Cowboy Life on the Sidetrack

And as they waited the cattle grew old,
The stockmen grew haggard, the weather turned cold.

Their stomachs were empty, they were starving in fact,
While the stock train was waiting on its lonely sidetrack.
The reports said the markets were lower each day,
While the cattle grew thinner, the stockmen grew grey.

An old, grizzled cattleman spoke up at last,
Said he to the cowboys, "The time it is past,
To make mon out of cattle or get any dough,
This going to market by rail is a little too slow.

"The railroad companies' tariffs get higher each year,
Their passes get fewer, till I very much fear
That ahead of our stock train we will have to walk
And wait for the cattle train to get up our stock.

"Let us up and be doing and build a big merger trust,
And sell stock to suckers and let them go bust,
And for every steer issue millions of shares,
Let other people worry how to get railroad fares.

"We will issue bonds and certificates and thus raise our stock;
In place of breeding Shorthorns we will make a swift talk;
Have our shares all printed in red, green and gold,
Sell them in the stock market to the young and the old.

"And thus live by our cuteness and work of our brains
In place of starving on special stock trains.
We will have servants and waiters, the best in the land;
Governors and princes will give us the glad hand."

Just then the front brakeman stuck in his head,
Saying in the car next the engine an old cow was dead.
The old cowman gave a gasp and his spirit started to ride
To round up that old cow that in the front car had just died.

CHAPTER XX.

A Cowboy Enoch Arden

Just after leaving North Platte, a train of immigrants on their way from Oregon to Arkansas with mule teams went by us, and we found they had a letter for us from Eatumup Jake, who had returned to Utah long ere this to look after his domestic matters. One of the reasons why he abandoned us was to return and look after the education of the twin boys. However, the main reason was that so many reports had come to us from travelers in wagons and sheepherders trailing sheep east, who had come through our neighborhood in Utah, who said that all our friends had given us up for dead, and Eatumup Jake's wife, after putting on mourning for a proper season, had begun to receive the attentions of a widower, who was part Gentile bishop and part Mormon elder.

As Jake was in a hurry when he started back home, he bought him a cheap mustang in place of accepting the transportation which was urged on him by all the principal officers of the railroad. He wrote us that when he arrived on his ranch, his wife was out in the hayfield putting up the third crop of alfalfa. She was driving a bull rake, hauling it into the stack, while one of the twins was driving the mower and the other twin was doing the stacking. The half-breed Mormon-Gentile bishop was standing round with a cotton umbrella over his head, giving orders. Jake's wife didn't know him at first, he had changed so, but the bishop tumbled to him at once and started to leave. However, Jake overtook him and persuaded the bishop to turn aside into a little patch of timber with him, and Jake getting the loan of the umbrella in the painful interview that followed, he left most of the steel ribs of the umbrella sticking in the anatomy of the bishop, and then let the house dog, with the help of the twin boys armed with their pitchforks, assist the bishop clear off the ranch. This was so much better than the old style of Enoch Arden business that Dillbery Ike made up a little rhyme about it after we got Jake's letter, and here it is:

In Utah a cattleman got married in the glow of summer time,
Married a buxom Mormon girl, warm heart and manner kind.
And as the autumnal sun began to tinge things red,
He rounded up his cattle herd and to his bride he said:
"Come hither, dear, and kiss me and sit upon my lap,
For I am going a lengthy journey with my cows and steers that's fat.
I'm going on the Overland with a special, long stock train."
His bride, she wept and trembled and said, "I'll ne'er see you again.
O Jake, my darling husband, give up this wrong design,
If you must go east with cattle, then try some other line,
For I have heard the stockmen talking and this is what they say,
That if you drive your stock to market, that then there's no delay.
But if you get a special train, the railroad has a knack
Of letting you do your running when your train is on a sidetrack.
Some stockmen they have starved to death, and others grow so old
That none knew them on their return, so frequent I've been told."
But Jake was young and hearty and his mind was full of zeal
To load his beef on a special and eastward take a spiel.
So he started with his steers and cows in the golden autumn time.
Some neighbors also loaded theirs; the cattle were fat and fine.
But they run the stock on the Overland, so slow and awful bum
That stockmen get old and care-worn, staying with a special run.
Their wives get weary waiting for hubby's coming home
And flirt with the nearest preacher who drops in when they're alone.
Jake's wife was no exception, and, as time went by, she said,
"If Jake was alive I know he'd come back; he surely must be dead."
The good woman put on mourning and mourned for quite a time,
But when thus she'd done her duty, she suddenly ceased to pine,
And when a Gentile-Mormon preacher dropped in one night to tea
She put on her new dress of gingham and was chipper as she could be;
Had him eating her pies and jellies that she knew how to make,
Had him sit in the easy rocker, without ever a thought of Jake.
And when the twins got drowsy, she packed them off to bed,
Sat and played checkers with the bishop, just as though poor Jake was dead.
When she jumped in the preacher's king-row, and had eight men to his five,
She cared not (she was so excited) whether Jake was dead or alive.
But at four o'clock next morning, she roused from sleep with a scream;
She'd seen Jake pushing behind a stock train in this early morning dream.
And that evening when the lusty preacher came hanging around again,
He got but a scanty welcome, for she thought of the special train.
For a time she was silent and thoughtful, the dream an impression had made,
She could still see Jake pushing the special, as it slowly climbed the grade.
Now we know how the brave-hearted Jake with the stock train had to stay,
How he camped by her side night times as on a sidetrack she lay.
We know how he pushed so manfully whene'er she climbed a hill,
In fact every one pushed, even the sheepmen, Cottswool and Rambolet Bill;
How hunger and famine o'ertook them as slowly they crawled along,
Their hearts almost broke with home-longing when Jackdo sung a home song.
Eyes filled with tears that were unbidden, hearts o'erflowing with pain —
No pen can paint their sorrow as they stayed with this special stock train.
The passing of poor old Chuckwagon, who slowly starved to death,
On account of the smell of the sheepmen, he couldn't get his breath;
Their camping ahead of the special after they had buried Chuck,
The washing away of the sheepmen, who surely were out of luck.