THE COWBOY
THE COWBOY
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In a certain Western city there is the studio of a sculptor whose ambition m life has been to perpetuate the memory of the West. He has sought to put into lasting form the types of that unique and rugged era of our national growth when the soldier and plainsman, the Indian and the cowboy were the citizens of that vast and unknown region. In the following out of that idea he has made in clay and bronze many things entitled to be called curious and beautiful. It is the fancy of this artist at times to take some of these forms and play at pictures with them for the entertainment of his guests. A revolving pedestal is placed in the centre of the room in such way that the light of the fire or of the candles may cast a shadow from it upon the farther wall. Upon the pedestal is placed some figure which appears much magnified upon the white surface beyond, albeit somewhat blurred and softened in its lines. Now it is the likeness of the grizzly bear, now that of the buffalo, while again one sees the lean gray wolf, the tense figure of the flying antelope, or the reaching neck and cut chin of the panther. At one time a mounted Indian may flit upon the wall, or the soldier with sabre and spur. These things, curious and beautiful, form a wild and moving spectacle, coming as they do from a time which may now almost be said to belong to the past.
Upon a certain night this artist had played long with his pictures, when he picked up another figure, holding it for a moment somewhat lovingly, it seemed, before he placed it upon the little monument. "Look!" said he. There upon the wall, of the size of life, jaunty, erect, was the virile figure of a mounted man. He stood straight in the stirrups of his heavy saddle, but lightly and well poised. A coil of rope hung at his saddlebow. A loose belt swung a revolver low down upon his hip. A wide hat blew up and back a bit with the air of his travelling, and a deep kerchief fluttered at his neck. His arm, held lax and high, offered support to the slack reins so little needed in his riding. The small and sinewy steed beneath him was alert and vigorous as he. It was a figure vivid, keen, remarkable. Those who saw it gave it quick applause. When it vanished there was silence, for perhaps here were those who thought upon the story that had been told.
The story of the West is a story of the time of heroes. Of all those who appear large upon the fading page of that day, none may claim greater stature than the chief figure of the cattle range. Cowboy, cattle man, cow-puncher, it matters not what name others have given him, he has remained — himself. From the half-tropic to the half-arctic country he has ridden, his type, his costume, his characteristics practically unchanged, one of the most dominant and self-sufficient figures in the history of the land. He never dreamed he was a hero, therefore perhaps he was one. He would scoff at monument or record, therefore perhaps he deserves them.
Either chiselled or written record may distort if it merely extol. For this central figure of the cattle days, this early rider of the range, it is best to hope that he may not commonly be seen as thrown up on the air in a mirage, huge, grotesque, fantastic, but that he may rather be viewed clear cut against the Western sky, a glorious silhouette of the open air. Before many years have passed the original of such a picture will have disappeared. We shall listen in vain for the jingle of his spurs, or the creak of his leather gear, or the whipping of his scarf end on the wind. Tinkle and creak even now die away in the distance beyond. An explorer, a surveyor, a guide, a scout, a fighting man, he passed this way. If we study him, we shall study also the day in which he lived, more especially that early day which saw the opening and the climax of that drama of commerce — the cattle industry of the West.
So great an industry could exist only over a vast extent of country. Therefore, although its methods and its followers have had a curious permanency of type, it was foregone that locality should determine a certain variety in its practical customs. Obviously a just estimate of the entire industry or of its leading figure must include alike the dissimilar and the common points of view. This is not easily done, for the vocation of the cattle rancher, once curiously without section, has now become much sectionalized, and has been much modified by agricultural influx — the latter an influence which will produce still greater change in the coming generation, when all the possible farming lands shall have been tapped and tested, and when the farming man shall have begun to look about him and to travel more in a day of cheaper transportation. In the attempt to arrive at an estimate which should be representative and fair, the writer has found his own experience very much aided by that of many rancher friends living or owning property over a wide area of the cattle range. The counsel of these friends has been desirable and valuable in an undertaking such as that in hand. Especial thanks for critical suggestions are due Mr. George Bird Grinnell, author of the Story of the Indian. Mr. Grinnell's experience in the old and the new West has been a wide one, and his observation has extended to the small as well as the large features of practical ranch life, so that his aid has been matter of good fortune. The writer concludes his labour with a sense of the inadequacy of the result, but feeling none the less that the theme itself is an interesting and worthy one.
E. HOUGH.
CHICAGO, ILL., Dec. 10, 1896.
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The earliest written records of mankind show that man was first a warrior and next a cattle man and most of his wars were over cows. We are told that the Aryans were cowmen by universal occupation, and it is pointed out to us that the Sanskrit word for king means nothing more than chief of wise foreman of the ranch. Our word directly derived from the Latin pecus, thus pointing back sharply to the time when the cow was the unit of all values. The ancient warrior of Europe paid so many cows for his wife, as the warrior of the red peoples of America pays so many ponies, or as the head men of the pale faces to-day pay so many dollars, by a slight modification of standards and customs. It needs but the most casual glance back over the history of the race to see how primitive, how strong and steadfast, have been the customs of the cattle men from the time of the Aryans to the time of the beef barons of a decade ago. Until within a very short time a cow was a cow on the cattle range, and one cow was as ,ood as another. Surely it was a radical and ominous change which broke down so old and strong a custom. It means that the days of our Sanskrit and Roman and Western heroes, men "who fought about cows" are gone forever, and that a new time has set on in history, wherein the money changer and the merchant shall take their place forever. Woe is that time in the history of any people.
In the ancient days of the cattle industry the same problems must have presented themselves which were offered to the earliest cattle men upon this continent. These cows, which constituted the wealth of the individual, were four-legged creatures, which could run far away from man, the two-legged creature. Man as Nature made him cut a sorry figure as a cowboy. But Nature had given to man another creature as strong as the cow, more fleet, and more courageous. This creature man took into his plans, and upon the back of the horse he at once became the physical superior of the cow. With the horse he is master of his herds. Without it he must ever have remained the hunter, and could never have been the cattle man. He could never have organized his means of increasing his own wealth or of commanding it. Most intimately blended, then, is the horse of the cowman with every movement of his calling.
It is impossible to tell beyond the stage of guesswork just at what time the first cowman rode into view upon the hot and desert plains of the vast Southwest — that lean and bronzed fighting Spaniard who had set his stubborn foot upon the virgin soil of a new continent sometime in the early and glorious day at the opening of American history. It is sure that as a military man the Spaniard knew the value of a beef herd with the marching column or at the base of his operations. He brought over cattle almost as soon as he did horses, and the one grew with the other. There is a tradition that the Spanish Government, toward the close of the sixteenth century, turned loose upon the plains of the Southwest some numbers of horses in order to stock the country with that animal The common supposition is that the wild stock of America began in the stray and runaway horses which were lost by the Spaniards. Be that as it may, the horse of the Spaniards soon had a better hold on American soil than the Spaniard himself. By the year 1700 the Northern Indians had not yet become generally possessed of horses, and many of them used dogs as beasts of burden, while their hunting was all done on foot. Yet at this time the Southern Indians had horses, and had learned to use them extremely well. The natural course of horse trading and horse stealing soon spread the animal all over the vast country of the West. The advent of the horse upon t continent changed the entire manner of life of the native tribes. It only perpetuated the manners and customs of the people that had brought the horse. So strong, so virile were these customs that the type of the horse itself has changed more in three centuries than that wild industry of which it has always been and must always be a central figure.
If we should have a look at the continent of Europe at the time of the wars of the Moors and Spaniards, we should see there a state of matters much as we may see upon our own cattle range. In the north of Europe the cattle and the horses, as well as the men, were bulky, powerful, and large of frame. In the south of Europe the cattle, the men, and the horses, reared in a hot and dry country, were smaller, and were lean, sinewy, and active rather than big and bulky The Moors were always horsemen, and they brought from northern Africa with them into Spam the horse of a hot, dry land, a waterless land, where the horse was alike a necessity and a treasure. The Moor prized his horse, and so developed of him a creature of worth and serviceableness, one which could carry an armed man all day under a tropic sun and subsist upon such food as the desert offered.
The horse of the Moor became the horse of the Spaniard, and the horse of the Spaniard became the horse of the Spanish-Indian or Mexican, which in turn became the horse of the cattle trade which was handed down along with it. The animal certainly found an environment to its liking, one indeed similar to that which had produced its type in northern Africa. The suns of the great Southwest were burning, the lands were parched and dry, and small shade ever offered. Water was rare and precious, and to be reached only by long journeys. These journeys, this dry and unfattening food of the short grasses of the hot plains, took off every particle of useless flesh from the frame of the horse. It needs moisture to furnish fat to a people, and a fat person must always be drinking water. The Spanish pony had no more water than would keep it alive, and soon came to learn how to do without it in great measure. For generation after generation it lost flesh and gained angles, lost beauty and gained "wind" and stomach and bottom and speed, until at the time of the first American cowboy's meeting with it it was a small, hardy, wiry, untamed brute, as wild as a hawk, as fleet as a deer, as strong as an ox. It had not the first line of beauty. Its outline of neck was gone forever, merged into a hopeless ewe neck which looked weak, though it was not. Its head was devoid of beauty of outline, often Roman nosed, but still showing fineness and quality in the front and the muzzle. Its head was very poorly let on. Its ribs seemed a bit flat and its hips weak. Its back was reached up forward of the "coupling" in a pathetic way, as though the arch were in sympathy with a stomach perpetually tucked up from hunger or from cold. Its eye was not good to look upon, and its fore legs not always what one would ask of his favourite saddler. But suppose the stripping of Nature had been followed out until the bony framework of this plains horse had been laid quite bare, and the skeleton alone left in evidence, this skeleton would be worth a study. The quality of the bone of this forearm would be found dense and ivorylike, not spongy as the bone of a big dray horse. The hoofs and feet would be found durable and sound. The cat-hammed hips would be seen to supplement that despised roach in the back, and we should have offered that grayhound configuration which is seen in all the speedy animals where the arch of the back is marked and the hind legs set under and forward easily in running. Such an animal "reaches from behind" well in running, and turns quickly. Moreover, these flat-bladed shoulders would be seen to be set on obliquely, which again one asks of his speedy dog or racing horse, if he knows the anatomy of speed. The shoulders play easily and freely, and the hind legs reach well forward, and the chest, though deep enough to give the lungs and heart plenty of room, is not too deep to interfere with a full extension of the animal and a free and pliant play of the limbs. In short, the pony of the range as first seen by the American cowboy was not a bad sort of running machine. It had, moreover, the lungs built upon generations of rare pure air, the heart of long years of freedom, and the stomach of centuries of dry feed. It stood less than fourteen hands high, and weighed not more than six hundred pounds, but it could run all day and then kick off the hat of his rider at night. In form it was not what we call a thoroughbred, but in disposition it was as truly a thoroughbred as ever stood on two or four feet. Jim, the foreman of the Circle Arrow outfit, down near the line of old Mexico, would have told you long ago that such a horse had "plenty sand." It was very well it did have.
This was the cow horse of the Southwest, and the type remained constant in that region until the middle of this century. All the horses of the North and the East on the plains came up from Mexico and Texas on the eastern side of the Rockies, where much the same sort of climatic conditions prevailed. Meanwhile there had been another line of migration of the horse, also from Mexico, but up along the California coast west of the Kockies. There was heat and dry air and little water for a long way to the North, but at length the wet climate of Oregon was reached. Here the way of Nature went on again, and the type began to change. The horse became a trifle stockier and heavier, not quite so lean and rangy in build. The cow horses of the early trade in Montana came in part from Oregon across the upper mountain passes by the route over which the Northern horse Indians who lived close to the Rockies first got their horses. On the northern range the cow horse was called a "cayuse," a name, of course, unknown upon the southern range, where the horse was simply a "cow horse," or, if a Very wild and bad horse, was called a "broncho," that being the Spanish word for "wild." The term "broncho" has spread all over the cattle country and all over the country until its original and accurate meaning is quite lost. There never was any very great difference between the horses of the North and those of the South, for they came of the same stock, bred in the same unregulated way, and lived the same sort of life. Either cayuse or broncho would buck in the most crazy and pyrotechnic style when first ridden, plunging, biting, bawling, and squealing in an ecstasy of rage, and either would rear and throw itself over backward with its rider if it got a chance, or would lie down and roll over on him. The colour of either was as it happened, perhaps with a bit greater tendency to solid colours in the Northern horse. Bay, sorrel, black, gray, "buckskin," roan, or "calico" were the usual colours of the cow horses. In the South a piebald horse was always called a "pinto," from the Spanish word meaning "paint." In the upper parts of Texas one often hears such a horse called a "paint horse." In the South a horse does not buck, but "pitches," which comes to the same thing with a tenderfoot. A "wall-eyed pinto that pitches" is an adjunct to be found upon almost any Southern ranch even to-day. Both in the South and- in the North the horses are now generally bred up by crosses of "American horses," though this is much a misnomer, for the cow horse is the American horse per se and par excellence.
In the "States" we pen our cattle and house our horses, and have both horse and cow always at hand and under control. Not so fortunate is the cowboy with his mount. The latter is a wild animal loose upon the range. From year's end to year's end it has no care but the hand of mastery and no food but that afforded by Nature. This we shall say for the cow horse proper, and as applying to the days of ranching in the old times, before modern methods had come in. On the upper ranges, where the snows of winter are on the ground for long months and the weather is often very cold, it has long been the custom to make all the hay possible and to keep a little feed on hand for use in winter. Even in the country of the middle range, as in the Indian Nations, baled hay and oats are used in the winter for the saddle band. This, however, is not that typical ranching of the old times which will offer us most of picturesqueness and of interest. In those loose, wild times the cow horse was treated the same as the cow, with only such differences in the handling as a different nature required or necessity of the business made desirable. Both were wild, there is not any doubt of that. Jim, the cowboy who handled both, was as wild as they. Upon that time let us rather linger than upon a more degenerate day. There is no more interesting time in which to study the business of horse ranching than just at the beginning of the great drives to the North which marked the sudden expansion of the cattle business. Such study will take us to the plains of upper Texas, for here the day of the well-conducted horse ranch began. At a time before the middle of this century, before the civil war and before the railroads, the great State of Texas began to fill up with settlers from States above it. These travelled in colonies at times, the journey being made in a long cavalcade which was sometimes upon the road for months. From the old State of Mississippi a great many families went to Texas in that strange and restless American fashion, absolutely leaving their former homes and pulling up root and branch. These families took with them their horses, their cattle, and their household goods, and the entire family of each emigrant went with him in his wagons, accompanied by all his slaves, for this was in the slavery times. One of these great parties settled at a lovely spot near the head of a clear spring-fed river and founded the town of San Marcos, which even to-day bears all the character of that earlier settlement in the names and families of its citizens. Here began some of the first experiments in grading up the native Spanish horses with the better blood of the Northern States, more than a quarter of a century before the great and well-conducted horse ranches of the North commenced their systematic work.
One of the first horse ranches was established the Rio Blanco about 1849 by Jim Patton, an eccentric recluse who was born in Pennsylvania and wandered down into that country and fenced a few hundred acres which surrounded a deep spring of live water. Patton began slowly, and at the time of the civil war had only a few hundred head of horses, foundation of his herd was the native Mexican pony, which could then be bought at two to five dollars a head Patton had a very fine black stallion, for which he always evinced the greatest regard. The horse was fed at the house, and followed his master about like a dog and his owner made of it almost his only companion. In the rude times just previous to the civil war, when all things were much unsettled, a band of raiders-scouts, pillagers, or whatever they might b called-came in upon Patton's ranch and said they wanted horses for the Southern army. Patton told them to go to the horse herd and help themselves; but they demanded the favourite horse, and this he them they could not have. They insisted and Pa ton made some temporizing excuse, though he had resolved they should not have the horse. He called up a negro servant, and told him to get the animal and lead it to the spring back in the timber, for that he intended to kill it himself rather than allow it to be taken by the raiders. The negro did as he was told, and Patton started to follow, having his gun ready to shoot his own favourite; but as he stepped into the path to follow after it the raiders shot him in the back and killed him. They then took the horse, but did not take any others of the herd. Patton's brother came down from the North later to clear up his estate, but the ranch was allowed to go to pieces. This ended what was probably one of the very first of the attempts at horse ranching east of the Rockies on the cow range. Another early and well-known horse ranch was the Key brand ranch of Joe Brown, and yet another and more extensive one was the C. O. X. ranch, both of these near San Marcos, and both established in the early part of the decade which began at 1850. The trail horses of these outfits were known from the Rio Grande to Abilene in the days of the drive.
In these different ranches there were several sires — fine-bred Kentucky horses of proved blood and excellence — and it was soon discovered that the progeny of these made better cow horses than the native horses. The grade horse would weigh perhaps eight hundred pounds instead of six hundred, and would have a better turn of speed and more strength, though retaining the hardiness and staying quality of the native stock. One of the famous horses taken from Kentucky to that region was known as Buckskin, and grading of that strain began about 1856. By the time the days of the cattle drives began there was well established in northern Texas a strain of cow horses which must have had superior qualities, for they came to be sought far and near by outfits going "up the trail."
Life in those early days was very free and wild and picturesque. It was long before the day of fences, and all the country belonged to the settlers who had discovered it. The neighbours were very far away. The horses ranged quite free and unfenced, as wild as the cattle. Horses naturally band up more closely than the cattle, and this trait was strengthened by the habits of the stallions, which would drive off, each for himself, a band of forty to seventy-five (known as his "menatha," this being the native pronunciation of the Spanish word "manada," a band or drove), endeavouring always to steal more mares from other bands. These bands would come to feed more or less apart, and each would localize itself, establishing a range upon which it could nearly always be found. The climate of that country did not offer such extremes as that of the northern range, and this in a manner simplified the work of ranging the animals. A horse never liked to leave its native range, and if stolen and taken away would often come back, sometimes over a distance of more than two hundred miles. A band of thirty-five horses has been known to break back from the drive and return home over two hundred miles in about twenty days. Much was left to this home instinct of the horses, and it was considered sure that they would range over a country not much more than twenty-five or forty miles from where they were born, if the feed remained good. Fences were therefore not needed, for fifty miles on the range is but a little way.
The men of the horse ranches joined in the spring round-up just as the cattle men join in their round-ups. The start was usually made about the first week in March in that country, and the early search was made among the hills and broken ground along the water courses. Each ranch sent a proper proportion of men, and these travelled very light. Each man had for his own saddle band only about three extra horses. The camp baggage was all carried on pack horses. The round-up party went very free and independent, as it needed to be, for it should be remembered that the animals to be gathered were very much swifter than cattle, and at times harder to control or bring to a given point at a given time. It was usually the intention to drive the entire gathering of the horse range to some conveniently located ranch where there was plenty of corral room, but sometimes the horses made these plans difficult of carrying out. The horse roundup required very much faster horses than the cattle round-up, as the saddle horse had to carry the weight of the rider and was forced to head off the bands of fleeing horses, which at times would start back exactly opposite to the direction desired. This wild trait of the horses was offset by the trait above mentioned, of keeping together in bands and not scattering when pursued, as cattle are more apt to do. A cowboy would see a little band of horses on a ridge and would start to head them around to the central body which was gathering near by. The horses would make off at full speed, and all he could do was to follow and endeavour to turn them. Sometimes he would need to run his horse eight or ten miles before he could head them and get them to "rounding up" (not "milling," as this is termed with cattle). In such a race the top speed of his own mount was tried, and no attention could be paid to the character of the ground. It is common to speak of "giving a horse his head" on such a race, but the rider who gave his horse his head in such going might not succeed in his purpose. He had to hold up his horse with a good stiff rein, keep it from running its wind out the first mile, and so growing weak and apt to stumble on the rough ground over which the run was made. It needed the best and "longest" of his own stock for this work, and of course there were favourite horses on each ranch for this work. The horse round-up was much harder work for men and horses than the cattle round-up. There were some bands of especially fleet horses which gave the utmost trouble, and perhaps several days of running would ensue before such a band would finally be surrounded and gotten under control. Only the superior bottom of the Kentucky strain would at length succeed in wearing out these fugitives, though sooner or later the perseverance of the riders got them all in. It was a singular fact that the little colts, some not more that a week or two old, were the swiftest of the band, and these always were in the lead, the colt usually running ahead of its mother.
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Since the beginning of mankind's struggle with Nature the harvest season has been a time of victory and rejoicing. At that time man unbends his back and gives thanks for the reaping. Then come the days of final activity, of supreme exertion., the climax of all that has a material, an allegorical, or spectacular interest in the yearly war for existence. The round-up is the harvest of the range. Therefore it is natural that its customs should offer more of interest than those of any other part of the year. It were matter of course, also, that features so singular and stirring in their intense action as those of the cowman's harvest should be known and blazoned about for the knowledge of those living elsewhere than upon the cattle fields. Writers and artists have seized upon this phase of the cattle man's life, and given it so wide a showing that the public might well have at least a general idea of the subject. Yet perhaps this general idea would be a more partial and less accurate notion than is deserved by the complicated and varied business system of the cattle harvest. If we would have a just idea of the life and character of the man who makes the round-up, we should approach the subject rather with a wish to find its fundamental principles than a desire to see its superficial pictures.
The system of the round-up, while it retains the same general features over the whole of the cow country, and has done so for years, is none the less subject to considerable local modifications, and it has in many respects changed with the years as other customs of the industry have changed; for not even the ancient and enduring calling of the cowman could be free from the law of progress. The Western traveller who first saw a round-up twenty years ago would not be in position to describe one of to-day. Sectional differences make still other changes which should be regarded. Yet all these round-ups, of the past and of the present, of the North and of the South, ground themselves upon a common principle — namely, upon that desire for absolute justice which has been earlier mentioned as a distinguishing trait of the cowman and the trade he follows.
Reverting, as we must continually do, to the early times of the cattle industry, we shall find ourselves back in the days of water fronts in the dry Southwest. Here the round-up depended upon local conditions, just as it has ever since. If the ranchero had practically all the water near him, he had also practically all the cattle, and the harvest of the calves was merely a large going forth on his part and marking his own increase without being troubled with that of others. This feature would be apt to continue more in a wide and sparsely pastured country than in one where the cattle of many owners were mingled together on the range. Again, if we follow up the history of the range until we come upon the time of large individual holdings of land under fence, we must see how similar was the round-up then to that of the dry country; for here man had done what Nature had done in the other case, and had separated the owner's cattle from those of his neighbours. It remained, therefore, much a matter of an individual and not a community harvest; whereas the community harvest is the one which the average man has in mind when speaking of a roundup. The free-grass round-up is the one where the ingenuity, the energy, and the resources of the cowman are best to be seen, his way of carrying out his fundamental purpose of justice to all men on the vast, un-fenced, and undefined farm of the range, where the thousands of cattle, belonging to dozens of owners, each animal wild as a deer and half as fleet, are all gathered, counted, separated, and identified with a system and an accuracy little short of the marvellous. Until one has seen such a round-up on the open plains he has neither seen the cowboy at his best nor seen the fruition of the system that he represents.
The time of the calf round-up is in the spring, after the grass has become good and after the calves have grown large enough for the branding, this time being later in the North than in the South by perhaps thirty days. Naturally, upon a country where the open range is common property there can not be a round-up for each man who owns cattle running at large. Naturally, also, there must be more than one round-up to gather all the cattle over the vast extent of a cattle region. Here the system of the cowman is at once in evidence. The State cattle association divides the entire State range into a number of roundup districts — let us say into a dozen or two dozen districts. Each district conducts its own round-up, this under the working supervision of some experienced man who goes by the name of the round-up captain or round-up boss, and who is elected by vote of the cowmen of his district. Under this general officer are all the bosses in charge of the different ranch outfits sent by men having cattle in the round-up. In the very outset of the levy for these troops of the range the idea of justice is apparent. Not all men own equal numbers of the cattle, so it would be obviously unfair to ask all to furnish an equal amount of the expense and labour in the total of the round-up duties. The small outfits send a few men, the large ones more, the aim being that of fairness to all and hardship to none. The whole force of a small modern round-up may not exceed thirty men. In one of the large Southern round-ups there once met at the Double Forks of the Brazos nearly three hundred men. All these men met at one ranch, and it is proof of the largeness of the cattle life and its methods that they were all well fed and entertained by the owner of the ranch. Nowadays perhaps a ranch of ordinary size will send two messes of men of half a dozen or more men each as its pro rata in the round-up, each mess with its own cook, and perhaps with two wagons to each mess to cany along the tents and supplies. In the old days no tents were taken, and the life was rougher than it is now, but of late years the cowboy has grown sybaritic. With each ranch outfit there must of course be the proper horse herd, "cavoy," or "cavvieyah. Each man will have eight or ten horses for his own use, for he has now before him the hardest riding of the year. All these horses, some of them a bit gay and frisky in the air of spring, are driven along with the ranch outfit as its own horse herd, the total usually split into two herds, each under the charge of one or more herders, known as "horse wranglers" — an expression confined to the Northern ranges, and bearing a certain collegiate waggishness of flavour, though the origin of the term is now untraceable. There are, of course, night wranglers and day wranglers, it being the duty of these men to see to it that the horse herd is kept together and at hand when wanted for the work.
Sometime toward the middle of May, let us say, all these different outfits leave their home ranches and head for the rendezvous of the round-up. The opening date of the round-up is known, and the different outfits, big and little, move in so as to be on hand a few days before the beginning of the work. It may be imagined what a scene must be this general gathering of the cow clans, how picturesque this assemblage of hardy, rugged men fresh from their wild life and ready for the still wilder scenes of activity which are before them! There may be fifty men, perhaps five hundred horses at the main camp, and of the total there is not one animal which does not boil over with the energy of full-blooded life. The men rejoice as those should rejoice who go forth to the harvest, the horses exult because spring has come, with its mysterious stirring airs. The preliminary days are passed in romp and frolic, perhaps at cards and games. Each man, however, has his own work outlined, and makes his preparations for it. His personal outfit is overhauled and put in repair. His rope has a touch to "limber it up," his straps are softened, his clothing put in order. If he has a wild horse in his string, he takes the opportunity of giving it a few lessons of the sort which make up the cow pony's education. Swiftly the grand camp of the round-up settles into the system of veterans, and all is rapidly made ready for the exacting duties which are to follow.
The total country to be covered by the round-up is perhaps a strip forty by one hundred miles in extent. The direction in which the round-up will work will depend upon the habits and the ranging of the cattle at that time, there being no hard and fast rules possible. Local conditions determine also the location of the several round-up camps, which of course must be where grass and water are abundant and where there is room to handle the herds. At times there may perhaps be five thousand or more head of cattle in one body, though the numbers are more likely to run not over fifteen hundred or two thousand at a time. The tendency nowadays is all in favour of smaller roundups, other herds being gathered after the first is worked, and the size of each assembling depending of course upon local circumstances. It may be better to drive in all the cattle from a large strip of country to a good working ground, or it may be more convenient to make several herds and frequent changes of camp. The round-up captain knows the men who are to work under him, and from among these he appoints lieutenants who shall have each a certain band of men under him while covering the country. Advice is given to each party as to what direction it shall take after the start is made, all these arrangements being made so as not to give special inconvenience to the men of the respective ranch outfits, who will naturally wish to camp with their own mess wagon. On the day before the start the little army of the plains has its campaign all planned and lying out before it, and each man knows about what he is to do. On the night before the opening day the cowpuncher, if he be wise, goes to bed early and gets a full night's sleep, for not another will he have now for many a night to come. The flickerings of the cooks' fires, confined in their trenches so that they may not spread and so that their heat may be well utilized, rise and fall, casting great shadows upon the tent walls where the cowboys unroll their blankets and prepare for rest. The wind sighs and sings in the way the wind has upon the plains.
The far-off neigh of a restless pony, the stamp of a horse picketed near by, the shrilling yell of the coyote, and all those further vague and nameless noises which pass in the air at night over the wild range come to the cowboy as unneeded and unnoted lullahy. His sleep is deep and untroubled, and to him it seems scarce begun when it is suddenly ended amid the chorus of calls, groans, and shoutings of his companions answering at the gray of dawn the call of the uneasy round-up boss, who sings out his long cry of "Roll out! roll out!" followed by the shrill call of the cook, "Grub pi-i-i-le!" The cook has been up for an hour, and has made his fire perhaps of cottonwood limbs, perhaps of the bois des vaches — natural fuel, of the buffalo on the cattle range. This early morning summons the cowpuncher dare not disobey, for the etiquette of the round-up is strict enough in its way. It is but dim daylight at best when the camp has kicked off its blankets and risen up shoutingly. In a few moments it has broken into a scene of wild but methodical activity. In much less than an hour after the first call for boots and saddles the whole strange cavalcade is under way, and behind it the cooks are breaking camp and pitching the plunder into the wagons for the move.
Through the wet grass at break of dawn come the rush and pounding of many hoofs, and ahead of the swinging ropes of the wranglers gallops the horse herd as it is brought in for the morning saddling. To receive it a hasty corral is made, after the rude but efficient ways of the range. This corral is but a single rope stretched about the sides of an irregular parallelogram, or rather it is made of several single ropes united end to end. Sometimes the corral runs out from the wheels of two wagons, the ropes being supported at their outer ends by two men, who swing out and act as living gateposts, leaving open a gap into which the horses are driven. The latter will not attempt to break over this single strand, though they might well do so had they not learned the lesson of not running against rope. Sometimes this strange corral is made by stringing the rope from the saddle horns of several of the laziest and solemnest of the old saddle horses, which thus serve as the fence posts, this way being more common at midday or out in the open country, where a short pause is made by the outfit. Sometimes a wagon wheel, a horse, and a man or two may all be doing duty as posts for the corral, it being the peculiarity of the cowman to use what means are best and nearest to his hand in all his operations. The handling of the horse herd offers some of the most picturesque features of the round-up, and the first morning of the round-up is apt to furnish some thrilling bits of action at the horse corrals when the men are roping their mounts, pulling them unwilling forth and cinching the great saddles firmly upon their bulging and protesting sides. In the early times the cow horse was a wilder animal than he is to-day, but in these degenerate days a wild horse is not thought desirable, and indeed many or most of the cow horses are not roped at all for their saddling. The cowboy simply goes into the corral, picks out his horse, and throws his bridle over its neck with a most civilized disregard for the spectacular.
After the handling of the horse herd and the saddling up, the little army swiftly gets into motion and wings out widely over the plains, the men sometimes shouting and running their horses in prodigal waste of energy, for all is exuberance and abounding vigour on these opening days in spring. Each little party spreads out under its commander until each, man becomes a commander for himself, imposing upon himself the duty of driving before him to the agreed meeting place ahead all the cattle that may come in his line of march. As the cowpuncher thus rides out into his great gray harvest field he sees no great wealth of horned herds about him or before him. It is a big country, and the many thousands of cattle make but a small showing upon it. Did they seem numerous as in an Eastern pasture, the range must surely be a depastured and impoverished one. Here and there, scattered about, out beyond where the horse herds have been feeding, there may be a few little groups of cattle. Out farther, upon some hogback or along the side of some coulee, a horned head is lifted high, gazing in astonishment at this strange invasion of the range. The animal may be a grade longhorn, though now the old Texas stock has practically vanished from the range. The shorthorn is valued, the white-faced Hereford still more popular, since it is hardy and quick to mature. All these, one by one, by twos and threes, and finally in fifties and hundreds, the keen-eyed and hard-riding cowpuncher starts out and away from their feeding ground and drives on ahead of him toward the meeting place. The string of other animals running ahead, perhaps half a mile to one side, where some other cowpuncher is driving, is sure to be noted by the cattle near to him. He gives a shout and starts toward them, and, true to their gregarious habits, they start on the run for their companions on ahead, this being just what it is wished they should do. This herding habit of the range cattle is the basis of many of the operations of handling them. Thus each little coulee and draw, each ridge and little flat is swept of its inhabitants, which all go on forward toward where the long lines of dust are beginning to converge and mingle. As a matter of course, all the cattle, big and little, cows, calves, and steers, are included in the assembling, and are driven in together. The driving is not the work of a novice, but yet is not so difficult, for most of the cattle are so wild that they run at the sight of a horseman, more especially if they be of the old longhorn breed, and all the cowboy needs to do is to ride hard to one side and so direct their flight. Other cattle join those running, so that the whole horned populace goes in and along, but a small per cent being missed in the round-up, though of course it is not possible to gather up every individual that may be ranging wild and unobserved in the vast expanses of the open plains.
Thus, later in the day, the gatherings of the individuals and of the separate parties meet in a vast, commingling multitude of cattle. The place is in some valley or upon some plain offering room for handling the herd. Clouds of dust arise. The sun shines hot. Above the immediate shuffle and clacking of the nearby cattle comes a confused and tremendous tumult, the lowing of cows, the bawling of calves, the rumbling bellows of other animals protesting at this unusual situation. The whirling flight of the cowboys on their many different quests, the neighing of horses, the shouts of command or of exultation — all these wild sounds beat upon the air in a medley apparently arising out of bedlam, and all these sights arise from what seems to the unskilled observer a hopeless and irremediable disorder. Yet as matter of fact each rider of all this little army knows exactly what he is about. Each is working for a definite and common purpose, and the whole is progressing under a system of singular perfection. This confusion is that of chaos falling into order. The guiding and controlling mind of man will subject all this mighty disorder to his own ends. These great horned creatures, outnumbering a hundred to one their human guards, are helpless to escape from the living cordon of fearless horse and daring rider. Out of the dust and heat and turmoil one gathers a single definite thought, evolves a single character. The yearly climax of his calling has brought into vivid view the cowboy in that position which shows himself and his profession in their most unique and striking form.
Perhaps a couple of thousand of cattle are gathered in this herd here upon a little flat valley a mile or so across. On the other side of the valley are lines of willows and low trees, and on beyond, in the direction of the sun, runs the shining thread of a river. Toward the shelter of the trees the thin blue smoke of the camp fires is arising. Possibly some of the cowpunchers run over to the camp to snatch a bite to eat, for the work of the cutting out has not yet begun. The milling of the cattle has thrown them into confusion, and the calves are separated from their mothers, so that a little time must be allowed. A calf does not always know its own mother, but no mother mistakes her own offspring. This is the second basis of the cunning handling of the wild herds. The cowman has the cattle of the range all together now, and knows they will tend to hang together for a time and not separate. He knows also that the calves will run with their mothers, so that the brand of the mother will prove the ownership of the calf. Presently the intense, trying work of the cutting out will begin, in which all these calves will be sorted out and labelled in the great joint inventory of the range.
At this stage of the round-up operations there again comes into play the question of local conditions. It is all a matter of locality what shall be the description of the cattle to he separated, and this again is a matter which has been subject to change of custom in the trade. If this round-up be, for instance, in one of the thickly settled districts of Montana, no attention is paid to any but the calves and unbranded cattle. There is no attempt to sort or separate the different herds of branded cattle belonging to different owners, or to drive back a given owner's cattle toward his range. All the cows and calves are cut out from the general herd, and are held in a separate body, the rest of the entire herd being allowed to scatter and depart at will over the common range. The calves are then taken indiscriminately from this cow herd and branded duly according to their mothers' brands.