Cowboy Life on the Sidetrack Part 4

The boys all got to talking about stampedes one night while we were waiting on a sidetrack, and I related to them an experience of my own.

A number of years ago, I bought some 15,000 steers in southern Arizona, and shipping them to Denver, Colorado, divided them up into herds of about 3,500 head in each herd and started to trail these herds north to Wyoming. About 4,000 head of these steers were from 1 to 10 years old and were known as outlaws in the country where they were raised. These steers were almost as wild as elk; very tall, thin, raw-boned, high-headed, with enormous horns and long tails, and as there was great danger of their stampeding at any time, I put all of them in a herd by themselves and went with that herd myself. I worried about these steers night and day, and talked to my men incessantly about how to handle them and what to do if the cattle stampeded. There is only one thing to do in case of a stampede of a herd of wild range steers, and that is for every cowboy to get in the lead of them with a good horse and keep in the lead without trying to stop them, but gradually turn them and get them to running in a circle, or "milling," as it is commonly known among cowboys. Cattle on the trail never stampede but one way, and that is back the way they come from. If you can succeed in turning them in some other direction, you can gradually bring them to a stop. These long-legged range steers can run almost as fast as the swiftest horse.

So we kept our best and swiftest horses saddled all night, ready to spring onto in case the herd ever got started. We were driving in a northerly direction all the time, and every night took the herd fully a mile north of the mess wagon camp before we bedded them down. I had fourteen men in the outfit, half of them old-time cowboys and the other half would-be cowboys; several of them what we used to call tenderfeet.

Amongst the green hands at trailing cattle was the nephew of my eastern partner, a college-bred boy, with blonde, curly hair and a face as merry as a girl's at a May day picnic. The boys all called him Curley. He was as lovable a lad as I ever met, but positively refused to take this enormous herd of old outlaw, long-horned steers as a serious proposition.

We had always four men on night herd at a time, each gang standing night guard three hours, when they were relieved by another four men. The first gang was 8 to 11 o'clock in the evening; the next 11 till 2 and the last guard stood from 2 till daylight, and then started the herd traveling north again. I kept two old cow hands and two green ones on each guard, and had been nine days on the trail; had traveled about a hundred miles without any mishap. We had bright moonlight nights. The gra.s.s was fine, being about the first of June, and I was beginning to feel a little easier, when one night we were camped on a high rolling prairie near the Wyoming line.

Curley and three other men had just went on guard at 2 o'clock in the morning. The moon was shining bright as day. Everything was as still as could be, the old long-horned outlaws all lying down sleeping, probably dreaming of the cactus-covered hillsides in their old home in Arizona.

Curley was on the north side of the herd and rolling a cigarette. He forgot my oft-repeated injunction not to light a parlor match around the herd in the night, but scratched one on his saddle horn. When that match popped, there was a roar like an earthquake and the herd was gone in the wink of an eyelid; just two minutes from the time Curley scratched his match, that wild, crazy avalanche of cattle was running over that camp outfit, two and three deep. But at that first roar, I was out of my blankets, running for my hoss and hollering, "Come on, boys!" with a rising inflection on "boys." The old hands knew what was coming and were on their hosses soon as I was, but the tenderfeet stampeded their own hosses trying to get onto them, and their hosses all got away except two, and when their riders finally got on them, they took across the hills as fast as they could go out the way of that horde of oncoming wild-eyed demons. The men who lost their hosses crawled under the front end of the big heavy roundup wagon, and for a wonder the herd didn't overturn the wagon, although lots of them broke their horns on it and some broke their legs. When I lit in the saddle, and looked around, five of my cowboys was lined up side of me, their hosses jumping and snorting, for them old cow hosses scented the danger and I only had time to say, "Keep cool; hold your hosses' heads high, boys, and keep two hundred yards ahead of the cattle for at least five miles. If your hoss gives out try to get off to one side," and then that earthquake (as one of the tenderfeet called it when he first woke up) was at our heels, and we were riding for our own lives as well as to stop the cattle, because if a hoss stumbled or stepped in a badger hole there wouldn't be even a semblance of his rider left after those thousands of hoofs had got through pounding him. I was riding a Blackhawk Morgan hoss with wonderful speed and endurance and very sure footed, which was the main thing, and I allowed the herd to get up in a hundred yards of me, and seeing the country was comparatively smooth ahead of me, I turned in my saddle and looked back at the cattle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Stampede._]

I had been in stampedes before, but nothing like this. The cattle were running their best, all the cripples and drags in the lead, their sore feet forgotten. Every steer had his long tail in the air, and those 4,000 waving tails made me think of a sudden whirlwind in a forest of young timber. Once in a while I could see a little ripple in the sea of shining backs, and I knew a steer had stumbled and gone down and his fellows had tramped him into mincemeat as they went over him. They were constantly breaking one another's big horns as they clashed and crowded together, and I could hear their horns striking and breaking above the roar of the thousands of hoofs on the hard ground.

As my eyes moved over the herd and to one side, I caught sight of a rider on a grey hoss, using whip and spur, trying to get ahead of the cattle, and I knew at a glance it was Curley, as none of the other boys had a grey hoss that night. I could see he was slowly forging ahead and getting nearer the lead of the cattle all the time.

We had gone about ten or twelve miles and had left the smooth, rolling prairie behind us and were thundering down the divide on to the broken country along Crow Creek. Now, cattle on a stampede all follow the leaders, and after I and my half dozen cowboys had ridden in the lead of that herd for twelve or fifteen miles, gradually letting the cattle get close to us, but none by us, why we were the leaders, and when we began to strike that rough ground, my cowboys gradually veered to the left, so as to lead the herd away from the creek and onto the divide again. But Curley was on the left side of the herd. None of the other boys had noticed him, and when the herd began to swerve to the left, it put him on the inside of a quarter moon of rushing, roaring cattle. I hollered and screamed to my men, but in that awful roar could hardly hear my own voice, let alone make my men hear me, and just then we went down into a steep gulch and up the other side. I saw the hind end of the herd sweep across from their course of the quarter circle towards the leaders, saw the grey hoss and Curley go over the bank of the gulch out of sight amidst hordes of struggling animals. But as I looked back at the cattle swarming up the other bank I looked in vain for that grey hoss and his curly-haired rider. Sick at heart, I thought of what was lying in the bottom of that gulch in place of the sunny-haired boy my partner had sent out to me, and I wished that eighty thousand dollars worth of hides, horns and hoofs that was still thundering on behind was back in the cactus forests of Arizona.

As the herd swung out on the divide they split in two, part of them turning to the left, making a circle of about two miles, myself and two cowboys heading this part of the herd and keeping them running in a smaller circle all the time till they stopped. The other part of the herd kept on for about five miles further, then they split in two, and the cowboys divided and finally got both bunches stopped; not, however, till one bunch had gone about ten miles beyond where I had got the first herd quieted.

It was now broad daylight, and I started back to the gulch where poor Curley had disappeared. When I came in sight of the gulch, I saw his dead hoss, trampled into an unrecognizable ma.s.s, lying in the bottom of the gulch, but could see nothing of Curley. While gazing up and down the gulch which was overhung with rocks in places, I heard someone whistling a tune, and looking in that direction, saw Curley with his back to me, perched on a rock whistling as merry as a bird.

He told me that as his hoss tumbled over the rocky bank, he fell off into a crevice, and crawling back under the rocks, he watched the procession go over him.

We were three days getting the cattle back to where they had started and two hundred of them were dead or had to be shot, and hundreds had their horns broken off and hanging by slivers. It had cost in dead cattle and damage to the living at least $10,000. But I was so glad to get that curly-headed scamp back alive and unhurt I never said a word to him.

CHAPTER XVI.

CATCHING A MAVERICK.

One day while waiting for a gravel train going west, we all got to talking about catching mavericks. Eatumup Jake said he'd always been too honest to go out on the range and hunt mavericks; Dillbery Ike said he was too, but he wasn't so durned honest as to let a maverick chase him out of his own corral, and they asked me what I thought about branding mavericks. I told them that I thought it was a bad practice to hunt mavericks all the time, but whenever a maverick came around hunting me up, I generally built a fire and put a branding iron in to heat. But I told them I would always remember one maverick I had an adventure with, and after they had all promised me not to ever tell the story to any one, I told them the following:

One hot day in the spring of '84 I started across the hills from my ranch to town, fifteen miles away. I generally had a good riata on my saddle, but this day, for some reason, I didn't take anything but a piece of rope fifteen feet long. I didn't expect to meet any mavericks, as it was just after the spring roundup and there wasn't a chance in a hundred of seeing one. My way was across a high, broken country, without a house or a ranch the entire distance. There was bunches of cattle and horses everywhere eating the luxuriant gra.s.s, drinking out of the clear running streams of mountain water or lying down too full to eat or drink any more. I was riding one of my best hosses, as everybody did when they went to town; had my high-heeled boots blacked till you could see your face in them; was wearing a brand-new $12 Stetson hat that was made to order; had on a pair of new California pants--they were sort of a lavender color with checks an inch square, and I was more than proud of them. I had on a white silk shirt and a blue silk handkerchief round my neck, a red silk vest with black polka dots on it, but didn't have any coat to match this brilliant costume, so was in my shirt sleeves.

I rode along, setting kind of side ways, my hat c.o.c.ked over my ear, a-looking down at myself from time to time, and I was about the most self-satisfied cowpuncher ever was, didn't envy a saloon-keeper in the territory, and saloon-keepers had as much influence in Wyoming them days as a sheepman does now, and that's saying all you can say, when it's known that the sheepmen to-day in Wyoming fill almost every office, elective and appointive.

Well I had got about half way to town and was a studying 'bout a girl I bid good-bye to in the East fifteen years before, and sort a-wishing she could see me now, when all of a sudden I looked up and right there, not fifty feet away, was a big, fat, black bull maverick. He was about a year and a half old and would weigh 800 pounds. He was wild as an elk and had given a loud snuff on seeing me, which had called my attention to him. I immediately commenced making that short piece of rope into a la.s.so. There wasn't much more than enough for the loop. But I knew old Bill, the hoss I was riding, could catch him on any kind of ground, so throwed the spurs in and went sailing over the breaks and coolies after that wild bull maverick. I soon caught up with him, but found it almost impossible to throw the loop over his head with such a short rope, as he dodged to one side or the other every time I got in reach. However, I finally got it over his horns just as he went over a bank, but before I could take any [2]dallys, he jerked the rope out of my hands and was gone with it.

Now I had got to pick up the rope, and as it only dragged five or six feet behind him, I would have to ride by him and grab the rope near his head as I went by: but he was still on the dodge, and I made several pa.s.ses at it and missed. The bull was getting mad by this time, and lowering his head and elevating his tail he soon had me on the dodge.

Whenever I wasn't chasing the bull, he was chasing me. Thus we had it up one gulch and down another. Many times I grabbed the rope only to have it jerked out of my fingers, but finally got a wrap around my saddle horn and a knot tied. It never had occurred to me I couldn't throw him with that short rope till I was tied hard and fast to him and riding down the gulch at break-neck speed with that black bull a close second.

We had been chasing each other now for over an hour and my hoss was getting tired, but Mr. Bull seemed to be fresher than ever. I had lost my new Stetson hat early in the game, and, as we had soused through a good many alkali mud-holes, I was spattered from head to foot with mud.

My white silk shirt and lavender-colored pants were a total wreck. But something had got to be done, and watching the bull till he was veering a little to the left of my hoss I made a quick turn to the right, and stopping right quick, turned Mr. Bull over on his back. Before he could get up I was off and on top of him, had his tail between his hind legs, my knees in his flank, and, as every cowpuncher knows, I could hold him down. My hoss was pulling on the rope same as any well-trained cow hoss would, keeping the bull's head stretched out, and there wasn't the least possible show of him getting up; but as I didn't have any short foot ropes to tie his feet with, I just had to set in his flank and keep tight hold of his tail. Billy, my hoss, had got hot and excited during the race and kept surging on the rope more than was necessary. I kept saying, "Whoa, Bill," but directly he give an extra hard pull, the rope broke right at the bull's head, and despite my nice talk, Billy turned his back to me and started across the hills for home. In vain I hollered, "Whoa, Bill; come, Billy," he never looked around but once, and that was just as he disappeared over the hill. He sort a-looked back for a moment, as much as to say, "Well you wanted that darn little black bull so bad, now you got him stay with him," and that's what I had to do. He was twice as hard to hold now without any rope on his head, but I knew if he ever got up, he would gore me to death, as there wasn't a tree or rock to get behind.

It was about noon. The hot sun was pouring down on my bare head and I was choking with thirst. No one ever traveled that way but me. Miles away to any habitation, there I would have to stay in that stooping position, holding on to that little black bull's tail. I was young and strong, but my back began to ache, my hand would cramp clasping that bull's tail so tightly, but still I held on somehow, for I knew certain death awaited me if I let go. A bunch of cattle came along and circled around me with wide-eyed astonishment, then trotted off; a couple of antelope came running over the hill, and catching sight of me in that ridiculous position, their curiosity overcame their timidity and they kept getting nearer and nearer, till only a few rods away, the old buck antelope stopped and snuffed very loudly and stamped with his fore feet, but, not being able to get any response out of the black bull and me, finally left. Then a silly jackrabbit came hopping up on three legs, and after standing up several times on his hind legs as high as possible and pulling his whiskers some, he shook his big ears as much as to say, "It's beyond me," and he, too, left.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Catching a Maverick._]

Just then the bull took a new fit of struggling and I heard the loud buzz of a rattlesnake behind me. I almost dropped my holt on the bull's tail then, but I had acquired the habit of holding on to it by this time, so glanced over my shoulder to see how far the snake was from me.

I discovered he was only about ten feet behind me, coiled up and mad about something. He was about four and a half feet long and big around as my wrist, and didn't seem to have any notion of going around, but just laid there coiled up, and every time the bull or me moved, would begin to rattle and draw his head back and forth, run out his tongue and act disagreeable. Several times he started to uncoil and crawl in my direction, but I stirred up the bull to floundering around and bluffed the snake out of coming any closer. Still he seemed to like our company, and finally went to sleep; but every time I and the bull got to threshing around, he would drowsily sound his rattle, as much as to say, "I am still here; don't crowd me any." It was now about two o'clock in the afternoon. I felt a kind of a goneness in my stomach, but my thirst was something awful, and in my mind's eye I could see the boys in town setting in the card-room of the saloon around the poker tables behind stacks of red, white and blue chips, drinking Scotch highb.a.l.l.s, while I was out on that high mesa dying of thirst and holding down a little black bull maverick with nothing for company but that old fat rattlesnake who insisted on staying there to see how the bull and I come out.

I hoped against hope that when old Billy arrived at the ranch some one would start back with him to hunt me up, but I remembered that most everybody at the ranch had gone up in the mountains trout fishing and wouldn't be back till night, and then I wondered which would live the longest, me or the bull, and I thought about slipping away from him while he was quiet; but the moment I would loosen up on his tail he would commence threshing around trying to get up, still I kept fooling with him. I'd loosen up on his tail, and then when he tried to get up, throw him back; so pretty soon he didn't pay any attention when I loosened up, and I thought I would try a sneak. However, in order to make him think I still had hold of his tail, I tied the end of it into a hard knot.

I looked around for his snakeship, as I had got to sneak back towards him, but he was sound asleep, and as the bull was pretty quiet, I sized up the country back of me and spied a gulch with steep broken banks about one hundred and fifty yards away, and made up my mind that that was the place to get to. So slipping by the snake I made the star run of my life for that gulch.

I had run about fifty feet when that bull first realized some of his company was missing, and jumping to his feet looked around and caught sight of me, and giving a snuff that I can hear in my dreams to this day, he was after me. Talk about running. I remember a jackrabbit jumped up in front of me, but I hollered to him to get out of the way. The bull caught up before I quite got to the gulch, but hesitated for a moment where to put his horns, and sort a-throwed his head up and down for a time or two, like he was practicing--kind a-getting a swing like throwing a hammer. When he got his neck to working good, biff! he took me and I went sailing through the air, but when I come down it was on the bank of the gulch, and before he could pick me up again I was over and under that bank. It was about fifteen feet to the bottom and straight up and down, but there was a little shelf of hard dirt on the side, and I caught on there and was safe. He had gone clear over me into the gulch, but was up and bawling and jawing around in a minute.

However, he couldn't get up to me, so looked around, found a trail leading out of the gulch, and went up on top, then come around and looked down at me. He was mad clear through; went and hunted up the old rattlesnake, and after pawing and bellowing around him, charged him and got bit on the nose. Then he saw my Stetson hat, and giving a roar, went after it, and putting his horn through it, went off across the hills mad clear through, full of snake poison, with my Stetson hat on one horn, and that was the last I saw of the little black bull.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Wrapping rope around the saddle horn.

CHAPTER XVII.

STEALING CRAZY HEAD'S WAR PONIES.

We all got to talking about looking over your shoulder, and the boys asked me if I had ever had to look over my shoulder, and I related to them the following incident in my career on the plains:

In the year 1880-81 the first cattle herds were driven to northern Wyoming and turned loose along Tongue River, Powder River and the Little Horn, and while the Injuns in southern Montana at that time were not very hostile, yet they kept stealing our hosses and butchering the cattlemen's cattle and committing all kinds of petty crimes, and once in a while when they found a white man riding alone in the hills didn't scruple to murder him. But stealing hosses was their long suit. Now, I only had four hosses at that time, and was working out by the month for a cow outfit at $50 a month and board. I thought everything of these four hosses, as they was the sum total of my possessions except about $500 I had due me in wages. And when these hosses was missing one day and a hunter reported seeing a band of Injuns prowling around, I was pretty well worked up. A good many of the settlers in northern Wyoming at that time had had their hosses stolen by the Injuns, but when they found them in the Injuns' possession were unable to get them, as the Injuns refused to give them up and would drive the white men out of their camp. I had always made a loud talk when these men related their experiences, that if ever any Injuns stole my hosses and I found them in their possession I'd take them hosses and no Injun would drive me a step in any direction. So when a freighter reported seeing some Injuns on the Little Horn River, going north with my hosses, the cowboys all said now was the time for me to make good all my loud talk about taking my hosses away from the Injuns if they stole them.

I had considerable trouble to get anyone to go with me, but finally persuaded a boy by the name of King, who was about 17 years old at the time, and getting three hosses from the outfit I worked for, which was the PK cattle outfit, we packed one of the hosses with bed and grub, and riding the other two we struck out north down the Little Horn River.

After traveling along the river for several days we crossed and went over on the Big Horn River, and keeping up this river to the Big Horn Mountains, came across about two hundred Injuns camped at the base of the mountains. As soon as we got in sight of their cayuses we saw two of my hosses running with theirs. When we rode into their camp they appeared friendly enough till they found out we wanted these two hosses.

I could talk the Injun language, and after making one of the petty chiefs of their band a few little presents, King and I went out to catch our two hosses, but they had been running with the Injuns' cayuses so long we couldn't get near them. Finally we tried to drive them away from the Injuns' cayuses, but about twenty Injuns had come up to us and told us to let the hosses alone and go away. They had their guns, and while they didn't point their guns at me, they kept sticking them against King's breast and threatening to shoot if he didn't go at once. I now offered to pay them if they would catch the two hosses. Every Injun wanted from four to twenty dollars apiece. As there were about twenty Injuns it amounted to about $300. The Injuns rounded up all their cayuses, and getting them in a safe corral, caught my two hosses.

I now instructed King to take the saddle off the hoss he was riding and tie the hoss to the pack-hoss, and I also done this with the one I was riding. We then turned them loose and the three animals immediately started south towards Wyoming. I then told King to saddle one of the hosses that the Injuns had caught for us, but pay no attention to the Injun who was holding it. I saddled the other animal; two Injuns each had a rope on the hoss's neck. When we got them saddled and bridled, I told King to get on his, and I got on mine. The Injuns were standing all around us as well as the squaws and papooses, but they had all laid down their guns. I pulled my Winchester out of the saddle scabbard and throwing a sh.e.l.l in the barrel, I told King to pull his six-shooter and cut the Injun's rope that was on his hoss's neck. He said: "The Injuns will shoot me if I do." I said: "I will shoot you right now if you don't." Although he was very much excited, he managed to pull his knife out of his belt and cut the Injun's rope, and immediately started off after the pack-hoss and saddle hosses on a dead run. The Injuns all set up a howl, and the squaws began bringing the guns out of the teepees.

But I kept throwing my Winchester down on first one and then another.

The Injuns kept up an awful din hollering to one another, all the squaws yelling to kill the masacheta (white man). But I could hear the chief's voice above them all, telling them not to shoot me. The two Injuns holding the hoss having dropped their ropes, I suddenly threw the ropes off my hoss's neck and reaching down grabbed a papoose, five or six years old, and throwing it up in the saddle with me, galloped away. I knew they wouldn't shoot at me as long as I held to that papoose. But it was like holding on to a full-grown wildcat. I was carrying my Winchester in one hand, guiding my hoss with the same hand and trying to hold on to that little biting, scratching, hair-pulling, shrieking papoose with the other. My hoss was bounding over rocks and sage brush.

But he was a magnificent animal and in less time than it takes to tell I was out of gunshot, and then I dropped that shrieking little Injun devil on a sage bush and galloped off in the gathering darkness.

I soon caught up with King. We traveled all night and the next day.

Putting him on the trail to Wyoming with all the hosses but the one I was riding, I turned north again to find the other two hosses. That day I met a Piegan Injun that I was acquainted with, and he told me old Crazy Head's band was camped on the Yellowstone River, and that they had my other two hosses and tried to sell them to him.

I rode into Fort Custer and told my story to Jim Dunleavy, the post scout and interpreter, and wanted him to introduce me to the post commander and get me a permit to be on the reservation. But the post commander refused to see me and sent word for me to get off the reservation, or he would put me in the guard house. But I struck out through the hills north, and that afternoon came in sight of Crazy Head's camp. I found an Injun boy herding a large bunch of cayuses about a mile from camp, with my two hosses in the bunch. I rode into the herd and had my hosses roped and tied together before the Injun had recovered from his surprise, and started back south.

But now a new idea took possession of me. Why not steal some Indian cayuses and get even? There was a stage line running through the reservation them days, and I knew the stock tender at the stage ranch, fifteen miles from Fort Custer, at the Fort Custer battle-ground. So waiting till dark I went there, and getting something to eat and leaving the two hosses, I started back to Crazy Head's camp. It was a bright, moonlight night and I found the Injuns' cayuses grazing in the same place. Looking around cautiously I discovered two fine-looking, coal black cayuses grazing by themselves about two hundred yards from the main bunch. Slipping up close to them I threw my rawhide rope over one of them, and, as he was perfectly gentle, started to lead him to a little patch of timber, intending to hobble him and come back and get his mate. But as soon as I started to lead him off, his mate followed him, so I just kept going till I got to the stage station, twenty miles from there, about 3 o'clock in the morning. Getting a bite to eat from the old stock tender and showing him the two cayuses I had stole, he told me he knew the cayuses and that they were old Crazy Head's war ponies.

I had been in the saddle now for twenty-four hours without any rest, but dare not stop a moment, for I knew the Injuns and troops both would be after me as soon as Crazy Head missed his ponies. So necking the two to my other two hosses I started for Wyoming, ninety miles away. The Little Horn River was very high, swimming a hoss from bank to bank, and the stage hadn't been able to get through for some time. The recent rains made the ground soft, and I knew the Injuns would have no trouble tracking me. But they wouldn't miss the ponies till 6 o'clock in the morning, so I would have twenty miles the start and certainly three hours of time. But there was the danger of meeting other Injuns who would know Crazy Head's ponies, and I might meet some scouting soldiers and have to give an account of myself, not having any permit. I didn't mind swimming the Little Horn River, if I hadn't the hosses to drive, but it's hard work for a hoss to swim in a swift current where the waves out about the middle are running big and high, as they do in mountain streams, and drive some loose hosses. But I made the hosses all plunge in and started for the other sh.o.r.e, two hundred yards away. They all swam like ducks at first crossing, but I would have to swim the river seven times if I kept the valley, and knew I would lose time if I went through the hills. So I kept on in a tireless lope, mile after mile, and all the time looking back over my shoulder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Looking Over My Shoulder._"]