for market and we were cutting 'em out to ship. That was one of those black nights that you read about. You couldn't see anything. We had the beeves bedded down on the side of a sand-hill, one of those sand-hills that's terraced off in little benches. I never knew what started those cattle, but they started and came down the hill toward me, and I went down the hill in front of them, not knowing whether I'd get out alive or not. The way their horns hit together sounded like a company of cavalry firing their pistols. When we got down on the flat, the cattle passed Jim Lawson and me, and we chased 'em down the valley for several miles, but finally we lost 'em all. Later we gathered 'em—most of 'em at least. When we were rounding up the country down on the middle Loup, we kept finding these cattle for three or four days. We got 'em to the railroad at last."
"There was another stampede, and a queer one, at the Dismal Ranch," Hugh said. "A big bunch of yearlings stampeded in a corral. I never understood how it was, for I wasn't there when they started, but was coming down toward the ranch. Of course we had never thought of cattle stampeding in the corral, and it happened that there were no horses up; most of 'em were in a little pasture close to the house. The corral was cut into four small pens and next to the outside fence there was a gate in the wall of each pen, opening into the next pen. These gates were open, and you'd think that if the cattle had stampeded in the corral they'd all have run around one way, but instead of that these yearlings must have split in two bodies, and one part run around the corral one way, and one the other. Then they must have met and piled up there, and the result was that they broke out two panels of the fence—great strong cedar posts and poles. Some of 'em went over the fence, but most of 'em went through, and the fence was at least seven feet high.
"I was going down to the ranch and was about a mile away when I heard them start, and when I got down to the corral they were just going over and through the fence. I followed 'em, and Buck and Bax Taylor came on as soon as they could get horses. Those yearlings ran all night. Two or three times we got 'em together and turned 'em until they'd stand still, and then they'd keep perfectly quiet. For about fifteen minutes after they'd stopped they were so quiet that you couldn't hear a sound; you couldn't hear 'em breathe; and then they'd begin to step out a little to get room, until they were pretty well spread out. They'd stand still listening and not making a move; and then, all of a sudden, off they'd go again. We lost about a hundred out of the bunch, but got 'em later on another round-up. Several were killed going over the fence, and two or three broke their legs, and there was about a wagon load of horns on the ground there."
"That antelope story of yours is a pretty good one, Hugh, but I've got another," spoke up Tom Smith. "I was on herd one bright moonlight night and the cattle were all lying down. I'd been riding about 'em and had stopped for a little time, and was sitting still on my horse. I was about half asleep, with my face to the cattle, and my horse must have gone altogether asleep. He must have been asleep, because he fell on his knees, and when he fell the saddle-flaps squeaked. That started the cattle. They jumped up and ran; but they didn't go far. I don't think they really stampeded—they were just startled, not scared."
"I reckon everybody was kind o' surprised that time," chuckled Hugh.
"I know I was," admitted Tom.
"I don't call that stampede by the antelope, nor the one Tom just spoke about, a real stampede," said Joe; "but that stampede of the yearlings, and the one we had last night, were sure enough the real thing."
"Yes," said Hugh, "those yearlings were scared for keeps. That bunch had just come over the trail from Texas, and the animals were tired and thin. They'd just come in and hadn't been branded. I never would have supposed that they could have stampeded, but they were scared; and they were always afraid of that corral. We never got that bunch into that corral afterward. We had to rope most of 'em out on the flat, and brand 'em that way. It was awful slow work, and before we got through we tried separating 'em into little bunches of forty or fifty, and these little bunches we could get into the corral."
"Wasn't it dark last night?" remarked Donald. "I do not remember ever to have seen a blacker night."
"I guess so," said Joe. "We've all of us been out on some of those black nights when you just can't see anything. Some nights maybe you think it's just as dark as it can possibly get, and then all at once it gets so much darker that you think it hadn't been at all dark before. On some of those nights you can see the electricity on your horse, a sort of blue light running up from your horse's ears and then maybe a little blue flame running down the back of his neck toward your saddle. I never saw cattle run in that kind of weather; though you'd think they would.
"I remember one night of that kind. We were holding the cattle, but it was blowing and raining some, and the herd was drifting along behind us, like it did night before last. There were several of us in front of the cattle; we could hear each other when we called, but we couldn't see each other, nor anything else. There was some lightning—very bright. I had just turned my horse to look back and try to see by the lightning flashes if any of the cattle were slipping by us and getting away, when all at once the lightning struck right in the middle of the bunch. There was about seventeen hundred head of 'em, and for a second it was just like day and I saw the whole bunch. I saw the bolt fall. It seemed to me that the whole middle was knocked out of the herd. I thought I saw two hundred head of cattle drop. They fell in every direction. The cattle didn't run, but that lightning killed seven head.
"After the storm had passed, we turned the cattle and drove 'em back to a bed ground, close to where they'd started from."
"Well, I've been handling cattle for a good while," said McIntyre, "and I've no idea what makes cattle stampede. Anything may cause one, and then again there are times when you couldn't stampede a bunch if you tried."
The next day they were cutting again. Donald was active and tried to help, though he accomplished but little because he lacked real knowledge of the work. But if he did not himself do much, he at least saw many things done.
Of these one of the most interesting was Vicente's handling of a fighting steer. Charley Powell had cut out and was trying to drive the animal, but it stopped to fight. It would not move but stood and faced the horse and rider. Presently Vicente came up and, after a word or two with Charley, rode around behind the steer while Charley ran his horse close by the animal's head to try to make it charge. On his second dash by it the steer put down its head and rushed after the horse, but before it had made half a dozen jumps Vicente's rope had passed over its horns. He wound the rope around his saddle-horn and as he drew the rein his horse set its forelegs and braced itself in real picture-book fashion; the rope tightened and the steer turned a somersault and slammed down on the earth with tremendous force. Vicente sprang from the saddle, leaving the little horse bearing back with all its weight against the rope to hold the steer, ran forward to the animal and in a moment, as it seemed, had hog-tied it. It was then left on the prairie to think the matter over, while Vicente and Charley Powell went off to their work.
That night about the fire, Donald could not say enough in praise of the work of the cow horses and their seeming understanding of what was required of them; and the others assented to his enthusiastic declaration that a well-broken cow horse is interesting to watch and shows great intelligence in doing its part of the work of handling the cattle. Joe and Vicente, however, said little, but at length in response to some direct appeal Joe said:
"Well, boys, there's no denying that these horses know a heap, and that some of 'em do their work mighty well. I expect if it wasn't for the horses there wouldn't be any cattle business; but honest, and without wanting to blow off my country or any other country, you ought to see the horses in the South, whether it's southern California, or Texas. I think maybe they're not always as strong as the mountain horses up here, but they're a whole lot quicker. What's more, it seems to me they understand their work better and do it better; and if that's so, here's one reason for it: The cattle down there are different—at least they used to be in old times, and I reckon they are yet. Most of you know what an old-fashioned Texas long-horn is: mostly head, horns and legs—light, quick on his feet, and a great hand to dodge. Now those Texas horses, and the southern California horses too, have been broke to handle these cattle; and to be any good they've got to be fast, quick to turn and ready to meet any move the steer makes. Up here, you've got a great deal better class of cattle: they're heavier and make better beef, and that means that they're slower—more like barnyard cattle. They don't handle themselves anything like what those Texans do. Texas cattle put the horse and his rider more on their mettle than these grade cattle. They call for greater quickness and readiness; and though I am a Wyoming cowboy now, I'm bound to say that the best cow hands I've ever seen have been down in the South and Southwest."
"I guess that's gospel," Hugh said. "I saw something of the cattle business down on the plains when the cattle business was fairly new there, and when all the cattle came up over the trail from Texas, and they certainly did have good cow horses down there. As Joe says, they were quicker, and readier, as it seems to me, than the horses we have up here. Of course that don't mean that they were better horses, but I suppose it does mean that the Texas horses had been, as you might say, just raised on cattle. For generations that was all that they'd been doing and they were quick as a cat on their feet. It's always seemed to me that these mountain horses are much more awkward."
"I've never seen those Texas horses," said Powell; "but I didn't suppose that they were nearly as strong as our horses here; and I didn't suppose that they could hold cattle nearly as well."
"No," replied Joe, "they aren't as strong as these horses, but for any work like cutting, where you need quickness, they can handle themselves mighty well."
"Not all those horses," explained Vicente, "make good cow horses. Some quick, some slow. But good horse, the more you ride him the better he do his work. Seems to learn things."
"They used to tell about a wonderful cow horse they had down on the North Platte a few years ago," said Hugh. "I heard about him one time from some punchers I saw in North Platte City, when I was coming west two or three years ago. They said he belonged to the Bosler outfit. Maybe you've seen him, Joe?"
"Oh, well," answered Joe, "if you're going to talk about Old Blue, I don't believe there ever was a horse to be compared with him. He was in a class by himself. In those days he was known all through western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. I guess he was the most noted cow horse there ever was in that country. He was a Texas horse and, I always heard, came up with one of the drives. I don't suppose there was ever a horse like him in all this northern country. I saw him many times and I happened to be along on one of the round-ups when he did something that was talked of for years and maybe is talked of yet down in that country; I mean the time he cut out a steer all by his lonesome.
"Old Blue belonged to George Bosler, who was an active cow man and rode the horse as one of his string. I reckon Bosler was prouder of that horse than of anything else he had, and he never got tired of telling about the horse and how much it knew and what it could do.
"You know Buffalo Bill had an interest in a bunch of cattle up north of the Platte; CN was the brand. Cody and North owned the cattle and they had places up on the Dismal River."
"Hold on," interrupted Hugh; "you can't tell me about that! I used to work up there."
"Is that so?" said Joe. "That must have been before I worked up at Bratt's.
"Well, Cody was along with us on one of the round-ups, and Bosler was telling him all about Old Blue, and among other things he said that Blue knew the Bosler brand. Of course, Cody laughed at him and so I guess did most everybody else; but George Bosler said he'd prove it, and he'd prove it by riding his horse into the bunch and cutting out an animal without a bridle on his horse, so that he couldn't guide it. Well, everybody thought he must be drunk when he said that. But he just got on his horse and rode into the bunch of cattle, and as he rode in among them, he reached forward and pulled the bridle off his horse. The horse walked around among the cattle, looking at them with his ears pricked forward, as though hunting for something, and pretty soon he pointed his nose toward a big Texas steer and began to push him out to the edge of the bunch. You'll hardly believe it, but that steer had the Bosler brand on him!
"The steer did not want to go out of the bunch and kept trying to break back, and the horse had a hard time to keep him going; but he kept right after him, and did succeed in working him out to the edge of the bunch, and all this without any guidance at all by the man, except what Bosler may have given with his knees. It was a wonderful sight, and by the time the steer was out of the bunch 'most all the men had stopped their work and were watching.
"But this wasn't a patch on what came afterward. When the horse got the steer outside, the steer turned to fight; and the two stood facing each other. The steer wanted to get back among the cattle; the horse wanted to drive him over to the Bosler bunch. All the time the steer was threatening with his horns, and the horse kept moving around from side to side to keep in front of the steer and yet not let it hook him.
"They maneuvered that way for quite a little while, and then, all of a sudden when the horse saw his chance, he made a big jump—twenty feet clear, I believe—and got his breast right against the steer's neck in such a position that the steer could not hook him. Then he began to push the steer over toward the other bunch of cattle, where he wanted to take it. The steer did not want to go, and braced itself; and the horse just pushed. It was fearful hard work. He would push and push and push as far as he could, until he was tired out; then he'd stand and rest for a few minutes, while the sweat dropped down; and then he'd begin pushing the steer again, until finally he pushed him to the edge of the other bunch of cattle. All the time the steer was trying to twist around so as to use his horns, but the horse worked it so that he never got touched.
"Long before this, all the round-up work had stopped, and all the men—I guess there must have been two hundred and fifty of 'em—were watching the horse and wondering at him. I reckon the oldest cow man there had never seen anything like that before.
"After he'd got the steer over to the edge of the other bunch and where he wanted it, of course Old Blue had to figure out some way to get away from the steer without getting hurt. We were all wondering how he'd do it, and before long we could see him getting ready, and could figure on what he was going to do. He began to draw his hind feet up under him like a cat, and at last, giving the steer a great push, he wheeled on his hind feet and made a long spring—and struck the ground running. The steer went for him, but did not come near catching him.
"That cow horse was in a class by himself. I never saw another like him, and I've seen thousands of cow horses, in Texas and California and up in this country."
"That's a wonderful story, Joe," exclaimed Donald; "almost beyond belief if you hadn't seen it yourself."
"Well," said Joe, "it's a story about a wonderful horse."
"What sort of horse was he, Joe?" asked Jack. "Was he a big horse—a half-breed?"
"No; he was a small Texas horse. I suppose he'd weigh eight hundred and fifty or nine hundred pounds. He didn't seem to have any special breeding; but his head showed a lot of intelligence."
"Nobody could tell, I suppose," Powell remarked, "whether this was a horse of very great natural intelligence, or whether he'd been ridden by a man of superior intelligence."
"No," said Joe; "I reckon that would be all guesswork. It might have been both. At all events he was a natural wonder."
"What finally became of him?" asked Jack.
"I don't know. When I left there the Boslers were still running cattle, and George Bosler owned Old Blue. The horse got to be so well known after a while that plenty of men wanted to buy him; but of course Bosler wouldn't sell him. At that time you could buy a first-class cow horse in that country for fifty dollars, but I heard that a man named Sheedy came to Bosler and offered him a check for a thousand dollars for Old Blue. But Bosler just told him that he had no price to put on the horse; he wasn't for sale."
"Were there any more horses like that down in that country?" asked Jack.
"No," said Joe, "I don't believe there was one. Good horses were plenty, but nothing that you could talk of in the same day with Old Blue. As I tell you, he was in a class by himself, and anybody that ever saw him work or knew about him would tell you the same thing. A man named Carter owned a horse—a white horse—that was said to be the second-best horse in that round-up; but he wasn't in the same class with Bosler's horse. He was a good horse and did his work well, but he couldn't be talked of with Blue. Then, up on Cody and North's ranch on the Dismal, they had an awful good horse—a short-coupled, strong dun horse that Cody sent out once after he had lost one of the ranch horses. The horse was branded JO on the left shoulder and they used to call him Old Joe. Likely you remember him, Hugh?"
"Sure," said Hugh. "He was a good horse and there wasn't much to choose between him and Carter's white horse. They were way ahead of the ordinary cow horses."
"There's one thing you don't want to forget," put in McIntyre, "and that's what Joe said a while ago. Down in that country at that time, if I understand it, there were lots more cattle than we've ever had up here, and because all these cattle were from Texas and were wild, active and quick, they had to have quick horses down there. I've heard men that have worked down there—men that came from up in this country I mean—say that in those days their horses weren't as good for cutting as the Texas horse. They were more awkward and lots slower."
"Well," said Hugh, "it's good economy for a cattleman to have the best cow horses he can get, and practically all the horses that they used down in that prairie country came up over the trail from Texas. Why on the Cody and North ranch they used to buy forty or fifty horses every year; the poorest ones were culled out and sold and then the next year another lot bought. It always seemed odd to me that so few Mexicans came up over the trail with all those cattle that came. The country down there was full of Texas cowboys, but mighty few of 'em were Mexicans. I suppose the fact that a good many of 'em could not speak English had something to do with it, and possibly in some places people did not like 'em; though I never saw anything like that except where a man was mean or had something bad about him. Pretty much all the Mexicans that I've had to do with were as loyal and faithful as white men—good workers. We've got a couple with us now and we all know what they are."