With the World's Great Travellers Volume I Part 9

The cloud-puffs of an hour ago had spread and united into black canopies of storm-cloud. The range had a.s.sumed its darkest and most sublime aspect. As the eye runs up and down the long sweep of vision, here and there a white peak, flooded with sunshine from an unseen s.p.a.ce between the storms, shines with an unearthly brightness amid the general blackness. Here and there the snowy head of a mountain looks out cold and wan through a transparent veil of showers. Every moment at some point along the rank of mountains a thunderbolt leaps across from cloud to peak with a quick shiver. A portentous darkness settles over the Great Divide. The pine-clad slopes are as black as night; the snowy summits leaden.

In contrast with the dark majesty of the background is the intense animation of the scene close at hand. Back and forth and round and round patrol the hors.e.m.e.n appointed to hold the cattle within certain boundaries. Men representing the owners of brands ride into the crowd of cattle, and, moving slowly about, observe the brand on every animal they pa.s.s. Usually a rider represents several owners. Catching sight of the brands for which they are looking, each man follows close at the heels of the cow he has selected, and, when she is near the edge of the herd, with a quick jump of his horse he tries to drive her beyond the boundaries. But commonly she detects his purpose, her gregarious instinct rebels, and with a quicker jump she is back again among her friends in the midst of the herd.

Then follows a hard chase around among the frightened cattle. Fifteen or twenty riders are soon in hot pursuit of their several brands. The whole herd is in commotion, with a general wheeling movement like a slow Maelstrom. The cattle are "ginning around," they say. The din of a thousand bellowing voices grows more thunderous as the herd grows more uneasy. To watch this tossing sea of animal life is exciting in the highest degree. The horses, trained by long experience in the work, dash into it with the fire of a war-horse going to battle. They take evident pleasure in their superiority over the inferior intelligence of the cattle. The showy, barbaric costumes of the cow-boys, the exquisite feats of horsemanship, the excitement of the horses warming to their work, the occasional dexterous use of the la.s.so in subduing some animal at bay, all the rush and tumult, the roar and shouting, the grace of muscular men and animals in swift motion, make up a spectacle so stirring and picturesque that all other exhibitions of equestrian skill seem tame in comparison.

As the cattle one by one are "cut out," they are taken in charge by the outside riders and driven away to swell the herd of those already gathered, which is grazing less than a mile away. After two hours of work, while the commotion seems still as violent as ever, the captain suddenly shouts the order, "Turn 'em loose!" The cry pa.s.ses along, the guards draw to one side, the liberated cattle move quickly away, first in a body, then in a long scattering line, and the stillness of the desert succeeds the uproar. In the mean time, the camp has been broken up and the train of wagons has moved up the river eight or ten miles to fix a centre for the next day's work. There is little difference between one day and another. The same operation of "circling in" and "cutting out" will be repeated till every acre of ground in the allotted district has been traversed. In the "general round-ups" of the spring each district contains several thousand square miles, and the work continues for six weeks or more. In this way a belt of country equal in length to the distance from Portland to Savannah is swept over by the "round-ups"

every year.

Before this nomadic life of the Plains has been drained of its picturesque elements by the advance of civilization, I hope that some painter may arise who can grasp and worthily fix on canvas this most picturesque scene of American life,--one with the skill of a Church to paint the mountains and the genius of a Bonheur to catch the beauty of free animal existence. It should be a great picture, for in its distance would stand the continent's mountainous head crowned with its shining diadem, while in the nearer view there would be every att.i.tude of bold horsemanship, every phase of intense muscular activity, brilliancy of costumes, the charm of wild life, the beauty of freedom.

AMONG THE COW-BOYS.

LOUIS C. BRADFORD.

[The preceding selection may be fitly followed by the following description of life among the cow-boys, those wild and wilful cattle-guards of the West, whose escapades form an interesting part of the romance of modern times.]

There is a peculiar fascination in the wild life of the cow-boys which tempts many young men of culture and refinement, reared in the enjoyment of every luxury in the East, but of adventurous dispositions, to come and live with these rude spirits on the frontier. Often for thirty-six hours continuously in the saddle, the hardships of their lot are apparent. Cold black coffee, without sugar, drunk whenever the opportunity offers, is the sole luxury of the cow-boy. With a piece of bread in one hand and some jerked beef in the other, he will ride around a stampeded herd, eating as he goes, and as happy as a king on his throne. When night comes, provided his cattle are quiet, he will tie his horse to his leg, and, "covered with his hat," with a hummock of gra.s.s for his pillow, will sleep peacefully on the broad prairie, and dream perchance of his sweetheart far back in "G.o.d's country."

Perhaps his dreams will be rudely disturbed by the thunder of a thousand hoofs, as his cattle, becoming frightened at some noise, have stampeded, and the gra.s.s fairly pops beneath their cloven feet. Then it is he does his tallest riding, and, circling around his cows, brings them back to where they started. If a wild bull becomes obstreperous and unruly, a rider dashes past him, and, seizing his tail as he goes by, gives it a twist around the horn of his saddle, and in a trice the bull is fairly slung heels over head on his back. Two or three applications of this discipline will generally reduce the stiffening in a bull's tail to a minimum and render him as docile as a calf. An expert cow-boy can rope, throw down, and tie up a cow in just one minute from the time he rides up to her.

But a man knows nothing of "punching the heifers" who has not been through on the "trail" to Kansas. Going for days together without eating, never out of the saddle, mounting a fresh horse as fast as one is broken down, the limit of endurance is reached, and one who has stood the test, and can boast of having "busted the Indian Nation square open," attains respect in the cow-boy's eyes, and is considered to have taken his degree.

In 1874 the largest drive to Kansas ever recorded took place, when half a million beeves were driven through. The trail was beaten into a broad path a mile wide and extending fifteen hundred miles in length. For miles and miles the string of lowing herds stretched along, while the keen riders darted hither and thither, keeping them well on the trail.

At night the voices of the men singing to their sleeping cattle could be heard all along the line, while the long string of camp-fires, throwing their lurid glare against the black vault overhead, called back to the minds of many old gray-bearded cow-boys the stormy times when similar lines of light glimmered along the Rappahannock, and pierced the murky gloom of some Virginia night. Sometimes the music of a violin, sounding strangely shrill in the calm night air, would mingle with the deep tones of voices singing "The Maid of Monterey," or "Shamus...o...b..ien," the cow-boy's favorite tunes.

In pa.s.sing through the Indian Nation it is no uncommon thing for a band of Indians, all painted and varnished up, to ride down on a beef-herd, and, singling out the finest cattle in the bunch, compel the white owners of the stock to cut them out in a separate flock, when the Indians will gather around them and run them off. Some years ago a party of five Indians came riding down on a herd which was resting on the banks of a small creek, and demanded of the boss herdsman ten of the fattest steers he had. The boss was a bold man, and, looking around on his fifteen stalwart cow-boys, swore that no five Indians should take his beeves from him, and, using the polite phraseology of the Plains, told his redskin visitors to "go to h.e.l.l." The baffled five retired into the forest, but soon returned with an increased force of fifty men, who charged down on the defiant herdsman, whom they nearly beat to death with his own ramrod, stampeded his cattle, and ran off two hundred of them into the woods.

It is a wild, rough set of men that camp around the herds after they have been driven through the Nation and are resting on the gra.s.sy plains of Kansas. Clad in the soiled and dusty jeans of the trail, for weeks in succession no water has touched their hands or faces, and, unshaven and unshorn, they give free rein to their exuberant spirits, taking some quiet Kansas village by storm, setting the tame local laws at defiance, and compelling the authorities to acknowledge the sovereignty of their native State.

The wages earned by these cow-boys are twenty-five dollars a month while they are herding on Texan ranges; but, as the toil and hardship encountered on the trail are so great, they are paid thirty-five dollars a month during the drive, and each man furnished with eight ponies to ride. Some of them return home by rail, visiting the cities of St. Louis and New Orleans, and managing to be despoiled of all their hard-earned money during their brief sojourn in "G.o.d's country;" but the greater number straddle their wiry little ponies and ride back through the Nation to Texas.

Not every one that started out to go up the trail lives to get back, and the nameless mounds that dot the sides of that broad path bear mute but powerful testimony to the danger that every hour surrounds the cow-boy.

Whether they fall by a shot from some hostile savage lurking in a ravine near by, or are dropped by a six-shooter in the hands of a fellow-herder, they are hastily buried and soon forgotten. Entirely free from the restraining power of the law, men give free rein to their pa.s.sions, and the six-shooter or Winchester rifle--the inseparable companions of the stock-drivers--is freely resorted to to settle disputed questions. It is very common for two bosses having charge of different herds to jump down from their horses and proceed to crack away at each other until one has bitten the dust.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A KANSAS CYCLONE FROM THE ONLY SUCCESSFUL PHOTOGRAPH EVER TAKEN]

When a violent storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, stampedes the cattle, they will probably get mixed up with two or three other herds, and much labor and confusion results, and a considerable amount of tall swearing and fighting takes place before they can be separated and each herd gotten to itself. Every animal, besides the regular brand of the owner, has his tail bobbed and a "road-mark" put upon him during the drive, and in a mixed herd the rider goes in and "cuts out" all the cattle that bear his brand and runs them into a separate flock.

When cattle are sleeping it requires very little to stampede them. A loud breath, the clank of a chain tied to the leg of a wagon-mule, or the galloping of a horse will sometimes cause them to be up and gone in the twinkling of an eye. They will run over whatever is in their path, and the only way to stop them is to get them to "milling," or travelling in a circle, when they will wind themselves up like a ball and stop. It is instinctive with them to run when anything else is running, and away they go at the slightest noise, with the cow-boys in wild pursuit after them.

Living on Stinking Creek, in the Indian Territory, just off the great trail, is an Irishman named Fitzpatrick, who came to this country not many years ago, a common specimen of the bog-trotting Tipperary Paddy.

Floating on the tide of emigration westward, he finally went into the Indian Nation, and, building a cabin in the timber where the trail crossed Stinking Creek, he proceeded to gather up the cattle that dropped from the great herds going through or were lost in some big stampede. His business throve, and in time he married a Choctaw wife and went to housekeeping, and to day he is the owner of many thousand beeves, and is regarded as a rising stock-man. He still collects the stampeded cattle in the creek timber,--a striking example of the strange ways in which men become rich. More than one big stock-man in Texas began his career by branding the mavericks, or wild unbranded and unclaimed heifers, found in the river timber. As an instance of the manner in which they worked up a herd, it is related of a successful stock-man that he started with a solitary steer, which he turned loose on the prairie, and _the first year he branded forty calves_!...

It was with a feeling of sincere regret that the writer of these lines, meeting with a severe accident, prepared to return to where his home nestled in the Alleghanies, after a sojourn of eighteen months with these wild riders of the plains. Lest the impression be conveyed that these are irreligious and G.o.dless men, let the reader fancy a group of men, belted and spurred, seated in a rude arbor, listening reverently to a tall cow-boy who has been selected by unanimous choice to read the Scriptures, and he can form an idea of the last Sunday I spent with the cow-boys. With slow and deliberate utterance, Phil Claiborne read out the words of the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Then he proceeded: "These, my hearers, were the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, who spoke as no man ever spoke; and I pledge you my word, gentlemen, the Bible is a good egg." Profound attention greeted the speaker, and continuing, he said, "Whatsoever is earthly can be soon replaced, but that which is on yon side of the grave is eternal. If you lose your property, you may acquire more; if you lose your wife, you may marry again; if you lose your children, you may have more; but if you lose your immortal soul, then up the spout you go."

HUNTING THE BUFFALO.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

[Washington Irving's experiences were not confined to the banks of the Hudson, the ruins of the Alhambra, and the rural scenes of English life, but were extended to embrace the far western region of his own country, a region at that time still the domain of savage nature. In 1832, the year embraced in his "Tour on the Prairies," the buffalo, or bison, now nearly extinct, roamed in vast herds over the treeless plains, and wild horses were little less abundant in the same broad region. The work in question is princ.i.p.ally devoted to incidents of a hunter's life in pursuit of these two animals. The scene lies in the vicinity of the upper waters of the Red River.]

After proceeding about two hours in a southerly direction, we emerged towards midday from the dreary belt of the Cross Timber, and to our infinite delight beheld "the great prairie," stretching to the right and left before us. We could distinctly trace the meandering course of the main Canadian and various smaller streams by the strips of green forest that bordered them. The landscape was vast and beautiful. There is always an expansion of feeling in looking upon these boundless and fertile wastes; but I was doubly conscious of it after emerging from our "close dungeon of innumerous boughs."

From a rising ground Beatte [an Indian member of the party] pointed out the place where he and his comrades had killed the buffaloes; and we beheld several black objects moving in the distance which he said were part of the herd. The captain determined to shape his course to a woody bottom about a mile distant and to encamp there for a day or two, by way of having a regular buffalo-hunt and getting a supply of provisions.

As the troop defiled along the slope of the hill towards the camping-ground, Beatte proposed to my messmates and myself that we should put ourselves under his guidance, promising to take us where we should have plenty of sport. Leaving the line of march, therefore, we diverged towards the prairie, traversing a small valley and ascending a gentle swell of land. As we reached the summit we beheld a gang of wild horses about a mile off. Beatte was immediately on the alert, and no longer thought of buffalo-hunting. He was mounted on his powerful half-wild horse, with a lariat coiled at the saddle bow, and set off in pursuit, while we remained on a rising ground watching his manoeuvres with great solicitude.

Taking advantage of a strip of woodland, he stole quietly along, so as to get close to them before he was perceived. The moment they caught sight of him a grand scamper took place. We watched him skirting along the horizon like a privateer in full chase of a merchantman; at length he pa.s.sed over the brow of a ridge and down into a shallow valley; in a few moments he was on the opposite hill, and close upon one of the horses. He was soon head and head, and appeared to be trying to noose his prey; but they both disappeared again below the hill, and we saw no more of them. It turned out afterwards that he had noosed a powerful horse, but could not hold him, and had lost his lariat in the attempt.

While we were waiting for his return, we perceived two buffalo bulls descending a slope towards a stream which wound through a ravine fringed with trees. The young count and myself endeavored to get near them under covert of the trees. They discovered us while we were yet three or four hundred yards off, and, turning about, retreated up the rising ground.

We urged our horses across the ravine and gave chase. The immense weight of head and shoulders causes the buffalo to labor heavily up-hill; but it accelerates his descent. We had the advantage, therefore, and gained rapidly upon the fugitives, though it was difficult to get our horses to approach them; their very scent inspired them with terror. The count, who had a double barrelled gun loaded with ball, fired, but missed. The bulls now altered their course, and galloped down-hill with headlong rapidity. As they ran in different directions, we each singled out one and separated.

I was provided with a brace of veteran bra.s.s-barrelled pistols which I had borrowed at Fort Gibson, and which had evidently seen some service.

Pistols are very effective in buffalo-hunting, as the hunter can ride up close to the animal, and fire at it while at full speed; whereas the long heavy rifles used on the frontier cannot be easily managed nor discharged with accurate aim from horseback. My object, therefore, was to get within pistol-shot of the buffalo. This was no very easy matter.

I was well mounted on a horse of excellent speed and bottom that seemed eager for the chase, and soon overtook the game; but the moment he came nearly parallel, he would keep sheering off with ears forked and p.r.i.c.ked forward, and every symptom of aversion and alarm. It was no wonder. Of all animals, a buffalo, when close pressed by the hunter, has an aspect the most diabolical. His two short black horns curve out of a huge frontlet of s.h.a.ggy hair; his eyes glow like coals; his mouth is open, his tongue parched and drawn up into a half crescent; his tail is erect, and tufted and whisked about in the air; he is a perfect picture of mingled rage and terror.

It was with difficulty I urged my horse sufficiently near, when, taking aim, to my chagrin, both pistols missed fire. Unfortunately, the locks of these veteran weapons were so much worn that in the gallop the priming had been shaken out of the pans. At the snapping of the last pistol I was close upon the buffalo, when, in his despair, he turned round with a sudden snort and rushed upon me. My horse wheeled about as if on a pivot, made a convulsive spring, and, as I had been leaning on one side with pistol extended, I came near being thrown at the feet of the buffalo.

Three or four bounds of the horse carried us out of the reach of the enemy; who, having merely turned in desperate self-defence, quickly resumed his flight. As soon as I could gather in my panic-stricken horse and prime the pistols afresh, I again spurred in pursuit of the buffalo, who had slackened his speed to take breath. On my approach he again set off full tilt, heaving himself forward with a heavy rolling gallop, dashing with headlong precipitation through brakes and ravines, while several deer and wolves, startled from their coverts by his thundering career, ran helter-skelter to right and left across the waste.

A gallop across the prairies in pursuit of game is by no means so smooth a career as those may imagine who have only the idea of an open level plain. It is true, the prairies of the hunting-ground are not so much entangled with flowering plants and long herbage as the lower prairies, and are princ.i.p.ally covered with short buffalo-gra.s.s; but they are diversified by hill and dale, and where most level are apt to be cut up by deep rifts and ravines, made by torrents after rains; and which, after yawning from an even surface, are almost like pitfalls in the way of the hunter, checking him suddenly when in full career, or subjecting him to the risk of limb and life. The plains, too, are beset by burrowing holes of small animals, in which the horse is apt to sink to the fetlock, and throw both himself and his rider. The late rain had covered some parts of the prairie, where the ground was hard, with a thin sheet of water, through which the horse had to splash his way. In other parts there were innumerable shallow hollows, eight or ten feet in diameter, made by the buffaloes, who wallow in sand and mud like swine.

These being filled with water, shone like mirrors, so that the horse was continually leaping over them or springing on one side. We had reached, too, a rough part of the prairie, very much broken and cut up; the buffalo, who was running for life, took no heed to his course, plunging down break-neck ravines, where it was necessary to skirt the borders in search of a safer descent. At length we came to where a winter stream had torn a deep chasm across the whole prairie, leaving open jagged rocks, and forming a long glen bordered by steep crumbling cliffs of mingled stone and clay. Down one of these the buffalo flung himself, half tumbling, half leaping, and then scuttled along the bottom; while I, seeing all further pursuit useless, pulled up, and gazed quietly after him from the border of the cliff, until he disappeared amidst the windings of the ravine.

Nothing now remained but to turn my steed and rejoin my companions. Here at first was some little difficulty. The ardor of the chase had betrayed me into a long, heedless gallop. I now found myself in the midst of a lonely waste, in which the prospect was bounded by undulating swells of land, naked and uniform, where, from the deficiency of landmarks and distinct features, an inexperienced man may become bewildered, and lose his way as readily as in the wastes of the ocean. The day, too, was overcast, so that I could not guide myself by the sun; my only mode was to retrace the track my horse had made in coming, though this I would often lose sight of, where the ground was covered with parched herbage.

To one unaccustomed to it, there is something inexpressibly lonely in the solitude of a prairie. The loneliness of a forest seems nothing to it. There the view is shut in by trees, and the imagination is left free to picture some livelier scene beyond. But here we have an immense extent of landscape without a sign of human existence. We have the consciousness of being far, far beyond the bounds of human habitation; we feel as if moving in the midst of a desert world. As my horse lagged slowly back over the scenes of our late scamper, and the delirium of the chase had pa.s.sed away, I was peculiarly sensible to these circ.u.mstances.

The silence of the waste was now and then broken by the cry of a distant flock of pelicans, stalking like spectres about a shallow pool; sometimes by the sinister croaking of a raven in the air, while occasionally a scoundrel wolf would scour off from before me, and, having attained a safe distance, would sit down and howl and whine with tones that gave a dreariness to the surrounding solitude.

After pursuing my way for some time, I descried a horseman on the edge of a distant hill, and soon recognized him to be the count. He had been equally unsuccessful with myself; we were shortly afterwards rejoined by our worthy comrade, the Virtuoso, who, with spectacles on nose, had made two or three ineffectual shots from horseback.

We determined not to seek the camp until we had made one more effort.

Casting our eyes about the surrounding waste, we descried a herd of buffalo about two miles distant, scattered apart, and quietly grazing near a small strip of trees and bushes. It required but little stretch of fancy to picture them as so many cattle grazing on the edge of a common, and that the grove might shelter some lowly farm-house.

We now formed our plan to circ.u.mvent the herd, and by getting on the other side of them, to hunt them in the direction where we knew our camp to be situated; otherwise, the pursuit might take us to such a distance as to render it impossible for us to find our way back before night-fall. Taking a wide circuit, therefore, we moved slowly and cautiously, pausing occasionally when we saw any of the herd desist from grazing. The wind fortunately set from them, otherwise they might have scented us and have taken the alarm. In this way we succeeded in getting round the herd without disturbing it. It consisted of about forty head, bulls, cows, and calves.

Separating to some distance from each other, we now approached slowly in a parallel line, hoping by degrees to steal near without exciting attention. They began, however, to move off quietly, stopping at every step or two to graze, when suddenly a bull that, un.o.bserved by us, had been taking his siesta under a clump of trees to our left, roused himself from his lair and hastened to join his companions. We were still at a considerable distance, but the game had taken the alarm. We quickened our pace, they broke into a gallop, and now commenced a full chase.

As the ground was level, they shouldered along with great speed, following each other in a line; two or three bulls bringing up the rear, the last of whom, from his enormous size and venerable frontlet, and beard of sun-burnt hair, looked like the patriarch of the herd, and as if he might long have reigned the monarch of the prairie.

There is a mixture of the awful and the comic in the look of these huge animals, as they bear their great bulk forward, with an up-and-down motion of the unwieldy head and shoulders, their tail c.o.c.ked up like the queue of Pantaloon in a pantomime, the end whisking about in a fierce yet whimsical style, and their eyes glaring venomously with an expression of fright and fury.