Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

"Well, we may as well take our horses out there, boys," Broncho Harry said, turning to the others. "It is no use picketing them here; we ain't likely to want them."

"I will ride them out," Hugh volunteered. The others removed their saddles and bridles, and Hugh drove them out to the group on the plain.

"Well, Nat, how are you getting on?" he asked a boy of about fifteen years old who was lying on the ground with his horse's rein over his arm near them.

"Oh, I'm all right," the boy replied; "been here a week, and getting pretty tired of this job, you bet, with nothing to do but just to lie here. Blast all camps, I say!"

"You ought to be at school, you young imp," Hugh laughed.

"I would just as soon be doing that as lying here," the boy said. "It will be all right when I get to be a cow-boy, but there ain't much fun about this. Just come in?"

"Yes."

"Who is with you?"

Hugh gave the names.

"Broncho Harry ain't a bad sort," the boy said. "The others ain't of much account."

"You had better tell them so," Hugh said with a smile.

"I would tell them if I thought fit," the boy said angrily. "You don't suppose that I'm afraid of any of that mob?"

"I know you are a very bad man, Nat," Hugh said with assumed gravity, "a very dangerous character in a camp; but I hope you won't do any of them any harm."

"I sha'n't do them no harm if they don't do me any," the boy said, "but I don't take no sauce from no one."

By this time Hugh had unsaddled Prince, and placing the saddle over his head and carrying the bridle in his hand, nodded to the boy, and started back to the camp, while Prince joined the four horses, which began to graze at a little distance from the rest. Presently two or three of the other horses came over to the new-comers, and after a little snorting apparently recognized them as friends with whom they had been acquainted at the head-station, and this fact being established Prince and his companions were allowed to join them.

There were many boys like Nat out on the plains, for the most part lads who had run away from home, and who were now training up to be cow-boys, being engaged in day-herding the horses – work that demanded but little skill or attention. They were generally regarded with favour by the outfits to which they were attached, for the cow-boys as a rule are silent men, and the liveliness of the boys amused them. These boys generally grew up into the most reckless and dare-devil of cow-boys, speedily picking up the worst language and imitating the wildest follies of their companions, and they would have been an unmitigated nuisance in the camps had they not been frequently sternly called to order by men with whom they knew there was no trifling.

It was not until nightfall that the work ceased and the cow-boys returned to their waggons. They had been working without a break since daylight, contenting themselves with eating a piece of bread and cold meat standing at their work in the middle of the day.

"Well, boys, come in for a spell?" one of them asked as they came up to the fire where the new arrivals were seated. "We have had a week of it, and it has been a pretty tough job. The cattle are wonderful wild. I suppose the thunder has scared them, and we are pretty sure the Injuns have been chasing them lately by the foot-hills. Did you see anything of the Reds?"

"No; there were no signs of them in the part we searched."

"There were signs further south," the other went on. "We came on two places where they had slaughtered a lot of cattle, and we hear they have been making raids down into Mexico, and the troops have been out after them down by the frontier line. Anyhow, the cattle are wilder than usual. You have heard, I suppose, that New York John has been rubbed out?"

"Yes, we heard that, and I have been talking to Irish. He seems getting on all right."

"Irish is a blamed fool. I told him over and over again he would get into trouble if he didn't mind; but nothing could persuade him that there was any difference between the ways of a Kerry cow and a Texas steer, and of course he came to grief. I should have thought that New York John would have known better than to get himself hooked like that; but it were not altogether his fault. He wur holding a calf, and he had his eye on the old cow, who had got her dander up pretty considerable. One of the men had roped her, and New York John naturally thought that she was safe. So he downed the calf, and the brand was clapped to it, and the young un bawls out, and of course the cow made a fresh rush to get at it, and the rope breaks, and she was on New York John afore he could look round."

"But how came the rope to break? A man must be a fool and worse to come down to round-up with a rotten old rope."

"Well, the rope was a new un. You may guess there was a lot of talk over it, and it put our backs up a bit that New York John should get killed that way. The rope wur a new one, there warn't no doubt about that, but it had been cut half through. Who had done it, in course, no one knew. The men were mad over it, and ef they could have found out who had done it he would have swung from the limb of a tree in a squirrel's jump. There were two or three men who had had musses with the chap as the rope belonged to, but no one could say as any of them had cut his rope. Of course it might have been an accident, but no one thought that very likely. However, there it wur. Somebody cut the fellow's rope to spite him, and it cost New York John his life, which was pretty rough on him."

"What is the work for to-morrow?"

"Well, your lot and the men of the other two outfits are to be in the yard. We have got a spell off, except, of course, that we have got to look after our own bunch of cattle."

"How many are there of them?"

"About 6000 I should say. I expect some of us will start driving them up north day after to-morrow."

The next morning Hugh went down to the cattle-yard as soon as they had finished breakfast. Day had just broken, and while they were waiting for the herd to be brought up he looked round at the yard. The paling was composed of very strong posts six feet high, placed at intervals of two or three inches apart. It had been built three or four years before, as this place was the most convenient and central upon the plains. A few waggon loads of timber had been taken out there a fortnight before the arrival of the teams, with a gang of men, who took up any posts that showed signs of rottenness and replaced them by others, the various ranches in the round-up performing this duty by turns. The fence inclosed a space of upwards of an acre.

Beside the contingent from the ranche some forty or fifty cow-boys from the other ranches were gathered within it. Several fires were lighted for heating the brands, and the overseer who was in charge of the work for the day divided the men into parties, each group consisting of representatives of four or five different ranches. In a short time a great herd was seen approaching, driven in by a number of mounted cow-boys. The cross-bars were removed from the opening that served as a gate at the upper end of the yard, and the reluctant animals, unable to withstand the pressure of those behind, poured in. Several hundreds entered; the bars were dropped again, and the animals inclosed stood in a dense group, stamping the ground, and threatening an attack as the cow-boys approached them.

These all carried their ropes, some holding them in their hands ready for throwing, while others had them coiled over their left shoulder, while in their right hands they held their heavy whips. Those who were to fetch out the calves first approached. Half a dozen ropes were thrown, and the calves were dragged out, struggling and calling, or, as the cow-boys called it, bawling, to their mothers for assistance. The call was not in vain. The cows rushed out furiously to the assistance of their calves. As each did so the cow-boy whose comrade was dragging the calf towards one of the fires shouted out the brand on the cow, and then, cracking their whips, and if necessary using them, they drove the animal back into the mass and kept her there, while the calf was thrown down and branded with the same mark as its mother.

Hugh was among those told off to fetch out the calves. He had had some practice, as many of the mavericks found had calves by their side, and these as well as the cows had been branded with the. Another cow-boy assisted him to haul the calf by main force towards the fire, and held the rope while Hugh ran up to it. Placing himself beside it he leaned over it, grasped it by the flank with both hands, and then lifted it and flung it down on its side. His comrade then ran up and pinned its head to the ground, while Hugh knelt on its haunches, and the brander came up with a hot iron and marked it. The iron was held on long enough only to burn off the hair and slightly singe the hide, and the mark so made was almost indelible.

In addition to this the calf's ears were cut, each ranche having its particular mark, such as two long slits and a short one, a square piece cut out and a notch on either side of it, a semicircular piece and two notches, a semicircle and a square, &c. These marks were very durable, but even these often became confused owing to the ears getting torn by a rush through thorns, or by the action of a neighbour's horn in a close press or during a stampede. It required but small exercise of strength to throw a calf of three months old; but many of them were eight or nine months and nearly full grown, and it needed a great exertion of strength and a good deal of knack to throw down animals of this size. Once or twice Hugh had narrow escapes, for some of the cows, in spite of the cow-boys' whips, burst through them and rushed to the assistance of their calves; but each time the ropes descended over their heads or caught them by their legs, and threw them to the ground before they reached him.

After an hour of this work he was relieved by one of the other men, and took his turn of the lighter work of keeping back the cows. When every calf in the yard had been branded the gate at the lower end was opened and the animals driven out, while a fresh mob was admitted from the herd. So the work went on until the herd had all passed through the yard, and the calves been branded. Then there was a quarter of an hour's rest while another herd was driven up, and the work recommenced. By nightfall some nine thousand animals had passed through the yard, and nearly four thousand calves had been branded. Begrimed with sweat and dust, the cow-boys went down to the stream, where most of them bathed and all had a thorough wash, and then went up to their waggons to supper.

"How do you feel now?" Broncho Harry asked Hugh when he threw himself down by the fire.

"I feel broken up altogether, Harry. My back and loins feel as if I had been beaten to a pulp. I believe I have strained every muscle of my arms, and my hands and wrists are so stiff that I can't close my fingers."

"Yes; calf-chucking is pretty hard work until you get accustomed to it," the cow-boy said. "It is knack more than strength, though it needs a lot of strength too when you have got a rampagious ten-months calf in your hands."

"I have not got the knack yet," Hugh said; "and anything over six months I had to have roped by the legs and thrown, but I suppose I shall be able to tackle them in time."

In the case of the cows that had been branded only a year or two before there was no difficulty in recognizing the brand, and so to decide upon the ownership of the calf; but in the case of older cows the brand and ear-marks had in some instances both become so far obliterated that it was difficult to decide what they had originally been. Over these brands there were sharp and sometimes angry disputes among the cow-boys belonging to the different ranches. The case was generally settled by the overseer in charge of the day's operations calling upon three cow-boys belonging to ranches unconnected with the dispute to give their opinion as to what the marks had originally been. Their decision was accepted by all parties as final, and the cow rebranded as well as the calf.

"What do you do when the brand is so far gone as to make it altogether impossible to say what it was?" Hugh asked.

"It would not get here at all in that state," the cow-boy replied. "It would have been rebranded at once by the outfit that first found it just as if it had been a maverick. But in that case, of course, any cow-boy could claim the cow as belonging to his ranche if he could convince the others that the old brand was the one used by it. They never brand over the old mark; that must be left as an evidence."

The next day happened to be Sunday, and Hugh felt glad indeed that he had a day on which to recover from his stiffness. Sundays were always kept, except in cases of great emergency, as a day of rest, cow-boys taking the opportunity to wash and mend their clothes, to practise shooting with their revolvers, or to run races with their horses. At rounds-up these races afford one of the chief interests to the cow-boy, for rivalry between the various ranches runs high, and the men are ready to bet their "bottom dollar" upon the representative of their own ranche.

"Have you ever tried that horse of yours against anything fast, Hugh?" one of his comrades asked.

"No. I am sure he is very fast, but I have never really tried him."

"We were fools not to think of that before," Broncho Harry put in. "We ought to have raced him against some of the others, and have found out what he can do, and then we might have made a soft thing of it. I suppose you wouldn't mind trying him, Hugh?"

"Not at all. But if he is to race you had better ride him instead of me. I shouldn't say you were much above nine stone and a half."

"I don't know what you mean by your stone," Harry said. "We don't reckon that way out here. I was a hundred and thirty-five pounds last time I weighed at the head-station."

"That is two pounds more than I said. Well, I am certainly twenty pounds heavier – I should say twenty-five, and that makes a lot of difference."

"I should think so. Still we had best have a trial, Hugh, before we try to make a match. That is a good horse of yours. I mean the one you first mounted and who played such tricks with you. I should like some day to try him against my best, and see how they go. I daresay you will get him again before the round-up is over."

"What length do you run your races here, Broncho?"