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SEdition Dc ICuxc 
 
 The Edition de Luxe is printed frcnn type and will 
 be Ihnited to Five Hundred Copies, of which this is 
 
 No. 
 
 GEBBIE and COMPANY. 
 
 r ' 
 
 Pi'esident. 
 
 Secretary. 
 
UNIFORM EDITION 
 
 RANCH LIFE AND 
 THE HUNTING-TRAIL 
 
 An Account of Life in the Cattle Country 
 OF the Far West 
 
 By 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 GEBBIE AND COMPANY 
 1903 
 
^- Os (jpU 
 
 .'TMe LIBRARY C? 
 I CON an ESS, 
 
 j ••'•.' Cc*'lta& ReCKIVEB 
 
 I WOV ?& !9fi^ 
 
 [oi.ASs'la XX<t No. 
 I cdry B. 
 
 .7? 7? 
 
 Copyright, 1888 
 
 Copyright, 1903 
 
 by 
 
 THE CENTURY COMPANY 
 
 This edition of "Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail" is issued 
 under special arrangement with The Century Company 
 
 .■^» •-• 
 
 . -, .-. 
 
 ^ 
 
" Oh, our manhood's prime vigor ! No spirit feels waste, 
 
 Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. 
 
 Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock. 
 
 The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver 
 
 shock 
 
 Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, . . . 
 
 And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell 
 
 That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 
 
 How good is man's life, the mere living." 
 
 Browning. 
 
 m 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Cattle Country of the Far West i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Out on the Range aa 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 The Home Ranch 38 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Round-Up 68 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Winter Weather no 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Frontier Types 122 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Red and White on the Border 155 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 169 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Ranchman's Rifle on Crag and Prairie 200 
 
 V 
 
vi Contents 
 
 CHAPTER X PAGE 
 
 The Wapiti, or Round-Horned Elk 226 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Big-Horn Sheep 236 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Game of the High Peaks: The White Goat. . . . 271 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Heralding the Sunrise . . Frontispiece 
 
 Roping in a Horse-Corral . . . . 42 ^ 
 
 Line Riding IN Winter 112 ^ 
 
 A Row IN Cattle Town ..... 146 / 
 From original drawings by Frederick Remington 
 
 vu 
 
RANCH LIFE AND THE 
 HUNTING TRAIL 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE PAR WEST. 
 
 THE great grazing lands of the West lie in 
 what is known as the arid belt, which 
 stretches from British America on the 
 north to Mexico on the south, through the mid- 
 dle of the United States. It includes New Mex- 
 ico, part of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, 
 and the western portion of Texas, Kansas, Ne- 
 braska, and Dakota. It must not be understood 
 by this that more cattle are to be found here than 
 elsewhere, for the contrary is true, it being a fact 
 often lost sight of that the number of cattle raised 
 on the small, thick-lying farms of the fertile East- 
 em States is actually many times greater than 
 that of those scattered over the vast, barren 
 ranches of the far West ; for stock will always be 
 most plentiful in districts where com and other 
 winter food can be grown. But in this arid belt, 
 
2 Ranch Life 
 
 and in this arid belt only,— save in a few similar 
 tracts on the Pacific slope, — stock-raising is 
 almost the sole industry, except in the mountain 
 districts where there is mining. The whole region 
 is one vast stretch of grazing country, with only 
 here and there spots of farm-land, in most places 
 there being nothing more like agriculture than 
 is implied in the cutting of some tons of wild hay 
 or the planting of a garden patch for home use. 
 This is especially true of the northern portion of 
 the region, which comprises the basin of the Upper 
 Missouri, and with which alone I am familiar. 
 Here there are no fences to speak of, and all the 
 land north of the Black Hills and the Big Horn 
 Mountains and between the Rockies and the 
 Dakota wheat-fields might be spoken of as one 
 gigantic, unbroken pasture, where cowboys and 
 branding-irons take the place of fences. 
 
 The country throughout this great Upper Mis- 
 souri basin has a wonderful sameness of character ; 
 and the rest of the arid belt, lying to the south- 
 ward, is closely akin to it in its main features. 
 A traveler seeing it for the first time is especially 
 struck by its look of parched, barren desolation; 
 he can with difficulty believe that it will support 
 cattle at all. It is a region of light rainfall ; the 
 grass is short and comparatively scanty; there 
 is no timber except along the beds of the streams, 
 and in many places there are alkali deserts where 
 
The Cattle Country 3 
 
 nothing grows but sage-brush and cactus. Now 
 the land stretches out into level, seemingly end- 
 less plains or into rolling prairies; again it is 
 broken by abrupt hills and deep, winding valleys ; 
 or else it is crossed by chains of buttes, usually 
 bare, but often clad with a dense growth of 
 dwarfed pines or gnarled, stunted cedars. The 
 muddy rivers run in broad, shallow beds, which 
 after heavy rainfalls are filled to the brim by the 
 swollen torrents, while in droughts the larger 
 streams dwindle into sluggish trickles of clearer 
 water, and the smaller ones dry up entirely, save 
 in occasional deep pools. 
 
 All through the region, except on the great 
 Indian reservations, there has been a scanty and 
 sparse settlement, quite peculiar in its character. 
 In the forest the woodchopper comes first ; on the 
 fertile prairies the granger is the pioneer ; but on 
 the long, stretching uplands of the far West it is 
 the men who guard and follow the homed herds 
 that prepare the way for the settlers who come 
 after. The high plains of the Upper Missouri and 
 its tributary rivers were first opened, and are still 
 held, by the stockmen, and the whole civilization 
 of the region has received the stamp of their 
 marked and individual characteristics. They 
 were from the South, not from the East, although 
 many men from the latter region came out 
 along the great transcontinental railway lines 
 
4 Ranch Life 
 
 and joined them in their northern migration. 
 They are not dwellers in towns, and from the 
 nature of their industry lived as far apart from 
 each other as possible. In choosing new ranges, 
 old cow-hands, who are also seasoned plainsmen, 
 are invariably sent ahead, perhaps a year in ad- 
 vance, to spy out the land and pick the best places. 
 One of these may go by himself, or more often, 
 especially if they have to penetrate little known 
 or entirely imknown tracts, two or three will go 
 together, the owner or manager of the herd him- 
 self being one of them. Perhaps their herds may 
 already be on the border of the wild and imin- 
 habited country: in that case they may have to 
 take but a few days' journey before finding the 
 stretches of sheltered, long-grass land that they 
 seek. For instance, when I wished to move my own 
 elkhom steer brand on to a new ranch I had to 
 spend barely a week in traveling north among the 
 Little Missouri Bad Lands before finding what 
 was then untrodden ground far outside the range 
 of any of my neighbors' cattle. But if a large 
 outfit is going to shift its quarters it must go much 
 farther; and both the necessity and the chance 
 for long wanderings were especially great when 
 the final overthrow of the northern Horse Indians 
 opened the whole Upper Missouri basin at one 
 sweep to the stockmen. Then the advance- 
 guards or explorers, each on one horse and lead- 
 
The Cattle Country 5 
 
 ing another with food and bedding, were often 
 absent months at a time, threading their way 
 through the trackless wastes of plain, plateau, 
 and river-bottom. If possible they would choose 
 a country that would be good for winter and 
 summer alike ; but often this could not be done, 
 and then they would try to find a well-watered 
 tract on which the cattle could be summered, and 
 from which they could be driven in fall to their 
 sheltered winter range — for the cattle in winter 
 eat snow, and an entirely waterless region, if 
 broken, and with good pasturage, is often the best 
 possible winter ground, as it is sure not to have 
 been eaten off at all during the summer; while 
 in the bottoms the grass is always cropped down 
 soonest. Many outfits regularly shift their herds 
 every spring and fall; but with us in the Bad 
 Lands all we do, when cold weather sets in, is to 
 drive our beasts off the scantily grassed river- 
 bottom back ten miles or more among the broken 
 buttes and plateaus of the uplands to where the 
 brown hay, cured on the stalk, stands thick in the 
 winding coulees. 
 
 These lookouts or forenmners having returned, 
 the herds are set in motion as early in the spring 
 as may be, so as to get on the ground in time to 
 let the travel-worn beasts rest and gain flesh 
 before winter sets in. Each herd is accompanied 
 by a dozen, or a score, or a couple of score, of 
 
6 Ranch Life 
 
 cowboys, according to its size, and beside it 
 rumble and jolt the heavy four-horse wagons 
 that hold the food and bedding of the men and 
 the few implements they will need at the end of 
 their journey. As long as possible they follow 
 the trails made by the herds that have already 
 traveled in the same direction, and when these 
 end they strike out for themselves. In the Upper 
 Missouri basin, the pioneer herds soon had to 
 scatter out and each find its own way among the 
 great dreary solitudes, creeping carefully along 
 so that the cattle should not be overdriven and 
 should have water at the halting-places. An 
 outfit might thus be months on its lonely journey, 
 slowly making its way over melancholy, pathless 
 plains, or down the valleys of the lonely rivers. 
 It was tedious, harassing work, as the weary 
 cattle had to be driven carefully and quietly 
 during the day and strictly guarded at night, 
 with a perpetual watch kept for Indians or white 
 horse-thieves. Often they would skirt the edges 
 of the streams for days at a time, seeking for a 
 ford or a good swimming crossing, and if the 
 water was up and the quicksand deep the danger 
 to the riders was serious and the risk of loss among 
 the cattle very great. 
 
 At last, after days of excitement and danger 
 and after months of weary, monotonous toil, the 
 chosen ground is reached and the final camp 
 
The Cattle Country 7 
 
 pitched. The footsore animals are turned loose 
 to shift for themselves, outlying camps of two or 
 three men each being established to hem them in. 
 Meanwhile the primitive ranch-house, out-build- 
 ings, and corrals are built, the imhewn cotton- 
 wood logs being chinked with moss and mud, 
 while the roofs are of branches covered with dirt, 
 spades and axes being the only tools needed for 
 the work. Bunks, chairs, and tables are all home- 
 made, and as rough as the houses they are in. 
 The supplies of coarse, rude food are carried per- 
 haps two or three himdred miles from the nearest 
 town, either in the ranch-wagons or else by some 
 regular freighting outfit, the huge canvas-topped 
 prairie schooners of which are each drawn by 
 several yoke of oxen, or perhaps by six or eight 
 mules. To guard against the numerous mishaps 
 of prairie travel, two or three of these prairie 
 schooners usually go together, the brawny team- 
 sters, known either as "bull-whackers" or as 
 "mule-skinners," stalking beside their slow-mov- 
 ing teams. 
 
 The small outlying camps are often tents, or 
 mere dug-outs in the ground. But at the main 
 ranch there will be a cluster of log buildings, 
 including a separate cabin for the foreman or 
 ranchman; often another in which to cook and 
 eat ; a long house for the men to sleep in ; stables, 
 sheds, a blacksmith's shop, etc., — the whole 
 
8 Ranch Life 
 
 group forming quite a little settlement, with the 
 corrals, the stacks of natural hay, and the patches 
 of fenced land for gardens or horse pastures. This 
 little settlement may be situated right out in the 
 treeless, nearly level open, but much more often 
 is placed in the partly wooded bottom of a creek 
 or river, sheltered by the usual background of 
 somber brown hills. 
 
 When the northern plains began to be settled, 
 such a ranch would at first be absolutely alone 
 in the wilderness, but others of the same sort 
 were sure soon to be established within twenty 
 or thirty miles on one side or the other. The 
 lives of the men in such places were strangely 
 cut off from the outside world, and, indeed, the 
 same is true to a hardly less extent at the present 
 day. Sometimes the wagons are sent for pro- 
 visions, and the beef-steers are at stated times 
 driven off for shipment. Parties of hunters and 
 trappers call now and then. More rarely small 
 bands of emigrants go by in search of new homes, 
 impelled by the restless, aimless craving for change 
 so deeply grafted in the breast of the American 
 borderer: the white-topped wagons are loaded 
 with domestic goods, with sallow, dispirited- 
 looking women, and with tow-headed children; 
 while the gatint, moody frontiersmen slouch along- 
 side, rifle on shoulder, lank, homely, uncouth, and 
 yet with a curious suggestion of grim strength 
 
The Cattle Country 9 
 
 underlying it all. Or cowboys from neighboring 
 ranches will ride over, looking for lost horses, or 
 seeing if their cattle have strayed off the range. 
 But this is all. Civilization seems as remote as 
 if we were living in an age long past. The whole 
 existence is patriarchal in character: it is the life 
 of men who live in the open, who tend their herds 
 on horseback, who go armed and ready to guard 
 their lives by their own prowess, whose wants are 
 very simple, and who call no man master. Ranch- 
 ing is an occupation like those of vigorous, primi- 
 tive pastoral peoples, having little in common with 
 the humdrum, workaday business world of the 
 nineteenth century ; and the free ranchman in his 
 manner of life shows more kinship to an Arab 
 sheik than to a sleek city merchant or tradesman. 
 By degrees the country becomes what in a 
 stock-raising region passes for well settled. In 
 addition to the great ranches smaller ones are 
 established, with a few hundred, or even a few 
 score, head of cattle apiece; and now and then 
 miserable farmers straggle in to fight a losing and 
 desperate battle with drought, cold, and grass- 
 hoppers. The wheels of the heavy wagons, 
 driven always over the same course from one 
 ranch to another, or to the remote frontier towns 
 from which they get their goods, wear ruts in the 
 soil, and roads are soon formed, perhaps originally 
 following the deep trails made by the vanished 
 
lo Ranch Life 
 
 buffalo. These roads lead down the river-bot- 
 toms or along the crests of the divides or else 
 strike out fairly across the prairie, and a man 
 may sometimes journey a himdred miles along 
 one without coming to a house or a camp of any 
 sort. If they lead to a shipping point whence the 
 beeves are sent to market, the cattle, traveling 
 in single file, will have worn many and deep paths 
 on each side of the wheel-marks; and the roads 
 between important places which are regularly 
 used either by the United States Government, 
 by stage-coach lines, or by freight teams become 
 deeply worn landmarks — as, for instance, near 
 us, the Deadwood and the old Fort Keogh trails. 
 
 Cattle-ranching can only be carried on in its 
 present form while the population is scanty ; and 
 so in stock-raising regions, pure and simple, there 
 are usually few towns, and these are almost always 
 at the shipping points for cattle. But, on the 
 other hand, wealthy cattlemen, like miners who 
 have done well, always spend their money freely ; 
 and accordingly towns like Denver, Cheyenne, and 
 Helena, where these two classes are the most 
 influential in the commimity, are far pleasanter 
 places of residence than cities of five times their 
 population in the exclusively agricultural States 
 to the eastward. 
 
 A true "cow town" is worth seeing, — such a 
 one as Miles City, for instance, especially at the 
 
The Cattle Country n 
 
 time of the annual meeting of the great Montana 
 Stock-raisers' Association. Then the whole place 
 is full to overflowing, the importance of the meet- 
 ing and the fun of the attendant frolics, especially 
 the horse-races, drawing from the surroimding 
 ranch cotintry many hundreds of men of every 
 degree, from the rich stock-owner worth his mil- 
 lions to the ordinary cowboy who works for forty 
 dollars a month. It would be impossible to 
 imagine a more typically American assemblage, 
 for although there are always a certain number 
 of foreigners, usually English, Irish, or German, 
 yet they have become completely Americanized; 
 and on the whole it would be difficult to gather a 
 finer body of men, in spite of their numerous short- 
 comings. The ranch-owners differ more from 
 each other than do the cowboys ; and the former 
 certainly compare verv favorably with similar 
 classes of capitalists in the East, Anything more 
 foolish than the demagogic outcry against "cattle 
 kings" it would be difficult to imagine. Indeed, 
 there are very few businesses so absolutely legiti- 
 mate as stock-raising and so beneficial to the 
 nation at large; and a successful stock-grower 
 must not only be shrewd, thrifty, patient, and 
 enterprising, but he must also possess qualities 
 of personal bravery, hardihood, and self-reliance 
 to a degree not demanded in the least by any 
 mercantile occupation in a community long 
 
12 Ranch Life 
 
 settled. Stockmen are in the West the pioneers 
 of civiHzation, and their daring and adventurous- 
 ness make the after settlement of the region pos- 
 sible. The whole country owes them a great debt. 
 
 The most successful ranchmen are those, usually 
 South westerners, who have been bred to the busi- 
 ness and have grown up with it ; but many Eastern 
 men, including not a few college graduates, have 
 also done excellently by devoting their whole time 
 and energy to their work, — although Easterners 
 who invest their money in cattle without knowing 
 anything of the business, or who trust all to their 
 subordinates, are naturally enough likely to incur 
 heavy losses. Stockmen are learning more and 
 more to act together; and certainly the meetings 
 of their associations are conducted with a dignity 
 and good sense that would do credit to any parlia- 
 mentary body. 
 
 But the cowboys resemble one another much 
 more and outsiders much less than is the case 
 even with their employers, the ranchmen. A 
 town in the cattle country, when for some cause 
 it is thronged with men from the neighborhood, 
 always presents a picturesque sight. On the 
 wooden sidewalks of the broad, dusty streets the 
 men who ply the various industries known only 
 to frontier existence jostle one another as they 
 saunter to and fro or lounge lazily in front of the 
 straggling, cheap-looking board houses. Himters 
 
The Cattle Country 13 
 
 come in from the plains and the mountains, clad 
 in buckskin shirts and fur caps, greasy and im- 
 kempt, but with resolute faces and sullen, watch- 
 ful eyes, that are ever on the alert. The teamsters, 
 surly and self-contained, wear slouch hats and 
 great cowhide boots; while the stage-drivers, 
 their faces seamed by the hardship and exposure 
 of their long drives with every kind of team, 
 through every kind of country, and in every kind 
 of weather, proud of their really wonderful skill 
 as reinsmen and conscious of their high standing 
 in any frontier commimity, look down on and 
 sneer at the "skin hunters" and the plodding 
 drivers of the white-topped prairie schooners. 
 Besides these there are trappers and wolfers, 
 whose business is to poison wolves, with shaggy, 
 knock-kneed ponies to carry their small bales 
 and bundles of furs — beaver, wolf, fox, and occa- 
 sionally otter; and silent sheep-herders, with 
 cast-down faces, never able to forget the absolute 
 solitude and monotony of their dreary lives, nor 
 to rid their minds of the thought of the woolly 
 idiots they pass all their days in tending. Such 
 are the men who have come to town, either on 
 business or else to frequent the flaimting saloons 
 and gaudy hells of all kinds in search of the coarse, 
 vicious excitement that in the minds of many of 
 them does duty as pleasure — the only form of 
 pleasure they have ever had a chance to know. 
 
14 Ranch Life 
 
 Indians too, wrapped in blankets, with stolid, 
 emotionless faces, stalk silently round among the 
 whites, or join in the gambling and horse-racing. 
 If the town is on the borders of the moimtain 
 coimtry, there will also be sinewy liimbermen, 
 rough-looking miners and packers, whose busi- 
 ness it is to guide the long mule and pony trains 
 that go where wagons cannot and whose work in 
 packing needs special and peculiar skill; and 
 mingled with and drawn from all these classes 
 are desperadoes of every grade, from the gambler 
 up through the horse-thief to the murderous pro- 
 fessional bully, or, as he is locally called, "bad 
 man" — now, however, a much less conspicuous 
 object than formerly. 
 
 But everywhere among these plainsmen and 
 mountain-men, and more important than any, 
 are the cowboys, — the men who follow the calling 
 that has brought such towns into being. Singly, 
 or in twos or threes, they gallop their wiry little 
 horses down the street, their lithe, supple figures 
 erect or swaying slightly as they sit loosely in the 
 saddle ; while their stirrups are so long that their 
 knees are hardly bent, the bridles not taut enough 
 to keep the chains from clanking. They are 
 smaller and less muscular than the wielders of 
 ax and pick; but they are as hardy and self- 
 reliant as any men who ever breathed — with 
 bronzed, set faces, and keen eyes that look all 
 
The Cattle Country 15 
 
 the world straight in the face without flinching 
 as they flash out from under the broad-brimmed 
 hats. Peril and hardship, and years of long toil 
 broken by weeks of brutal dissipation, draw 
 haggard lines across their eager faces, but never 
 dim their reckless eyes nor break their bearing of 
 defiant self-confidence. They do not walk well, 
 partly because they so rarely do any work out of 
 the saddle, partly because their chaperajos or 
 leather overalls hamper them when on the ground ; 
 but their appearance is striking for all that, and 
 picturesque too, with their jingling spurs, the big 
 revolvers stuck in their belts, and bright silk 
 handkerchiefs knotted loosely round their necks 
 over the open collars of the flannel shirts. When 
 drunk on the villainous whisky of the frontier 
 towns, they cut mad antics, riding their horses 
 into the saloons, firing their pistols right and left, 
 from boisterous lightheartedness rather than from 
 any viciousness, and indulging too often in deadly 
 shooting affrays, brought on either by the acci- 
 dental contact of the moment or on account of 
 some long-standing grudge, or perhaps because 
 of bad blood between two ranches or localities; 
 but except while on such sprees they are quiet, 
 rather self-contained men, perfectly frank and 
 simple, and on their own ground treat a stranger 
 with the most whole-souled hospitality, doing all 
 in their power for him and scorning to take any 
 
1 6 Ranch Life 
 
 reward in return. Although prompt to resent an 
 injury, they are not at all apt to be rude to out- 
 siders, treating them with what can almost be 
 called a grave courtesy. They are much better 
 fellows and pleasanter companions than small 
 farmers or agricultural laborers; nor are the 
 mechanics and workmen of a great city to be 
 mentioned in the same breath. 
 
 The bulk of the cowboys themselves are South- 
 westerners; but there are also many from the 
 Eastern and the Northern States, who, if they 
 begin young, do quite as well as the Southerners. 
 The best hands are fairly bred to the work and 
 follow it from their youth up. Nothing can be 
 more foolish than for an Easterner to think he 
 can become a cowboy in a few months' time. 
 Many a young fellow comes out hot with enthu- 
 siasm for life on the plains, only to learn that his 
 clumsiness is greater than he could have believed 
 possible; that the cowboy business is like any 
 other and has to be learned by serving a painful 
 apprenticeship; and that this apprenticeship im- 
 plies the endurance of rough fare, hard living, 
 dirt, exposure of every kind, no little toil, and 
 month after month of the dullest monotony. For 
 cowboy work there is need of special traits and 
 special training, and young Easterners should be 
 sure of themselves before trying it: the struggle 
 for existence is very keen in the far West, and it 
 
The Cattle Country 17 
 
 is no place for men who lack the ruder, coarser 
 virtues and physical qualities, no matter how- 
 intellectual or how refined and delicate their 
 sensibilities. Such are more likely to fail there 
 than in older communities. Probably during the 
 past few years more than half of the young East- 
 erners who have come West with a little money 
 to learn the cattle business have failed signally 
 and lost what they had in the beginning. The 
 West, especially the far West, needs men who 
 have been bred on the farm or in the workshop 
 far more than it does clerks or college graduates. 
 
 Some of the cowboys are Mexicans, who gen- 
 erally do the actual work well enough, but are not 
 trustworthy ; moreover, they are always regarded 
 with extreme disfavor by the Texans in an outfit, 
 among whom the intolerant caste spirit is very 
 strong. Southern-bom whites will never work 
 under them, and look down upon all colored or 
 half-caste races. One spring I had with my 
 wagon a Pueblo Indian, an excellent rider and 
 roper, but a drunken, worthless, lazy devil; and 
 in the summer of 1886 there were with us a Sioux 
 half-breed, a quiet, hard-working, faithful fellow, 
 and a mulatto, who was one of the best cow- 
 hands in the whole round-up. 
 
 Cowboys, like most Westerners, occasionally 
 show remarkable versatility in their tastes and 
 pursuits. One whom I know has abandoned his 
 
i8 Ranch Life 
 
 regular occupation for the past nine months, 
 during which time he has been in succession a 
 bar-tender, a school-teacher, and a probate judge ! 
 Another, whom I once employed for a short while, 
 had passed through even more varied experiences, 
 including those of a barber, a sailor, an apoth- 
 ecary, and a buffalo-himter. 
 
 As a rule the cowboys are known to each other 
 only by their first names, with, perhaps, a prefix, 
 the title of the brand for which they are working. 
 Thus I remember once overhearing a casual re- 
 mark to the effect that " Bar Y Harry" had mar- 
 ried "the Seven Open A girl," the latter being the 
 daughter of a neighboring ranchman. Often they 
 receive nicknames, as, for instance, Dutch Wan- 
 nigan, Windy Jack, and Kid Williams, all of 
 whom are on the list of my personal acquaint- 
 ances. 
 
 No man traveling through or living in the 
 country need fear molestation from the cowboys 
 unless he himself accompanies them on their 
 drinking-bouts, or in other ways plays the fool, 
 for they are, with us at any rate, very good fellows, 
 and the most determined and effective foes of real 
 law-breakers, such as horse and cattle thieves, 
 murderers, etc. Few of the outrages quoted in 
 Eastern papers as their handiwork are such in 
 reality, the average Easterner apparently consid- 
 ering every individual who wears a broad hat and 
 
The Cattle Country 19 
 
 carries a six-shooter a cowboy. These outrages 
 are, as a rule, the work of the roughs and criminals 
 who always gather on the outskirts of civilization, 
 and who infest every frontier town until the decent 
 citizens become sufficiently numerous and deter- 
 mined to take the law into their own hands and 
 drive them out. The old buffalo-hunters, who 
 formed a distinct class, became powerful forces 
 for evil once they had destroyed the vast herds 
 of mighty beasts the pursuit of which had been 
 their means of livelihood. They were absolutely 
 shiftless and improvident; they had no settled 
 habits; they were inured to peril and hardship, 
 but entirely unaccustomed to steady work; and 
 so they afforded just the materials from which 
 to make the bolder and more desperate kinds of 
 criminals. When the game was gone they hung 
 round the settlements for some little time, and 
 then many of them naturally took to horse- 
 stealing, cattle-kilHng, and highway robbery, 
 although others, of course, went into honest pur- 
 suits. They were men who died off rapidly, how- 
 ever; for it is curious to see how many of these 
 plainsmen, in spite of their iron nerves and thews, 
 have their constitutions completely undermined, 
 as much by the terrible hardships they have en- 
 dured as by the fits of prolonged and bestial revelry 
 with which they have varied them. 
 
 The "bad men," or professional fighters and 
 
20 
 
 Ranch Life 
 
 man-killers, are of a different stamp, quite a num- 
 ber of them being, according to their light, per- 
 fectly honest. These are the men who do most of 
 the killing in frontier communities; yet it is a 
 noteworthy fact that the men who are killed 
 generally deserve their fate. These men are, of 
 course, used to brawling, and are not only sure 
 shots, but, what is equally important, able to 
 "draw" their weapons with marvelous quickness. 
 They think nothing whatever of murder, and are 
 the dread and terror of their associates ; yet they 
 are very chary of taking the life of a man of good 
 standing, and will often weaken and back down 
 at once if confronted fearlessly. With many of 
 them their courage arises from confidence in their 
 own powers and knowledge of the fear in which 
 they are held ; and men of this type often show 
 the white feather when they get in a tight place. 
 Others, however, will face any odds without 
 flinching; and I have known of these men fight- 
 ing, when mortally wounded, with a cool, ferocious 
 despair that was terrible. As elsewhere, so here, 
 very quiet men are often those who in an emer- 
 gency show themselves best able to hold their own. 
 These desperadoes always try to "get the drop" 
 on a foe — that is, to take him at a disadvantage 
 before he can use his own weapon. I have known 
 more men killed in this way, when the affair was 
 wholly one-sided, than I have known to be shot 
 
The Cattle Country 21 
 
 in fair fight; and I have known fully as many 
 who were shot by accident. It is wonderful, in 
 the event of a street fight, how few bullets seem 
 to hit the men they are aimed at. 
 
 During the last two or three years the stock- 
 men have imited to put down all these dangerous 
 characters, often by the most summary exercise 
 of lynch law. Notorious bullies and murderers 
 have been taken out and hung, while the bands 
 of horse and cattle thieves have been regularly 
 hunted down and destroyed in pitched fights by 
 parties of armed cowboys ; and as a consequence 
 most of our territory is now perfectly law-abiding. 
 One such fight occurred north of me early last 
 spring. The horse-thieves were overtaken on the 
 banks of the Missouri ; two of their number were 
 slain, and the others were driven on the ice, which 
 broke, and two more were drowned. A few 
 months previously another gang, whose head- 
 quarters were near the Canadian line, were sur- 
 prised in their hut ; two or three were shot down 
 by the cowboys as they tried to come out, while 
 the rest barricaded themselves in and fought tintil 
 the great log-hut was set on fire, when they broke 
 forth in a body, and nearly all were killed at once, 
 only one or two making their escape. A little 
 over two years ago one committee of vigilantes 
 in eastern Montana shot or himg nearly sixty — 
 not, however, with the best judgment in all cases. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUT ON THE RANGE. 
 
 A STRANGER in the Northwestern cattle 
 country is especially struck 'by the resem- 
 blance the settlers show in their pursuits 
 and habits to the Southern people. Nebraska 
 and Dakota, east of the Missouri, resemble Min- 
 nesota and Iowa and the States farther east, but 
 Montana and the Dakota cow country show more 
 kinship with Texas; for while elsewhere in 
 America settlement has advanced along the paral- 
 lels of latitude, on the great plains it has followed 
 the meridians of longitude and has gone northerly 
 rather than westerly. The business is carried on 
 as it is in the South. The rough-rider of the 
 plains, the hero of rope and revolver, is first 
 cousin to the backwoodsman of the southern 
 Alleghanies, the man of the ax and the rifle; he 
 is only a unique offshoot of the frontier stock of 
 the Southwest. The very term "round-up" is 
 used by the cowboys in the exact sense in which 
 it is employed by the hill people and mountaineers 
 of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, 
 with whom also labor is dear and poor land cheap, 
 and whose few cattle are consequently branded 
 
 22 
 
Out on the Range 23 
 
 and turned loose in the woods exactly as is done 
 with the great herds on the plains. 
 
 But the ranching industry itself was copied 
 from the Mexicans, of whose land and herds the 
 Southwestern frontiersmen of Texas took forcible 
 possession; and the traveler in the Northwest 
 will see at a glance that the terms and practices 
 of our business are largely of Spanish origin. 
 The cruel curb-bit and heavy stock-saddle, with 
 its high horn and cantle, prove that we have 
 adopted Spanish-American horse-gear; and the 
 broad hat, huge blunt spurs, and leather chap- 
 erajos of the rider, as well as the corral in which 
 the stock are penned, all alike show the same 
 ancestry. Throughout the cattle country east 
 of the Rocky Mountains, from the Rio Grande to 
 the Saskatchewan, the same terms are in use and 
 the same system is followed ; but on the Pacific 
 slope, in California, there are certain small dif- 
 ferences, even in nomenclature. Thus, we of the 
 great plains all use the double cinch saddle, with 
 one girth behind the horse's fore legs and another 
 farther back, while Califomians prefer one with a 
 single cinch, which seems to us much inferior for 
 stock- work. Again, Califomians use the Spanish 
 word "lasso," which with us has been entirely 
 dropped, no plainsman with pretensions to the 
 title thinking of any word but "rope," either as 
 notin or verb. 
 
24 Ranch Life 
 
 The rope, whether leather lariat or made of 
 grass, is the one essential feature of every cow- 
 boy's equipment. Loosely coiled, it hangs from 
 the horn or is tied to one side of the saddle in 
 front of the thigh, and is used for every conceiv- 
 able emergency, a twist being taken round the 
 stout saddle-horn the second the noose settles 
 over the neck or around the legs of a chased 
 animal. In helping pull a wagon up a steep 
 pitch, in draggmg an animal by the horns out of 
 a bog-hole, in hauling logs for the fire, and in a 
 hundred other ways aside from its legitimate 
 purpose, the rope is of invaluable service, and 
 dexterity with it is prized almost or quite as 
 highly as good horsemanship, and is much rarer. 
 Once a cowboy is a good roper and rider, the 
 only other accomplishment he values is skill with 
 his great army revolver, it being taken for granted 
 that he is already a thorough plainsman and has 
 long mastered the details of cattle-work; for the 
 best roper and rider alive is of little use unless he 
 is hard-working, honest, keenly alive to his em- 
 ployer's interest, and very careful in the manage- 
 ment of the cattle. 
 
 All cowboys can handle the rope with more or 
 less ease and precision, but great skill in its use is 
 only attained after long practice, and for its 
 highest development needs that the man should 
 have begim in earliest youth. Mexicans literally 
 
Out on the Range 25 
 
 practise from infancy ; the boy can hardly toddle 
 before he gets a string and begins to render life 
 a burden to the hens, goats, and pigs. A really 
 first-class roper can command his own price, and 
 is usually fit for little but his own special work. 
 
 It is much the same with riding. The cowboy 
 is an excellent rider in his own way, but his way 
 differs from that of a trained school horseman or 
 cross-cotmtry fox-himter as much as it does from 
 the horsemanship of an Arab or of a Sioux Indian, 
 and, as with all these, it has its special merits 
 and special defects — schoolman, fox-htmter, cow- 
 boy, Arab, and Indian being all alike admirable 
 riders in their respective styles, and each cherish- 
 ing the same profound and ignorant contempt for 
 every method but his own. The flash riders, or 
 horse-breakers, always called "bronco busters," 
 can perform really marvelous feats, riding with 
 ease the most vicious and unbroken beasts, that 
 no ordinary cowboy would dare to tackle. 
 Although sitting seemingly so loose in the saddle, 
 such a rider cannot be jarred out of it by the 
 wildest plimges, it being a favorite feat to sit out 
 the antics of a bucking horse with silver half- 
 dollars under each knee or in the stirrups tmder 
 each foot. But their method of breaking is very 
 rough, consisting only in saddling and bridling 
 a beast by main force and then riding him, also 
 by main force, imtil he is exhausted, when he is 
 
26 Ranch Life 
 
 turned over as "broken." Later on the cowboy 
 himself may train his horse to stop or wheel 
 instantly at a touch of the reins or bit, to start 
 at top speed at a signal, and to stand motionless 
 when left. An intelligent pony soon picks up a 
 good deal of knowledge about the cow business 
 on his own account. 
 
 All cattle are branded, usually on the hip, 
 shoulder, and side, or on any one of them, with 
 letters, numbers, or figures, in every combination, 
 the outfit being known by its brand. Near me, 
 for instance, are the Three Sevens, the Thistle, 
 the Bellows, the OX, the VI., the Seventy-six 
 Bar (— ), and the Quarter Circle Diamond ($) 
 outfits. The dew-lap and the ears may also be 
 cut, notched, or slit. All brands are registered, 
 and are thus protected against imitators, any 
 man tampering with them being punished as 
 severely as possible. Unbranded animals are 
 called mavericks, and when found on the round-up 
 are either branded by the owner of the range on 
 which they are, or else are sold for the benefit of 
 the association. At every shipping point, as well 
 as where the beef cattle are received, there are 
 stock inspectors who jealously examine all the 
 brands on the live animals or on the hides of the 
 slaughtered ones, so as to detect any foul play, 
 which is immediately reported to the association. 
 It becomes second nature with a cowboy to 
 
Out on the Range 27 
 
 inspect and note the brands of every bunch of 
 animals he comes across. 
 
 Perhaps the thing that seems strangest to the 
 traveler who for the first time crosses the bleak 
 plains of this Upper Missouri grazing country is 
 the small number of cattle seen. He can hardly 
 believe he is in the great stock region, where for 
 miles upon miles he will not see a single head, 
 and will then come only upon a straggling herd 
 of a few score. As a matter of fact, where there 
 is no artificial food put up for winter use cattle 
 always need a good deal of groimd per head; 
 and this is peculiarly the case with us in the 
 Northwest, where much of the groimd is bare of 
 vegetation and where what pasture there is is 
 both short and sparse. It is a matter of absolute 
 necessity, where beasts are left to shift for them- 
 selves in the open during the bitter winter 
 weather, that they then should have grass that 
 they have not cropped too far down ; and to 
 insure this it is necessary with us to allow on 
 the average about twenty-five acres of groimd 
 to each animal. This means that a range of 
 country ten miles square will keep between two 
 and three thousand head of stock only, and if 
 more are put on, it is at the risk of seeing a severe 
 winter kill off half or three-quarters of the whole 
 n-umber. So a range may be in reality over- 
 stocked when to an Eastern and impractised eye 
 
28 Ranch Life 
 
 it seems hardly to have on it a number worth 
 taking into account. 
 
 Overstocking is the great danger threatening 
 the stock-raising industry on the plains. This 
 industry has only risen to be of more than local 
 consequence during the past score of years, as 
 before that time it was confined to Texas and 
 California; but during these two decades of its 
 existence the stockmen in different localities have 
 again and again suffered the most ruinous losses, 
 usually with overstocking as the ultimate cause. 
 In the south the drought, and in the north the 
 deep snows, and everywhere unusually bad 
 winters, do immense damage; still, if the land 
 is fitted for stock at all, they will, averaging one 
 year with another, do very well so long as the 
 feed is not cropped down too close. 
 
 But, of course, no amoimt of feed will make 
 some countries worth anything for cattle that 
 are not housed during the winter ; and stockmen 
 in choosing new ranges for their herds pay almost 
 as much attention to the capacity of the land 
 for yielding shelter as they do to the abimdant 
 and good quality of the grass. High up among 
 the foot-hills of the mountains cattle will not live 
 through the winter; and an open, rolling prairie 
 land of heavy rainfall, where in consequence the 
 snow lies deep and there is no protection from 
 the furious cold winds, is useless for winter 
 
Out on the Range 29 
 
 grazing, no matter how thick and high the feed. 
 The three essentials for a range are grass, water, 
 and shelter : the water is only needed in summer 
 and the shelter in winter, while it may be doubted 
 if drought during the hot months has ever killed 
 off more cattle than have died of exposure on 
 shelterless groimd to the icy weather, lasting 
 from November to April. 
 
 The finest summer range may be valueless 
 either on account of its lack of shelter or because 
 it is in a region of heavy snowfall — portions of 
 territory lying in the same latitude and not very 
 far apart often differing widely in this respect, 
 or extraordinarily severe weather may cause a 
 heavy death-rate utterly unconnected with over- 
 stocking. This was true of the loss that visited 
 the few herds which spent the very hard winter 
 of 1880 on the northern cattle plains. These 
 were the pioneers of their kind, and the grass 
 was all that could be desired; yet the extraor- 
 dinary severity of the weather proved too much 
 for the cattle. This was especially the case with 
 those herds consisting of "pilgrims," as they are 
 called — that is, of animals driven up on to the 
 range from the south, and therefore in poor 
 condition. One such herd of pilgrims on the 
 Powder River suffered a loss of thirty-six hun- 
 dred out of a total of four thousand, and the 
 survivors kept alive only by browsing on the 
 
30 Ranch Life 
 
 tops of cotton woods felled for them. Even 
 seasoned animals fared very badly. One great 
 herd in the Yellowstone Valley lost about a 
 fourth of its number, the loss falling mainly on 
 the breeding cows, calves, and bulls, — always the 
 chief sufferers, as the steers, and also the dry 
 cows, will get through almost anything. The 
 loss here would have been far heavier than it 
 was had it not been for a curious trait shown 
 by the cattle. They kept in bands of several 
 hundred each, and during the time of the deep 
 snows a band would make a start and travel 
 several miles in a straight line, plowing their 
 way through the drifts and beating out a broad 
 track; then, when stopped by a frozen water- 
 course or chain of buttes, they would turn back 
 and graze over the trail thus made, the only 
 place where they could get at the grass. 
 
 A drenching rain, followed by a severe snap of 
 cold, is even more destructive than deep snow, 
 for the saturated coats of the poor beasts are 
 turned into sheets of icy mail, and the grass- 
 blades, frozen at the roots as well as above, 
 change into sheaves of brittle spears as uneatable 
 as so many icicles. Entire herds have perished 
 in consequence of such a storm. Mere cold, 
 however, will kill only very weak animals, which 
 is forttmate for us, as the spirit in the ther- 
 mometer during winter often sinks to fifty 
 
Out on the Range 3t 
 
 degrees below zero, the cold being literally 
 arctic ; yet though the cattle become thin during 
 such a snap of weather, and sometimes have 
 their ears, tails, and even horns frozen off, they 
 nevertheless rarely die from the cold alone. But 
 if there is a blizzard blowing at such a time, the 
 cattle need shelter, and if caught in the open, 
 will travel for scores of miles before the storm, 
 until they reach a break in the groimd, or some 
 stretch of dense woodland, which will shield 
 them from the blasts. If cattle traveling in this 
 manner come to some obstacle that they cannot 
 pass, as, for instance, a wire fence or a steep 
 railway embankment, they will not try to make 
 their way back against the storm, but will simply 
 stand with their tails to it until they drop dead 
 in their tracks; and, accordingly, in some parts 
 of the country — but luckily far to the south of 
 us — the railways are fringed with countless 
 skeletons of beasts that have thus perished, 
 while many of the long wire fences make an 
 almost equally bad showing. In some of the 
 very open country of Kansas and Indian Ter- 
 ritory, many of the herds during the past two 
 years have suffered a loss of from sixty to eighty 
 per cent, although this was from a variety of 
 causes, including drought as well as severe winter 
 weather. Too much rain is quite as bad as too 
 little, especially if it falls after the first of August, 
 
32 Ranch Life 
 
 for then, though the growth of grass is very rank 
 and luxuriant, it yet has Httle strength and does 
 not cure well on the stalk ; and it is only possible 
 to winter cattle at large at all because of the way 
 in which the grass turns into natural hay by this 
 curing on the stalk. 
 
 But scantiness of food, due to overstocking, is 
 the one really great danger to us in the north, 
 who do not have to fear the droughts that 
 occasionally devastate portions of the southern 
 ranges. In a fairly good country, if the feed is 
 plenty, the natural increase of a herd is sure 
 shortly to repair any damage that may be done 
 by an unusually severe winter — unless, indeed, 
 the latter should be one such as occurs but two 
 or three times in a century. When, however, the 
 grass becomes cropped down, then the loss in 
 even an ordinary year is heavy among the weaker 
 animals, and if the winter is at all severe it 
 becomes simply appalling. The snow covers the 
 shorter grass much quicker, and even when there 
 is enough, the cattle, weak and imfit to travel 
 around, have to work hard to get it; their 
 exertions tending to enfeeble them and to render 
 them less able to cope with the exposure and 
 cold. The large patches of brushwood, into 
 which the cattle crowd and which to a small 
 number afford ample shelter and some food, 
 become trodden down and yield neither when 
 
Out on the Range 3^ 
 
 the beasts become too plentiful. Again, the 
 grass is, of course, soonest eaten off where there 
 is shelter; and, accordingly, the broken ground 
 to which the animals cling during winter may be 
 grazed bare of vegetation, though the open plains, 
 to which only the hardiest will at this season 
 stray, may have plenty; and insufficiency of 
 food, although not such as actually to starve 
 them, weakens them so that they succumb 
 readily to the cold or to one of the numerous 
 accidents to which they are liable — as slipping off 
 an icy butte or getting cast in a frozen washout. 
 The cows in calf are those that suffer most, and 
 so heavy is the loss among these and so light the 
 calf crop that it is yet an open question whether 
 our northern ranges are as a whole fitted for 
 breeding. When the animals get weak they will 
 huddle into some nook or comer and simply stay 
 there till they die. An empty hut, for instance, 
 will often in the spring be foimd to contain the 
 carcasses of a dozen weak cows or poor steers that 
 have crawled into it for protection from the cold, 
 and once in have never moved out. 
 
 Overstocking may cause little or no harm for 
 two or three years, but sooner or later there 
 comes a winter which means ruin to the ranches 
 that have too many cattle on them; and in our 
 country, which is even now getting crowded, it 
 is merely a question of time as to when a winter 
 
 3 
 
34 Ranch Life 
 
 will come that will understock the ranges by the 
 summary process of killing off about half of all 
 the cattle throughout the Northwest.' The herds 
 that have just been put on suffer most in such a 
 case; if they have come on late and are com- 
 posed of weak animals, very few indeed, perhaps 
 not ten per cent, will survive. The cattle that 
 have been double or single wintered do better; 
 while a range-raised steer is almost as tough as a 
 buffalo. 
 
 In our northern country we have "free grass;" 
 that is, the stockmen rarely own more than small 
 portions of the land over which their cattle 
 range, the bulk of it being unsurveyed and still 
 the property of the National Government — for 
 the latter refuses to sell the soil except in small 
 lots, acting on the wise principle of distributing 
 it among as many owners as possible. Here and 
 there some ranchman has acquired title to narrow 
 strips of territory peculiarly valuable as giving 
 water-right; but the amount of land thus occu- 
 pied is small with us, — although the reverse is 
 the case farther south, — and there is practically 
 no fencing to speak of. As a consequence, the 
 land is one vast pasture, and the man who over- 
 stocks his own range damages his neighbors as 
 much as himself. These huge northern pastures 
 
 ' Written in the fall of 1886; the ensuing winter exactly 
 fulfilled the prophecy. 
 
Out on the Range 35 
 
 are too dry and the soil too poor to be used for 
 agriculture until the rich, wet lands to the east 
 and west are occupied; and at present we have 
 little to fear from grangers. Of course, in the 
 end much of the ground will be taken up for 
 small farms, but the farmers that so far have 
 come in have absolutely failed to make even a 
 living, except now and then by raising a few 
 vegetables for the use of the stockmen; and we 
 are inclined to welcome the incoming of an 
 occasional settler, if he is a decent man, espe- 
 cially as, by the laws of the Territories in which 
 the great grazing plains lie, he is obliged to fence 
 in his own patch of cleared grotmd, and we do 
 not have to keep our cattle out of it. 
 
 At present we are far more afraid of each other. 
 There are always plenty of men who for the sake 
 of the chance of gain they themselves rim are 
 willing to jeopardize the interests of their neigh- 
 bors by putting on more cattle than the land will 
 support — for the loss, of course, falls as heavily 
 on the man who has put on the right number as 
 on him who has put on too many; and it is 
 against these individuals that we have to guard 
 so far as we are able. To protect ourselves com- 
 pletely is impossible, but the very identity of 
 interest that renders all of us liable to suffer for 
 the fault of a few also renders us as a whole able 
 to take some rough measures, to guard against 
 
36 Ranch Life 
 
 the wrong-doing of a portion of our number ; for 
 the fact that the cattle wander intermixed over 
 the ranges forces all the ranchmen of a locality 
 to combine if they wish to do their work effec- 
 tively. Accordingly, the stockmen of a neigh- 
 borhood, when it holds as many cattle as it safely 
 can, usually imitedly refuse to work with any one 
 who puts in another herd. In the cow country a 
 man is peculiarly dependent upon his neighbors, 
 and a small outfit is wholly unable to work 
 without their assistance when once the cattle 
 have mingled completely with those of other 
 brands. A large outfit is much more master of 
 its destiny, and can do its own work quite by 
 itself; but even such a one can be injured in 
 countless ways if the hostility of the neighboring 
 ranchmen is incurred. 
 
 The best days of ranching are over; and 
 though there are many ranchmen who still make 
 money, yet during the past two or three years 
 the majority have certainly lost. This is espe- 
 cially true of the numerous Easterners who went 
 into the business without any experience and 
 trusted themselves entirely to their Western rep- 
 resentatives ; although, on the other hand, many 
 of those who have made most money at it are 
 Easterners, who, however, have happened to be 
 naturally fitted for the work and who have de- 
 liberately settled down to learning the business 
 
Out on the Range 37 
 
 as they would have learned any other, devoting 
 their whole time and energy to it. Stock-raising, 
 as now carried on, is characteristic of a young 
 and wild land. As the country grows older, it 
 will in some places die out, and in others entirely 
 change its character; the ranches will be broken 
 up, will be gradually modified into stock-farms, 
 or, if on good soil, may even fall under the sway 
 of the husbandman. 
 
 In its present form stock-raising on the plains 
 is doomed, and can hardly outlast the century. 
 The great free ranches, with their barbarous, 
 picturesque, and curiously fascinating surrotmd- 
 ings, mark a primitive stage of existence as surely 
 as do the great tracts of primeval forests, and 
 like the latter, must pass away before the onward 
 march of our people; and we who have felt the 
 charm of the life, and have exulted in its aboimd- 
 ing vigor and its bold, restless freedom, will not 
 only regret its passing for our own sakes, but 
 must also feel real sorrow that those who come 
 after us are not to see, as we have seen, what is 
 perhaps the pleasantest, healthiest, and most 
 exciting phase of American existence. 
 
M 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HOME RANCH. 
 
 Y home ranch Hes on both sides of the Little 
 Missouri, the nearest ranchman above me 
 being about twelve, and the nearest below 
 about ten, miles distant. The general course of 
 the stream here is northerly, but, while flowing 
 through my ranch, it takes a great westerly reach 
 of some three miles, walled in, as always, between 
 chains of steep, high bluffs half a mile or more 
 apart. The stream twists down through the val- 
 ley in long sweeps, leaving oval wooded bottoms, 
 first on one side and then on the other ; and in an 
 open glade among the thick-growing timber 
 stands the long, low house of hewn logs. 
 
 Just in front of the ranch veranda is a line of 
 old cottonwoods that shade it during the fierce 
 heats of summer, rendering it always cool and 
 pleasant. But a few feet beyond these trees 
 comes the cut-off bank of the river, through 
 whose broad, sandy bed the shallow stream winds 
 as if lost, except when a freshet fills it from brim 
 to brim with foaming yellow water. The bluffs 
 that wall in the river-valley curve back in semi- 
 circles, rising from its alluvial bottom generally 
 as abrupt cliffs, but often as steep, grassy slopes 
 
 38 
 
The Home Ranch 39 
 
 that lead up to great level plateaus ; and the line 
 is broken every mile or two by the entrance of a 
 coulee, or dry creek, whose head branches may 
 be twenty miles back. Above us, where the 
 river comes round the bend, the valley is very 
 narrow, and the high buttes boimding it rise, 
 sheer and barren, into scalped hill-peaks and 
 naked knife-blade ridges. 
 
 The other buildings stand in the same open 
 glade with the ranch house, the dense growth 
 of cottonwoods and matted, thorny underbrush 
 making a wall all about, through which we have 
 chopped our wagon-roads and trodden out our 
 own bridle-paths. The cattle have now trampled 
 down this brush a little, but deer still lie in it, 
 only a couple of hundred yards from the house; 
 and from the door sometimes in the evening one 
 can see them peer out into the open, or make their 
 way down, timidly and cautiously, to drink at the 
 river. The stable, sheds, and other outbuildings, 
 with the hayricks and the pens for such cattle as 
 we bring in during winter, are near the house ; the 
 patch of fenced garden land is on the edge of the 
 woods; and near the middle of the glade stands 
 the high, circular horse-corral, with a snubbing- 
 post in the center, and a wing built out from one 
 side of the gate entrance, so that the saddle-band 
 can be driven in without trouble. As it is very 
 hard to work cattle where there is much brush, 
 
40 Ranch Life 
 
 the larger cow-corral is some four miles off on an 
 open bottom. 
 
 A ranchman's life is certainly a very pleasant 
 one, albeit generally varied with plenty of hard- 
 ship and anxiety. Although occasionally he 
 passes days of severe toil, — for example, if he 
 goes on the round-up he works as hard as any of 
 his men, — yet he no longer has to undergo the 
 monotonous drudgery attendant upon the tasks 
 of the cowboy or of the apprentice in the business. 
 His fare is simple; but, if he chooses, it is good 
 enough. Many ranches are provided with noth- 
 ing at all but salt pork, canned goods, and bread ; 
 indeed, it is a curious fact that in traveling through 
 the cow coimtry it is often impossible to get any 
 milk or butter ; but this is only because the owners 
 or managers are too lazy to take enough trouble 
 to insure their own comfort. We ourselves 
 always keep up two or three cows, choosing such 
 as are naturally tame, and so we invariably have 
 plenty of milk and, when there is time for churn- 
 ing, a good deal of butter. We also keep hens, 
 which, in spite of the damaging inroads of hawks, 
 bob-cats, and foxes, supply us with eggs, and in 
 time of need, when our rifles have failed to keep 
 us in game, with stewed, roast, or fried chicken 
 also. From our garden we get potatoes, and 
 unless drought, frost, or grasshoppers interfere 
 (which they do about every second year), other 
 
The Home Ranch 41 
 
 vegetables as well. For fresh meat we depend 
 chiefly upon our prowess as hunters. 
 
 During much of the time we are away on the 
 different round-ups, that "wheeled house," the 
 great four-horse wagon, being then our home; 
 but when at the ranch our routine of life is always 
 much the same, save during the excessively bitter 
 weather of midwinter, when there is little to do 
 except to hunt, if the days are fine enough. We 
 breakfast early — before dawn when the nights 
 have grown long, and rarely later than sunrise, 
 even in midsummer. Perhaps before this meal, 
 certainly the instant it is over, the man whose 
 duty it is rides off to hunt up and drive in the 
 saddle-band. Each of us has his own string of 
 horses, eight or ten in number, and the whole 
 band usually split up into two or three com- 
 panies. In addition to the scattered groups of 
 the saddle-band, our six or eight mares, with 
 their colts, keep by themselves, and are rarely 
 bothered by us, as no cowboy ever rides anything 
 but horses, because mares give great trouble 
 where all the animals have to be herded together. 
 Once every two or three days somebody rides 
 round and finds out where each of these smaller 
 bands is, but the man who goes out in the morn- 
 ing merely gathers one bunch. He drives these 
 into the corral, the other men (who have been 
 lolling idly about the house or stable, fixing their 
 
42 Ranch Life 
 
 saddles or doing any odd job) coming out with 
 their ropes as soon as they hear the patter of the 
 unshod hoofs and the shouts of the cowboy driver. 
 Going into the corral, and standing near the cen- 
 ter, each of us picks out some one of his own string 
 from among the animals that are trotting and 
 running in a compact mass round the circle ; and 
 after one or more trials, according to his skill, 
 ropes it and leads it out. When all have caught 
 their horses the rest are again turned loose, 
 together with those that have been kept up over- 
 night. 
 
 Some horses soon get tame and do not need 
 to be roped ; my pet cutting pony, little Muley, 
 and good old Manitou, my companion in so 
 many hunting trips, will neither of them stay 
 with the rest of their fellows that are jamming and 
 jostling each other as they rush round in the dust 
 of the corral, but they very sensibly walk up and 
 stand quietly with the men in the middle, by the 
 snubbing-post. Both are great pets, Manitou in 
 particular ; the wise old fellow being very fond of 
 bread and sometimes coming up of his own accord 
 to the ranch house and even putting his head into 
 the door to beg for it. 
 
 Once saddled, the men ride off on their different 
 tasks ; for almost everything is done in the saddle, 
 except that in winter we cut our firewood and 
 quarry our coal, — both on the ranch, — and in 
 
The Home Ranch 43 
 
 summer attend to the garden and put up what 
 wild hay we need. 
 
 If any horses have strayed, one or two of the men 
 will be sent off to look for them ; for hunting lost 
 horses is one of the commonest and most irksome 
 of our duties. Every outfit always has certain 
 of its horses at large ; and if they remain out long 
 enough they become as wild and wary as deer and 
 have to be regularly surrounded and run down. 
 On one occasion, when three of mine had been 
 rimning loose for a couple of months, we had to 
 follow at full speed for at least fifteen miles before 
 exhausting them enough to enable us to get some 
 control over them and head them toward a corral. 
 Twice I have had horses absent nearly a year 
 before they were recovered. One of them, after 
 being on the ranch nine months, went off one 
 night and traveled about two himdred miles in 
 a straight line back to its old haunts, swimming 
 the Yellowstone on the way. Two others were 
 at one time away nearly eighteen months, during 
 which time we saw them twice, and on one occa- 
 sion a couple of the men fairly ran their horses 
 down in following them. We began to think 
 they were lost for good, as they were all the time 
 going farther down toward the Sioux coimtry, 
 but we finally recovered them. 
 
 If the men do not go horse -hunting, they may 
 ride off over the range ; for there is generally some 
 
44 Ranch Life 
 
 work to be done among the cattle, such as driving 
 in and branding calves that have been overlooked 
 by the round-up, or getting some animal out of a 
 bog-hole. During the early spring months, before 
 the round-up begins, the chief work is in hauling 
 out mired cows and steers ; and if we did not keep 
 a sharp lookout, the losses at this season would 
 be very serious. As long as everything is frozen 
 solid there is, of course, no danger from miring; 
 but when the thaw comes, along toward the begin- 
 ning of March, a period of new danger to the cattle 
 sets in. When the ice breaks up, the streams are 
 left with an edging of deep bog, while the quick- 
 sand is at its worst. As the frost goes out of the 
 soil, the ground roimd every little alkali-spring 
 changes into a trembling quagmire, and deep holes 
 of slimy, tenacious mud form in the bottom of 
 all the gullies. The cattle, which have had to live 
 on snow for three or four months, are very eager 
 for water, and are weak and in poor condition. 
 They rush heedlessly into any pool and stand 
 there, drinking gallons of the icy water and sink- 
 ing steadily into the mud. When they try to get 
 out they are already too deep down, and are too 
 weak to make a prolonged struggle. After one 
 or two fits of desperate floundering, they resign 
 themselves to their fate with dumb apathy and 
 are lost, unless some one of us riding about dis- 
 covers and hauls them out. They may be thus 
 
The Home Ranch 45 
 
 lost in wonderfully small mud-holes; often they 
 will be found dead in a gulch but two or three feet 
 across, or in the quicksand of a creek so narrow 
 that it could almost be jumped. An alkali-hole, 
 where the water oozes out through the thick clay, 
 is the worst of all, owing to the ropy tenacity with 
 which the horrible substance sticks and clings to 
 any unfortunate beast that gets into it. 
 
 In the spring these mud-holes cause very serious 
 losses among the cattle, and are at all times fruit- 
 ful sources of danger; indeed, during an ordinary 
 year more cattle die from getting mired than 
 from any other cause. In addition to this they 
 also often prove very annoying to the rider him- 
 self, as getting his steed mired or caught in a 
 quicksand is one of the commonest of the acci- 
 dents that beset a horseman in the far West. 
 This usually happens in fording a river, if the 
 latter is at all high, or else in crossing one of the 
 numerous creeks ; although I once saw a horse 
 and rider suddenly engulfed while leisurely walk- 
 ing over what appeared to be dry land. They 
 had come to an alkali mud-hole, an old buffalo- 
 wallow, which had filled up and was covered with 
 a sun-baked crust, that let them through as if 
 they had stepped on a trap-door. There being 
 several of us along, we got down our ropes and 
 dragged both tmfortunates out in short order. 
 
 When the river is up it is a very common thing 
 
46 Ranch Life 
 
 for a horseman to have great difficulty in crossing, 
 for the swift, brown water nins over a bed of deep 
 quicksand that is ever shifting. An inexperienced 
 horse, or a mule, — for a mule is useless in mud or 
 quicksand, — becomes mad with fright in such 
 a crossing, and, after speedily exhausting its 
 strength in wild struggles, will throw itself on 
 its side and drown imless the rider gets it out. 
 An old horse used to such work will, on the con- 
 trary, take matters quietly and often push along 
 through really dangerous quicksand. Old Mani- 
 tou never loses his head for an instant ; but, now 
 resting a few seconds, now feeling his way cau- 
 tiously forward, and now making two or three 
 desperate plimges, will go on wherever a horse 
 possibly can. It is really dangerous crossing 
 some of the creeks, as the bottom may give way 
 where it seems hardest; and if one is alone he 
 may work hours in vain before getting his horse 
 out, even after taking off both saddle and bridle, 
 the only hope being to head it so that every plunge 
 takes it an inch or two in the right direction. 
 
 Nor are mud-holes the only danger the horse- 
 man has to fear; for in much of the Bad Lands 
 the buttes are so steep and broken that it needs 
 genuine mountaineering skill to get through them, 
 and no horse but a Western one, bred to the busi- 
 ness, could accomplish the feat. In many parts 
 of our coimtry it is impossible for a horseman 
 
The Home Ranch 47 
 
 who does not know the land to cross it, and it is 
 difficult enough even for an experienced hand. 
 For a stretch of nearly ten miles along the Little 
 Missouri above my range, and where it passes 
 through it, there are but three or four places 
 where it is possible for a horseman to get out to 
 the eastern prairie through the exceedingly broken 
 coimtry lying back from the river. In places this 
 very rough groimd comes down to the water; 
 elsewhere it lies back near the heads of the creeks. 
 In such very bad ground the whole country seems 
 to be one tangled chaos of canyon-like valleys, 
 winding gullies and washouts with abrupt, im- 
 broken sides, isolated peaks of sandstone, marl, 
 or "gumbo" clay, which rain turns into slippery 
 glue, and hill chains the ridges of which always 
 end in sheer cliffs. After a man has made his 
 way with infinite toil for half a mile, a point will 
 be reached aroimd which it is an absolute impos- 
 sibility to go, and the adventurer has nothing to 
 do but painfully retrace his steps and try again 
 in a new direction, as likely as not with the same 
 result. In such a place the rider dismoimts and 
 leads his horse, the latter climbing with catlike 
 agility up seemingly inaccessible heights, scram- 
 bling across the steep, sloping shoulders of the 
 bluffs, sliding down the faces of the clay cliffs 
 with all four legs rigid, or dropping from ledge to 
 ledge like a goat, and accepting with unruffled 
 
48 Ranch Life 
 
 composure an occasional roll from top to bottom. 
 But, in spite of the climbing abilities of the ponies, 
 it is difficult, and at times — for our steeds, at any 
 rate — dangerous work to go through such places, 
 and we only do it when it cannot be avoided. 
 Once I was overtaken by darkness while trying 
 to get through a great tract of very rough land, 
 and, after once or twice nearly breaking my neck, 
 in despair had to give up all attempts to get out, 
 and vintil daybreak simply stayed where I was, in 
 a kind of ledge or pocket on the side of the cliff, 
 luckily sheltered from the wind. It was mid- 
 summer and the nights were short, but this par- 
 ticular one seemed quite long enough ; and though 
 I was on the move by dawn, it was three hours 
 later before I led the horse, as himgry, numb, and 
 stiff as myself, out on the prairie again. 
 
 Occasionally it is imperatively necessary to 
 cross some of the worst parts of the Bad Lands 
 with a wagon, and such a trip is exhausting and 
 laborious beyond belief. Often the wagon will 
 have to be taken to pieces every few hundred 
 yards in order to get it over a ravine, lower it into 
 a valley, or drag it up a cliff. One outfit, that a 
 year ago tried to take a short cut through some 
 of the Bad Lands of the Powder River, made just 
 four miles in three days, and then had to come 
 back to their starting-point after all. But with 
 only saddle-horses we feel that it must be a very 
 
The Home Ranch 49 
 
 extraordinary country indeed if, in case of neces- 
 sity, we cannot go through it. 
 
 The long forenoon's work, with its attendant 
 mishaps to man and beast, being over, the men 
 who have been out among the horses and cattle 
 come riding in, to be joined by their fellows — if 
 any there be — who have been himting, or haying, 
 or chopping wood. The midday dinner is vari- 
 able as to time, for it comes when the men have 
 returned from their work; but, whatever be the 
 hour, it is the most substantial meal of the day, 
 and we feel that we have little fault to find with 
 a table on the clean cloth of which are spread 
 platters of smoked elk meat, loaves of good bread, 
 jugs and bowls of milk, saddles of venison or 
 broiled antelope steaks, perhaps roast and fried 
 prairie chickens, with eggs, butter, wild plums, 
 and tea or coffee. 
 
 The afternoon's tasks are usually much the 
 same as the morning's, but this time is often spent 
 in doing the odds and ends; as, for instance, it 
 may be devoted to breaking-in a new horse. 
 Large outfits generally hire a bronco-buster to 
 do this; but we oursfelves almost always break 
 our own horses, two or three of my men being 
 pretty good riders, although none of them can 
 claim to be anything out of the common. A 
 first-class flash rider or bronco-buster receives 
 high wages, and deserves them, for he follows a 
 4 
 
50 Ranch Life 
 
 most dangerous trade, at which no man can hope 
 to grow old; his work being infinitely harder 
 than that of an Eastern horse-breaker or rough- 
 rider, because he has to do it in such a limited 
 time. A good rider is a good rider all the world 
 over; but an Eastern or English horse-breaker 
 and a Western bronco-buster have so little in com- 
 mon with each other as regards style or surround- 
 ings, and are so totally out of place in doing each 
 other's work, that it is almost impossible to get 
 either to admit that the other has any merits at 
 all as a horseman, for neither could sit in the 
 saddle of the other or could without great diffi- 
 culty perform his task. The ordinary Eastern 
 seat, which approaches more or less the seat of a 
 cross-country rider or fox-hunter, is nearly as 
 different from the cowboy's seat as from that of 
 a man who rides bareback. The stirrups on a 
 stock saddle are much farther back than they are 
 on an ordinary English one (a difference far more 
 important than the high horn and cantle of the 
 former) , and the man stands nearly erect in them, 
 instead of having his legs bent ; and he grips with 
 the thighs and not with the knees, throwing his 
 feet well out. Some of the things he teaches his 
 horse would be wholly useless to an Eastern eques- 
 trian: for example, one of the first lessons the 
 newly caught animal has to learn is not to "run 
 on a rope;" and he is taught this by being vio- 
 
The Home Ranch 51 
 
 lently snubbed up, probably turning a somer- 
 sault, the first two or three times that he feels the 
 noose settle roimd his neck, and makes a mad rush 
 for liberty. The snubbing-post is the usual 
 adjunct in teaching such a lesson; but a skilful 
 man can do without any help and throw a horse 
 clean over by holding the rope tight against the 
 left haunch, at the same time leaning so far back, 
 with the legs straight in front, that the heels dig 
 deep into the groimd when the strain comes, and 
 the horse, running out with the slack of the rope, 
 is brought up standing, or even turned head over 
 heels by the shock. Cowboys are probably the 
 only workingmen in the world who invariably 
 wear gloves, buckskin gauntlets being preferred, 
 as otherwise the ropes would soon take every 
 particle of skin off their hands. 
 
 A bronco-buster has to work by such violent 
 methods in consequence of the short amount of 
 time at his command. Horses are cheap, each 
 outfit has a great many, and the wages for break- 
 ing an animal are but five or ten dollars. Three 
 rides, of an hour or two each, on as many con- 
 secutive days, are the outside number a bronco- 
 buster deems necessary before turning an animal 
 over as "broken." The average bronco-buster, 
 however, handles horses so very rudely that we 
 prefer, aside from motives of economy, to break 
 our own; and this is always possible, if we take 
 
52 Ranch Life 
 
 enough time. The best and quietest horses on 
 the ranch are far from being those broken by the 
 best riders ; on the contrary, they are those that 
 have been handled most gently, although firmly, 
 and that have had the greatest number of days 
 devoted to their education. 
 
 Some horses, of course, are almost incurably 
 vicious, and must be conquered by main force. 
 One pleasing brute on my ranch will at times 
 rush at a man open-mouthed like a wolf, and this 
 is a regular trick of the range-stallions. In a 
 great many — indeed, in most — localities there are 
 wild horses to be foiind, which, although invari- 
 ably of domestic descent, being either themselves 
 runaways from some ranch or Indian outfit, or 
 else claiming such for their sires and dams, yet 
 are quite as wild as the antelope on whose domain 
 they have intruded. Ranchmen run in these wild 
 horses whenever possible, and .they are but little 
 more difficult to break than the so-called "tame" 
 animals. But the wild stallions are, whenever 
 possible, shot; both because of their propensity 
 for driving off the ranch mares, and because their 
 incurable viciousness makes them always unsafe 
 companions for other horses still more than for 
 men. A wild stallion fears no beast except the 
 grizzly, and will not always flinch from an en- 
 coimter with it ; yet it is a curious fact that a jack 
 will almost always kill one in a fair fight. The 
 
The Home Ranch 53 
 
 particulars of a fight of this sort were related to 
 me by a cattle man who was engaged in bringing 
 out blooded stock from the East. Among the 
 animals under his charge were two great stallions, 
 one gray and one black, and a fine jackass, not 
 much over half the size of either of the former. 
 The animals were kept in separate pens, but one 
 day both horses got into the same enclosure, next 
 to the jack-pen, and began to fight as only enraged 
 stallions can, striking like boxers with their fore 
 feet, and biting with their teeth. The gray was 
 getting the best of it ; but while clinched with his 
 antagonist in one tussle they rolled against the 
 jack-pen, breaking it in. No sooner was the jack 
 at liberty than, with ears laid back and mouth 
 wide open, he made straight for the two horses, 
 who had for the moment separated. The gray 
 turned to meet him, rearing on his hind legs and 
 striking at him with his fore feet; but the jack 
 slipped in, and in a minute grasped his antagonist 
 by the throat with his wide-open jaws, and then 
 held on like a bulldog, all four feet planted stiffiy 
 in the soil. The stallion made tremendous efforts 
 to shake him off : he would try to whirl round and 
 kick him, but for that the jack was too short; 
 then he would rise up, lifting the jack off the 
 ground, and strike at him with his fore feet ; but 
 all that he gained by this was to skin his foe's 
 front legs without making him loose his hold. 
 
54 Ranch Life 
 
 Twice they fell, and twice the stallion rose, by 
 main strength dragging the jack with him; but 
 all in vain. Meanwhile the black horse attacked 
 both the combatants, with perfect impartiality, 
 striking and kicking them with his hoofs, while 
 his teeth, as they slipped off the tough hides, met 
 with a snap like that of a bear-trap. Undoubt- 
 edly the jack would have killed at least one of 
 the horses had not the men come up, and with 
 no small difficulty separated the maddened brutes. 
 If not breaking horses, mending saddles, or 
 doing something else of the sort, the cowboys 
 will often while away their leisure moments by 
 practising with the rope. A man cannot prac- 
 tise too much with this if he wishes to attain even 
 moderate proficiency ; and as a matter of fact he 
 soon gets to wish to practise the whole time. A 
 cowboy is always roping something, and it espe- 
 cially delights him to try his skill at game. A 
 friend of mine, a young ranchman in the Judith 
 basin, about four years ago roped a buffalo, and 
 by the exercise of the greatest skill, both on his 
 own part and on his steed's, actually succeeded, 
 by alternate bullying and coaxing, in getting the 
 huge brute almost into camp. I have occasion- 
 ally known men on fast horses to rope deer, and 
 even antelope, when circumstances all joined to 
 favor them ; and last summer one of the cowboys 
 on a ranch about thirty miles off ran into and 
 
The Home Ranch 55 
 
 roped a wounded elk. A forty-foot lariat is the 
 one commonly used, for the ordinary range at 
 which a man can throw it is only about twenty- 
 five feet. Few men can throw forty feet; and 
 to do this, taking into account the coil, needs 
 a sixty-foot rope. 
 
 When the day's work is over we take supper, 
 and bed-time comes soon afterward, for the men 
 who live on ranches sleep well and soundly. As 
 a rule, the nights are cool and bracing, even in 
 midsummer ; except when we occasionally have a 
 spell of burning weather, with a steady, hot wind 
 that blows in our faces like a furnace blast, send- 
 ing the thermometer far up above a himdred and 
 making us gasp for breath, even at night, in the 
 dry-baked heat of the air. But it is only rarely 
 that we get a few days of this sort ; generally, no 
 matter how imbearable the heat of the day has 
 been, we can at least sleep pleasantly at night. 
 
 A ranchman's work is, of course, free from 
 much of the sameness attendant upon that of a 
 mere cowboy. One day he will ride out with 
 his men among the cattle, or after strayed horses ; 
 the next he may hxmt, so as to keep the ranch 
 in meat; then he can make the tour of his out- 
 lying camps ; or, again, may join one of the round- 
 ups for a week or two, perhaps keeping with it the 
 entire time it is working. On occasions he will 
 have a good deal of spare time on his hands, 
 
56 Ranch Life 
 
 which, if he chooses, he can spend in reading or 
 writing. If he cares for books, there will be 
 many a worn volume in the primitive little sitting- 
 room, with its log walls and huge fireplace; but 
 after a hard day's work a man will not read much, 
 but will rock to and fro in the flickering firelight, 
 talking sleepily over his success in the day's chase 
 and the difficulty he has had with the cattle ; or 
 else may simply lie stretched at full length on the 
 elk-hides and wolf-skins in front of the hearth- 
 stone, listening in drowsy silence to the roar and 
 crackle of the blazing logs and to the moaning of 
 the wind outside. 
 
 In the sharp fall weather the riding is delicious 
 all day long ; but even in the late spring, and all 
 through the summer, we try, if we can, to do our 
 work before the heat of the day, and if going on a 
 long ride, whether to himt or for other purposes, 
 leave the ranch house by dawn. 
 
 The early rides in the spring mornings have a 
 charm all their own, for they are taken when, for 
 the one and only time during the year, the same 
 brown landscape of these high plains turns to a 
 vivid green, as the new grass sprouts and the trees 
 and bushes thrust forth the young leaves ; and at 
 dawn, with the dew glittering everywhere, all 
 things show at their best and freshest. The 
 flowers are out and a man may gallop for miles 
 at a stretch with his horse's hoofs sinking at every 
 
The Home Ranch 57 
 
 stride into the carpet of prairie roses, whose short 
 stalks lift the beautiful blossoms but a few inches 
 from the groimd. Even in the waste places the 
 cactuses are blooming ; and one kind in particular, 
 a dwarfish, globular plant, with its mass of splen- 
 did crimson flowers, glows against the sides of the 
 gray buttes like a splash of flame. 
 
 The ravines, winding about and splitting into a 
 labyrinth of coulees, with chains of rounded hills 
 to separate them, have groves of trees in their 
 bottoms, along the sides of the water-courses. In 
 these are found the blacktail deer, and his cousin, 
 the whitetail, too, with his flatmting flag; but in 
 the spring-time, when we are after antelope only, 
 we must go out farther to the flat prairie land on 
 the divide. Here, in places, the level, grassy 
 plains are strewn with moimds and hillocks of 
 red or gray scoria, that stand singly or clustered 
 into little groups, their tops crested, or their sides 
 covered, by queer detached masses of volcanic 
 rock, wrought into strange shapes by the dead 
 forces whose blind, hidden strength long ago called 
 them into being. The road our wagons take, when 
 the water is too high for us to come down the river- 
 bottom, stretches far ahead — two dark, straight, 
 parallel furrows which merge into one in the dis- 
 tance. Quaint little horned frogs crawl sluggishly 
 along in the wheel tracks, and the sickle-billed 
 curlews run over the ground or soar above and 
 
58 Ranch Life 
 
 around the horsemen, uttering their mournful, 
 never-ceasing clamor. The grass-land stretches 
 out in the sunlight like a sea, every wind bending 
 the blades into a ripple and flecking the prairie 
 with shifting patches of a different green from 
 that around, exactly as the touch of a light squall 
 or wind-gust will fleck the smooth surface of the 
 ocean. Our Western plains differ widely in detail 
 from those of Asia ; yet they always call to mind 
 
 .... The Scythian 
 On the wide steppe, unharnessing 
 His wheel'd house at noon. 
 
 He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal — 
 Mares' milk, and bread 
 Baked on the embers ; — all around 
 The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch . . . 
 . . . ; before him, for long miles, 
 Alive with bright green lizards 
 And the springing bustard fowl, 
 The track, a straight black line. 
 Furrows the rich soil ; here and there 
 Clusters of lonely mounds 
 Topp'd with rough hewn. 
 Gray, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer 
 The sunny waste. 
 
 In the spring mornings the rider on the plains 
 will hear bird songs unknown in the East. The 
 Missouri skylark sings while soaring above the 
 great plateaus so high in the air that it is impos- 
 sible to see the bird; and this habit of singing 
 while soaring it shares with some sparrow-like 
 
The Home Ranch 59 
 
 birds that are often found in company with it. 
 The white-shouldered lark-bunting, in its livery 
 of black, has rich, full notes, and as it sings on 
 the wing it reminds one of the bobolink ; and the 
 sweet-voiced lark-finch also utters its song in the 
 air. These birds, and most of the sparrows of 
 the plains, are characteristic of this region. 
 
 But many of our birds, especially those found in 
 the wooded river-bottoms, answer to those of the 
 East ; only that nearly every one has some marked 
 point of difference from its Eastern representa- 
 tive. The bluebird out West is very much of a 
 blue bird indeed, for it has no "earth tinge" on 
 its breast at all ; while the indigo-bird, on the con- 
 trary, has gained the ruddy markings that the 
 other has lost. The flicker has the shafts of its 
 wing and tail quills colored orange instead of 
 yellow. The towhee has lost all title to its name, 
 for its only cry is a mew like that of a catbird; 
 while, most wonderful of all, the meadow-lark has 
 foimd a rich, strong voice, and is one of the sweet- 
 est and most incessant singers we have. 
 
 Throughout June the thickets and groves about 
 the ranch house are loud with bird music from 
 before dawn till long after sunrise. The thrashers 
 have sung all the night through from among the 
 thorn-bushes if there has been a moon, or even 
 if there has been bright starlight ; and before the 
 first gHmmer of gray the bell-like, silvery songs 
 
6o Ranch Life 
 
 of the shy woodland thrushes chime in; while 
 meadow-lark, robin, bluebird, and song-sparrow, 
 together with many rarer singers, like the gros- 
 beak, join in swelling the chorus. There are some 
 would-be singers whose intention is better than 
 their execution. Blackbirds of several kinds are 
 plenty roimd the house and stables, walking about 
 with a knowing air, like so many dwarf crows; 
 and now and then a flock of yellow-heads will 
 mix for a few days with their purple or rustv 
 colored brethren. The males of these yellow- 
 headed graldes are really handsome, their orange 
 and yellow heads contrasting finely with the black 
 of the rest of their plumage ; but their voices are 
 discordant to a degree. When a flock has done 
 feeding it will often light in straggling order 
 among the trees in front of the veranda, and 
 then the males will begin to sing, or rather to 
 utter the most extraordinary collection of broken 
 soimds — creakings, gurglings, hisses, twitters, and 
 every now and then a liquid note or two. It is 
 like an accentuated representation of the noise 
 made by a flock of common blackbirds. At night- 
 fall the poor-wills begin to utter their boding call 
 from the wooded ravines back in the hills; not 
 "whip-poor-will," as in the East, but with two 
 syllables only. They often come roimd the ranch 
 house. Late one evening I had been sitting 
 motionless on the veranda, looking out across 
 
The Home Ranch 6i 
 
 the water and watching the green and brown 
 of the hilltops change to purple and umber and 
 then fade off into shadowy gray as the somber 
 darkness deepened. Suddenly a poor- will lit on 
 the floor beside me and stayed some little time; 
 now and then uttering its mournful cries, then 
 ceasing for a few moments as it flitted roimd 
 after insects, and again returning to the same 
 place to begin anew. The little owls, too, call 
 to each other with tremulous, quavering voices 
 throughout the livelong night, as they sit in the 
 creaking trees that overhang the roof. Now and 
 then we hear the wilder voices of the wilderness, 
 from animals that in the hours of darkness do not 
 fear the neighborhood of man: the coyotes wail 
 like dismal ventriloquists, or the silence may be 
 broken by the strident challenge of a lynx, or by 
 the snorting and stamping of a deer that has come 
 to the edge of the open. 
 
 In the hot noontide hours of midsummer the 
 broad ranch veranda, always in the shade, is 
 almost the only spot where a man can be com- 
 fortable ; but here he can sit for hours at a time, 
 leaning back in his rocking-chair, as he reads or 
 smokes, or with half-closed, dreamy eyes gazes 
 across the shallow, nearly dry river-bed to the 
 wooded bottoms opposite, and to the plateaus 
 lying back of them. Against the sheer white 
 faces of the cliffs, that come down without a 
 
62 Ranch Life 
 
 break, the dark green treetops stand out in bold 
 relief. In the hot, lifeless air all objects that are 
 not near by seem to sway and waver. There are 
 few soiinds to break the stillness. From the upper 
 branches of the cotton wood trees overhead, whose 
 shimmering, tremulous leaves are hardly ever 
 quiet, but if the wind stirs at all, rustle and quiver 
 and sigh all day long, comes every now and then 
 the soft, melancholy cooing of the mourning dove, 
 whose voice always seems far away and expresses 
 more than any other sound in nature the sadness 
 of gentle, hopeless, never-ending grief. The other 
 birds are still ; and very few animals move about. 
 Now and then the black shadow of a wheeling 
 vulture falls on the sun-scorched ground. The 
 cattle, that have stnmg down in long files from, 
 the hills, lie quietly on the sand-bars, except that 
 some of the bulls keep traveling up and down, 
 bellowing and routing or giving vent to long, 
 surly grumblings as they paw the sand and toss 
 it up with their horns. At times the horses, too, 
 will come down to drink, and to splash and roll 
 in the water. 
 
 The prairie-dogs alone are not daimted by the 
 heat, but sit at the mouths of their burrows with 
 their usual pert curiosity. They are bothersome 
 little fellows, and most prolific, increasing in spite 
 of the perpetual war made on them by every car- 
 nivorous bird and beast. One of their worst foes 
 
The Home Ranch 63 
 
 is the black-footed ferret, a handsome, rather rare 
 animal, somewhat like a mink, with a yellow- 
 brown body and dark feet and mask. It is a 
 most bloodthirsty little brute, feeding on all small 
 animals and ground birds. It will readily master 
 a jack-rabbit, will kill very young fawns if it finds 
 them in the mother's absence, and works extra- 
 ordinary havoc in a dog town, as it can follow the 
 wretched little beasts down into the burrows. In 
 one instance, I knew of a black-footed ferret 
 making a succession of inroads on a ranchman's 
 poultry, killing and carrying off most of them 
 before it was trapped. Coyotes, foxes, swifts, 
 badgers, and skunks also like to lurk about the 
 dog towns. Of the skiinks, by the way, we had 
 last year altogether too much; there was a per- 
 fect plague of them all along the river, and they 
 took to trying to get into the huts, with the stupid 
 pertinacity of the species. At every ranch house 
 dozens were killed, we ourselves bagging thirty- 
 three, all slain near the house, and one, to our 
 unspeakable sorrow, in it. 
 
 In making a journey over grotmd we know, 
 during the hot weather we often prefer to ride 
 by moonlight. The moon shines very brightly 
 through the dry, clear night air, turning the gray 
 buttes into glimmering silver; and the horses 
 travel far more readily and easily than under the 
 glaring noonday sim. The road between my 
 
64 Ranch Life 
 
 upper and lower ranch houses is about forty miles 
 long, sometimes following the river-bed, and then 
 again branching off inland, crossing the great 
 plateaus and winding through the ravines of the 
 broken coimtry. It is a five hours' fair ride ; and 
 so, in a hot spell, we like to take it during the cool 
 of the night, starting at sunset. After nightfall 
 the face of the country seems to alter marvelously, 
 and the clear moonlight only intensifies the change. 
 The river gleams like running quicksilver, and the 
 moonbeams play over the grassy stretches of the 
 plateaus and glance off the wind-rippled blades as 
 they would from water. The Bad Lands seem 
 to be stranger and wilder than ever, the silvery 
 rays turning the coiintry into a kind of grim fairy- 
 land. The grotesque, fantastic outlines of the 
 higher cliffs stand out with startling clearness, 
 while the lower buttes have become formless, 
 misshapen masses, and the deep gorges are in 
 black shadow; in the darkness there will be no 
 sound but the rhythmic echo of the hoof-beats 
 of the horses, and the steady, metallic clank of 
 the steel bridle-chains. 
 
 But the fall is the time for riding; for in the 
 keen, frosty air neither man nor beast will tire, 
 though out from the dawn imtil the shadows have 
 again waxed long and the daylight has begun to 
 wane, warning all to push straight for home with- 
 out drawing rein. Then deer-saddles and elk- 
 
The Home Ranch 65 
 
 haiinches hang from the trees near the house; 
 and one can have good sport right on the sand 
 of the river-bed, for we always keep shotgun or 
 rifle at hand, to be ready for any prairie chickens, 
 or for such of the passing water-fowl as light in 
 the river near us. Occasionally we take a shot 
 at a flock of waders, among which the pretty 
 avocets are the most striking in looks and man- 
 ners. Prairie fowl are quite plenty all round us, 
 and occasionally small flocks come fairly down into 
 the yard, or perch among the trees near by. At 
 evening they fly down to the river to drink, and 
 as they sit on the sand-bars offer fine marks for 
 the rifles. So do the geese and ducks when they 
 occasionally light on the same places or paddle 
 leisurely down stream in the middle of the river; 
 but to make much of a bag of these we have to 
 use the heavy No. 10, choke-bore shotgim, while 
 the little i6-bore fowling-piece is much the 
 handiest for prairie fowl. A good many dif- 
 ferent kinds of water-fowl pass, ranging in size 
 from a teal duck to a Canada goose, and all of 
 them at times help to eke out our bill of fare. 
 Last fall a white-fronted goose lighted on the 
 river in front of the ranch house, and three of us, 
 armed with miscellaneous weapons, went out 
 after him ; we disabled him, and then after much 
 bad shooting, and more violent running through 
 thick sand and thick underbrush, finally overtook 
 5 
 
66 Ranch Life 
 
 and most foully butchered him. The snow geese 
 and common wild geese are what we usually kill, 
 however. 
 
 Sometimes strings of sandhill cranes fly along 
 the river, their guttural clangor being heard very 
 far off. They usually light on a plateau, where 
 sometimes they form rings and go through a 
 series of queer antics, dancing and posturing to 
 each other. They are exceedingly wide-awake 
 birds, and more shy and wary than antelope, so 
 that they are rarely shot; yet once I succeeded 
 in stalking up to a group in the early morning, 
 and firing into them rather at random, my bullet 
 killed a full-grown female. Its breast, when 
 roasted, proved to be very good eating. 
 
 Sometimes we vary our diet with fish — wall- 
 eyed pike, ugly, slimy catfish, and other imcouth 
 finny things, looking very fit denizens of the mud- 
 choked water; but they are good eating withal, 
 in spite of their uncanny appearance. We usually 
 catch them with set lines, left out overnight in 
 the deeper pools. 
 
 The cattle are fattest and in best condition 
 during the fall, and it is then that the bulk of the 
 beef steers are gathered and shipped — four-year- 
 olds as a rule, though some threes and fives go 
 along with them. Cattle are a nuisance while 
 hunting on foot, as they either take fright and 
 run off when they see the hunter, scaring all game 
 
The Home Ranch 67 
 
 within sight, or else, what is worse, follow him, 
 blustering and bullying and pretending that they 
 are on the point of charging, but rarely actually 
 doing so. Still, they are occasionally really dan- 
 gerous, and it is never entirely safe for a man to 
 be on foot when there is a chance of meeting the 
 droves of long-horned steers. But they will 
 always bluster rather than fight, whether with 
 men or beasts, or with one another. The 
 bulls and some of the steers are forever traveling 
 and challenging each other, never ceasing their 
 hoarse rumbling and moaning and their long- 
 drawn, savage bellowing, tearing up the banks 
 with their horns and sending little spurts of dust 
 above their shoulders with their fore hoofs; yet 
 they do not seem especially fond of real fighting, 
 although, of course, they do occasionally have 
 most desperate and obstinate set-tos with one 
 another. A large bear will make short work of 
 a bull : a few months ago one of the former killed 
 a very big bull near a ranch house a score of miles 
 or so distant, and during one night tore up and 
 devoured a large part of his victim. The ranch- 
 man poisoned the carcass and killed the bear. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ROUND-UP. 
 
 DURING the winter-time there is ordinarily 
 but httle work done among the cattle. 
 There is some line riding, and a continual 
 lookout is kept for the very weak animals, — 
 usually cows and calves, who have to be driven 
 in, fed, and housed; but most of the stock are 
 left to shift for themselves, undisturbed. Almost 
 every stock-growers' association forbids branding 
 any calves before the spring round-up. If great 
 bands of cattle wander off the range, parties may 
 be fitted out to go after them and bring them 
 back; but this is only done when absolutely 
 necessary, as when the drift of the cattle has been 
 toward an Indian reservation or a settled granger 
 country, for the weather is very severe, and the 
 horses are so poor that their food must be carried 
 along. 
 
 The bulk of the work is done during the summer, 
 including the late spring and early fall, and con- 
 sists mainly in a succession of round-ups, begin- 
 ning, with us, in May and ending toward the last 
 of October. 
 
 But a good deal may be done in the intervals 
 
 68 
 
The Round-up 69 
 
 by riding over one's range. Frequently, too, 
 herding will be practised on a large scale. 
 
 Still more important is the "trail" work; 
 cattle, while driven from one range to another, 
 or to a shipping point for beef, being said to be 
 "on the trail." For years, the oversupply from 
 the vast breeding ranches to the south, especially 
 in Texas, has been driven northward in large 
 herds, either to the shipping towns along the 
 great railroads, or else to the fattening ranges of 
 the Northwest ; it having been found, so far, that 
 while the calf crop is larger in the South, beeves 
 become much heavier in the North. Such cattle, 
 for the most part, went along tolerably well- 
 marked routes or trails, which became for the 
 time being of great importance, flourishing — and 
 extremely lawless — towns growing up along them ; 
 but with the growth of the railroad system, and 
 above all with the filling up of the northern ranges, 
 these trails have steadily become of less and less 
 consequence, though many herds still travel them 
 on their way to the already crowded ranges of 
 western Dakota and Montana, or to the Canadian 
 regions beyond. The trail work is something by 
 itself. The herds may be on the trail several 
 months, averaging fifteen miles or less a day. 
 The cowboys accompanying each have to undergo 
 much hard toil, of a peculiarly same and weari- 
 some kind, on account of the extreme slowness 
 
70 Ranch Life 
 
 with which everything must be done, as trail 
 cattle should never be hurried. The foreman of a 
 trail outfit must be not only a veteran cowhand, 
 but also a miracle of patience and resolution. 
 
 Rotmd-up work is far less irksome, there being 
 an immense amount of dash and excitement con- 
 nected with it; and when once the cattle are on 
 the range, the important work is done during the 
 round-up. On cow ranches, or wherever there is 
 breeding stock, the spring round-up is the great 
 event of the season, as it is then that the bulk of 
 the calves are branded. It usually lasts six 
 weeks, or thereabouts ; but its end by no means 
 implies rest for the stockman. On the contrary, 
 as soon as it is over, wagons are sent to work 
 out-of-the-way parts of the country that have 
 been passed over, but where cattle are supposed 
 to have drifted ; and by the time these have come 
 back the first beef roimd-up has begun, and 
 thereafter beeves are steadily gathered and 
 shipped, at least from among the larger herds, 
 until cold weather sets in; and in the fall there 
 is another round-up, to brand the late calves and 
 see that the stock is got back on the range. As 
 all of these roimd-ups are of one character, a 
 description of the most important, taking place 
 in the spring, will be enough. 
 
 In April we begin to get up the horses. Through- 
 out the winter very few have been kept for use, 
 
The Round-up 71 
 
 as they are then poor and weak, and must be 
 given grain and hay if they are to be worked. 
 The men in the line camps need two or three 
 apiece, and each man at the home ranch has a 
 couple more; but the rest are left out to shift 
 for themselves, which the tough, hardy little 
 fellows are well able to do. Ponies can pick up 
 a living where cattle die ; though the scanty feed, 
 which they may have to imcover by pawing off 
 the snow, and the bitter weather often make 
 them look very gaunt by spring-time. But the 
 first warm rains bring up the green grass, and 
 then all the live-stock gain flesh with wonderful 
 rapidity. When the spring roimd-up begins the 
 horses should be as fat and sleek as possible. 
 After running all winter free, even the most sober 
 pony is apt to betray an inclination to buck; 
 and, if possible, we like to ride every animal once 
 or twice before we begin to do real work with 
 him. Animals that have escaped for any length 
 of time are almost as bad to handle as if they had 
 never been broken. One of the two horses men- 
 tioned in a former chapter as having been gone 
 eighteen months has, since his return, been sug- 
 gestively dubbed " Dynamite Jimmy," on account 
 of the incessant and eruptive energy with which 
 he bucks. Many of our horses, by the way, are 
 thus named from some feat or peculiarity. Wire 
 Fence, when being broken, ran into one of the 
 
72 Ranch Life 
 
 abominations after which he is now called; 
 Hackamore once got away and remained out for 
 three weeks with a hackamore, or breaking- 
 halter, on him; Macaulay contracted the habit 
 of regularly getting rid of the huge Scotchman 
 to whom he was entrusted; Bulberry Johnny 
 spent the hour or two after he was first mounted 
 in a large patch of thorny bulberry bushes, his 
 distracted rider imable to get him to do anything 
 but move rotmd sidewise in a circle; Fall Back 
 would never get to the front ; Water Skip always 
 jimips mud-puddles ; and there are a dozen others 
 with names as purely descriptive. 
 
 The stock-growers of Montana, of the western 
 part of Dakota, and even of portions of extreme 
 northern Wyoming, — that is, of all the grazing 
 lands lying in the basin of the Upper Missouri, — 
 have united, and formed themselves into the great 
 Montana Stock-growers' Association. Among the 
 countless benefits they have derived from this 
 course, not the least has been the way in which 
 the various roimd-ups work in with and supple- 
 ment one another. At the spring meeting of the 
 association, the entire territory mentioned above, 
 including perhaps a hundred thousand square 
 miles, is mapped out into round-up districts, 
 which generally are changed but slightly from 
 year to year, and the times and places for the 
 round-ups to begin refixed so that those of 
 
The Round-up 73 
 
 adjacent districts may be run with a view to the 
 best interests of all. Thus the stockmen along 
 the Yellowstone have one round-up; we along 
 the Little JMissouri have another ; and the country 
 lying between, through which the Big Beaver 
 flows, is almost equally important to both. 
 Accordingly, one spring, the Little Missouri 
 round-up, beginning May 25, and working down- 
 stream, was timed so as to reach the mouth of 
 the Big Beaver about June i, the Yellowstone 
 round-up beginning at that date and place. Both 
 then worked up the Beaver together to its head, 
 when the Yellowstone men turned to the west 
 and we bent back to our own river; thus the 
 bulk of the strayed cattle of each were brought 
 back to their respective ranges. Our own 
 round-up district covers the Big and Little 
 Beaver creeks, which rise near each other, but 
 empty into the Little Missouri nearly a hundred 
 and fifty miles apart, and so much of the latter 
 river as lies between their mouths. 
 
 The captain or foreman of the round-up, upon 
 whom very much of its efficiency and success 
 depends, is chosen beforehand. He is, of course, 
 an expert cowman, thoroughly acquainted with 
 the country; and he must also be able to com- 
 mand and to keep control of the wild rough- 
 riders he has under him — a feat needing both 
 tact and firmness. 
 
74 Ranch Life 
 
 At the appointed day all meet at the place 
 from which the round-up is to start. Each ranch, 
 of course, has most work to be done in its own 
 round-up district, but it is also necessary to have 
 representatives in all those surrounding it. A 
 large outfit may employ a dozen cowboys, or 
 over, in the home district, and yet have nearly 
 as many more representing its interest in the 
 various ones adjoining. Smaller outfits generally 
 club together to run a wagon and send outside 
 representatives, or else go along with their 
 stronger neighbors, they paying part of the 
 expenses. A large outfit, with a herd of twenty 
 thousand cattle or more, can, if necessary, run a 
 round-up entirely by itself, and is able to act 
 independently of outside help; it is therefore at 
 a great advantage compared with those that can 
 take no step effectively without their neighbors' 
 consent and assistance. 
 
 If the starting-point is some distance off, it may 
 be necessary to leave home three or four days in 
 advance. Before this we have got everything in 
 readiness ; have overhauled the wagons, shod any 
 horse whose fore feet are tender, — as a rule, all 
 our ponies go barefooted, — and left things in 
 order at the ranch. Our outfit may be taken as 
 a sample of every one else's. We have a stout 
 four-horse wagon to carry the bedding and the 
 food; in its rear a mess-chest is rigged to hold 
 
The Round-up 75 
 
 the knives, forks, cans, etc. All our four team- 
 horses are strong, willing animals, though of no 
 great size, being originally just *' broncos," or 
 unbroken native horses, like the others. The 
 teamster is also cook : a man who is a really first- 
 rate hand at both driving and cooking — and our 
 present teamster is both — can always command 
 his price. Besides our own men, some cowboys 
 from neighboring ranches and two or three rep- 
 resentatives from other roimd-up districts are 
 always along, and we generally have at least a 
 dozen "riders," as they are termed, — that is, 
 cowboys, or "cow-punchers," who do the actual 
 cattle-work, — with the wagon. Each of these 
 has a string of eight or ten ponies; and to take 
 charge of the saddle-band, thus consisting of a 
 hundred odd head, there are two herders, always 
 known as " horse-wranglers "—one for the day 
 and one for the night. Occasionally there will be 
 two wagons, one to carry the bedding and one 
 the food, known, respectively, as the bed and the 
 mess wagon ; but this is not usual. 
 
 While traveling to the meeting-point the pace 
 is always slow, as it is an object to bring the 
 horses on the ground as fresh as possible. Accord- 
 ingly we keep at a walk almost all day, and the 
 riders, having nothing else to do, assist the 
 wranglers in driving the saddle-band, three or 
 four going in front, and others on the side, so 
 
76 Ranch Life 
 
 that the horses shall keep on a walk. There is 
 always some trouble with the animals at the 
 starting out, as they are very fresh and are restive 
 under the saddle. The herd is likely to stampede, 
 and any beast that is frisky or vicious is sure to 
 show its worst side. To do really effective cow- 
 work a pony should be well broken; but many 
 even of the old ones have vicious traits, and almost 
 every man will have in his string one or two 
 young horses, or broncos, hardly broken at all. 
 Thanks to the rough methods of breaking in 
 vogue on the plains many even of the so-called 
 broken animals retain always certain bad habits, 
 the most common being that of bucking. Of the 
 sixty odd horses on my ranch all but half a dozen 
 were broken by ourselves; and though my men 
 are all good riders, yet a good rider is not neces- 
 sarily a good horse-breaker, and indeed it was an 
 absolute impossibility properly to break so many 
 animals in the short time at our command — for 
 we had to use them almost immediately after 
 they were bought. In consequence, very many 
 of my horses have to this day traits not likely to 
 set a timid or a clumsy rider at his ease. One or 
 two run away and cannot be held by even the 
 strongest bit; others can hardly be bridled or 
 saddled until they have been thrown; two or 
 three have a tendency to fall over backward ; and 
 half of them buck more or less, some so hard that 
 
The Round-up 77 
 
 only an expert can sit them ; several I never ride 
 myself, save from dire necessity. 
 
 In riding these wild, vicious horses, and in 
 careering over such very bad ground, especially 
 at night, accidents are always occurring. A man 
 who is merely an ordinary rider is certain to have 
 a pretty hard time. On my first round-up I had 
 a string of nine horses, four of them broncos, only 
 broken to the extent of having each been saddled 
 once or twice. One of them it was an impossi- 
 bility to bridle or to saddle single-handed ; it was 
 very difficult to get on or off him, and he was 
 exceedingly nervous if a man moved his hands 
 or feet; but he had no bad tricks. The second 
 soon became perfectly quiet. The third turned 
 out to be one of the worst buckers on the ranch : 
 once, when he bucked me off, I managed to fall 
 on a stone, and broke a rib. The fourth had a 
 still worse habit, for he would balk and then 
 throw himself over backward: once, when I was 
 not quick enough, he caught me and broke some- 
 thing in the point of my shoulder, so that it 
 was some weeks before I could raise the arm 
 freely. My hurts were far from serious, and did 
 not interfere with my riding and working as usual 
 through the roimd-up; but I was heartily glad 
 when it ended, and ever since have religiously 
 done my best to get none but gentle horses in 
 my own string. However, every one gets falls 
 
ys Ranch Life 
 
 from or with his horse now and then in the cow 
 country; and even my men, good riders though 
 they are, are sometimes injured. One of them 
 once broke his ankle ; another a rib ; another was 
 on one occasion stunned, remaining unconscious 
 for some hours; and yet another had certain of 
 his horses buck imder him so hard and long as 
 finally to hurt his lungs and make him cough 
 blood. Fatal accidents occur annually in almost 
 every district, especially if there is much work to 
 be done among stampeded cattle at night; but 
 on my own ranch none of my men have ever been 
 seriously hurt, though on one occasion a cowboy 
 from another ranch, who was with my wagon, 
 was killed, his horse falling and pitching him 
 heavily on his head. 
 
 For bedding, each man has two or three pairs 
 of blankets, and a tarpaulin or small wagon- 
 sheet. Usually, two or three sleep together. 
 Even in June the nights are generally cool and 
 pleasant, and it is chilly in the early mornings; 
 although this is not always so, and when the 
 weather stays hot and mosquitoes are plenty, the 
 hours of darkness, even in midsummer, seem pain- 
 fully long. In the Bad Lands proper we are not 
 often bothered very seriously by these winged 
 pests ; but in the low bottoms of the Big Missouri, 
 and beside many of the reedy ponds and great 
 sloughs out on the prairie, they are a perfect 
 
The Round-up ^^ 
 
 scourge. During the very hot nights, when they 
 are especially active, the bed-clothes make a man 
 feel absolutely smothered, and yet his only chance 
 for sleep is to wrap himself tightly up, head and 
 all ; and even then some of the pests will usually 
 force their way in. At sunset I have seen the 
 mosquitoes rise up from the land like a dense 
 cloud, to make the hot, stifling night one long 
 torture; the horses would neither lie down nor 
 graze, traveling restlessly to and fro till day- 
 break, their bodies streaked and bloody, and the 
 insects settling on them so as to make them all 
 one color, a uniform gray; while the men, after 
 a few hours' tossing about in the vain attempt to 
 sleep, rose, built a little fire of damp sage brush, 
 and thus endured the misery as best they could 
 imtil it was light enough to work. 
 
 But if the weather is fine, a man will never 
 sleep better nor more pleasantly than in the open 
 air after a hard day's work on the round-up ; nor 
 will an ordinary shower or gust of wind disturb 
 him in the least, for he simply draws the tarpaulin 
 over his head and goes on sleeping. But now and 
 then we have a wind-storm that might better be 
 called a whirlwind and has to be met very differ- 
 ently; and two or three days or nights of rain 
 insure the wetting of the blankets, and therefore 
 shivering discomfort on the part of the would-be 
 sleeper. For two or three hours all goes well; 
 
8o Ranch Life 
 
 and it is rather soothing to listen to the steady 
 patter of the great raindrops on the canvas. But 
 then it will be foiind that a corner has been left 
 open through which the water can get in, or else 
 the tarpaulin will begin to leak somewhere; or 
 perhaps the water will have collected in a hollow 
 underneath and have begun to soak through. 
 Soon a little stream trickles in, and every effort 
 to remedy matters merely results in a change for 
 the worse. To move out of the way insures 
 getting wet in a fresh spot; and the best course 
 is to lie still and accept the evils that have come 
 with what fortitude one can. Even thus, the 
 first night a man can sleep pretty well; but if 
 the rain continues, the second night, when the 
 blankets are already damp, and when the water 
 comes through more easily, is apt to be most 
 impleasant. 
 
 Of course, a man can take little spare clothing 
 on a roimd-up ; at the very outside two or three 
 clean handkerchiefs, a pair of socks, a change of 
 underclothes, and the most primitive kind of 
 washing apparatus, all wrapped up in a stout 
 jacket which is to be worn when night-herding. 
 The inevitable "slicker," or oil-skin coat, which 
 gives complete protection from the wet, is always 
 carried behind the saddle. 
 
 At the meeting-place there is usually a delay 
 of a day or two to let every one come in; and 
 
The Round-up fix 
 
 the plain on which the encampment is made 
 becomes a scene of great bustle and turmoil. 
 The heavy four-horse wagons jolt in from dif- 
 ferent quarters, the horse-wranglers rushing madly 
 to and fro in the endeavor to keep the different 
 saddle-bands from mingling, while the "riders," 
 or cowboys, with each wagon jog along in a body. 
 The representatives from outside districts ride in 
 singly or by twos and threes, every man driving 
 before him his own horses, one of them loaded 
 with his bedding. Each wagon wheels out of the 
 way into some camping-place not too near the 
 others, the bedding is tossed out on the ground, 
 and then every one is left to do what he wishes, 
 while the different wagon bosses, or foremen, seek 
 out the captain of the roimd-up to learn what his 
 plans are. 
 
 There is a good deal of rough but effective dis- 
 cipline and method in the way in which a round-up 
 is carried on. The captain of the whole has as 
 lieutenants the various wagon foremen, and in 
 making demands for men to do some special ser- 
 vice he will usually merely designate some foreman 
 to take charge of the work and let him parcel it 
 out among his men to suit himself. The captain 
 of the round-up or the foreman of a wagon may 
 himself be a ranchman; if such is not the case, 
 and the ranchman nevertheless comes along, he 
 works and fares precisely as do the other cowboys. 
 6 
 
83 Ranch Life 
 
 While the head men are gathered in a little 
 knot, planning out the work, the others are dis- 
 persed over the plain in every direction, racing, 
 breaking rough horses, or simply larking with one 
 another. If a man has an especially bad horse, 
 he usually takes such an opportunity, when he 
 has plenty of time, to ride him ; and while saddling 
 he is surrounded by a crowd of most imsympa- 
 thetic associates who greet with uproarious mirth 
 any misadventure. A man on a bucking horse is 
 always considered fair game, every squeal and 
 jump of the bronco being hailed with cheers of 
 delighted irony for the rider and shouts to "stay 
 with him." The antics of a vicious bronco show 
 infinite variety of detail, but are all modeled on 
 one general plan. When the rope settles roimd 
 his neck the fight begins, and it is only after much 
 plunging and snorting that a twist is taken over 
 his nose, or else a hackamore — a species of severe 
 halter, usually made of plaited hair — slipped on 
 his head. While being bridled he strikes viciously 
 with his fore feet, and perhaps has to be blind- 
 folded or thrown down ; and to get the saddle on 
 him is quite as difficult. When saddled, he may 
 get rid of his exuberant spirits by bucking under 
 the saddle, or may reserve all his energies for the 
 rider. In the last case, the man keeping tight 
 hold with his left hand of the cheek-strap, so as 
 to prevent the horse from getting his head down 
 
The Round-up 83 
 
 until he is fairly seated, swings himself quickly 
 into the saddle. Up rises the bronco's back into 
 an arch; his head, the ears laid straight back, 
 goes down between his fore feet, and, squealing 
 savagely, he makes a succession of rapid, stiff- 
 legged, jarring boimds. Sometimes he is a 
 "plunging" bucker, who runs forward all the 
 time while bucking; or he may buck steadily in 
 one place, or "sun-fish," — that is, bring first one 
 shoulder down almost to the ground and then the 
 other, — or else he may change ends while in the 
 air. A first-class rider will sit throughout it all 
 without moving from the saddle, quirting' his 
 horse all the time, though his hat may be jarred 
 off his head and his revolver out of its sheath. 
 After a few jumps, however, the average man 
 grasps hold of the horn of the saddle — the de- 
 lighted onlookers meanwhile earnestly advising 
 him not to "go to leather" — and is contented to 
 get through the affair in any shape provided he 
 can escape without being thrown off. An acci- 
 dent is of necessity borne with a broad grin, as 
 any attempt to resent the raillery of the by- 
 standers — which is perfectly good-humored — 
 would be apt to result disastrously. Cowboys 
 are certainly extremely good riders. As a class 
 they have no superiors. Of course, they would 
 
 'Quirt is the name of the short flexible riding-whip used 
 throughout cowboy land. The term is a Spanish one. 
 
84 Ranch Life 
 
 at first be at a disadvantage in steeple-chasing 
 or fox-hunting, but their average of horseman- 
 ship is without doubt higher than that of the men 
 who take part in these latter amusements. A 
 cowboy would learn to ride across coimtry in a 
 quarter of the time it would take a cross-country 
 rider to learn to handle a vicious bronco or to do 
 good cow-work round and in a herd. 
 
 On such a day, when there is no regular work, 
 there will often also be horse-races, as each outfit 
 is pretty sure to have some nmning pony which 
 it believes can outpace any other. These con- 
 tests are always short-distance dashes, for but a 
 few hundred yards. Horse-racing is a mania with 
 most plainsmen, white or red. A man with a 
 good racing pony will travel all about with it, 
 often winning large sums, visiting alike cow 
 ranches, frontier towns, and Indian encampments. 
 Sometimes the race is "pony against pony," the 
 victor taking both steeds. In racing the men 
 ride bareback, as there are hardly any light saddles 
 in the cow coimtry. There will be intense ex- 
 citement and very heavy betting over a race 
 between two well-known horses, together with a 
 good chance of blood being shed in the attendant 
 quarrels. Indians and whites often race against 
 each other as well as among themselves. I have 
 seen several such contests, and in every case but 
 one the white man happened to win. A race is 
 
The Round-up 85 
 
 usually run between two thick rows of spectators, 
 on foot and on horseback, and as the racers pass, 
 these rows close in behind them, every man 
 yelling and shouting with all the strength of his 
 lungs, and all waving their hats and cloaks to 
 encourage the contestants, or firing off their 
 revolvers and saddle guns. The little horses are 
 fairly maddened, as is natural enough, and run 
 as if they were crazy: were the distances longer 
 some would be sure to drop in their tracks. 
 7 Besides the horse-races, which are, of course, 
 the main attraction, the men at a round-up will 
 often get up wrestling matches or foot-races. In 
 fact, every one feels that he is off for a holiday; 
 for after the monotony of a long winter, the 
 cowboys look forward eagerly to the round-up, 
 where the work is hard, it is true, but exciting 
 and varied, and treated a good deal as a frolic. 
 There is no eight-hour law in cowboy land: 
 during round-up time we often coimt ourselves 
 lucky if we get off with much less than sixteen 
 hours ; but the work is done in the saddle, and 
 the men are spurred on all the time by the desire 
 to outdo one another in feats of daring and skilful 
 horsemanship. There is very little quarreling or 
 fighting ; and though the fun often takes the form 
 of rather rough horse-play, yet the practice of 
 carrying dangerous weapons makes cowboys show 
 far more rough courtesy to each other and far 
 
86 Ranch Life 
 
 less rudeness to strangers than is the case among, 
 for instance, Eastern miners, or even lumbermen. 
 When a quarrel may very probably result fatally, 
 a man thinks twice before going into it: warlike 
 people or classes always treat one another with a 
 certain amount of consideration and politeness. 
 The moral tone of a cow-camp, indeed, is rather 
 high than otherwise. Meanness, cowardice, and 
 dishonesty are not tolerated. There is a high 
 regard for truthfulness and keeping one's word, 
 intense contempt for any kind of hypocrisy, and 
 a hearty dislike for a man who shirks his work. 
 Many of the men gamble and drink, but many 
 do neither; and the conversation is not worse 
 than in most bodies composed wholly of male 
 human beings. A cowboy will not submit tamely 
 to an insult, and is ever ready to avenge his own 
 wrongs; nor has he an overwrought fear of 
 shedding blood. He possesses, in fact, few of the 
 emasculated, milk-and-water moralities admired 
 by the pseudo-philanthropists; but he does pos- 
 sess, to a very high degree, the stem, manly 
 qualities that are invaluable to a nation. 
 
 The method of work is simple. The mess- 
 wagons and loose horses, after breaking camp in 
 the morning, move on in a straight line for some 
 few miles, going into camp again before midday ; 
 and the day herd, consisting of all the cattle that 
 have been found far off their range, and which 
 
The Round-up 87 
 
 are to be brought back there, and of any others 
 that it is necessary to gather, follows on afterward. 
 Meanwhile the cowboys scatter out and drive in 
 all the cattle from the country round about, going 
 perhaps ten or fifteen miles back from the line of 
 march, and meeting at the place where camp has 
 already been pitched. The wagons always keep 
 some little distance from one another, and the 
 saddle-bands do the same, so that the horses may 
 not get mixed. It is rather picturesque to see 
 the four-horse teams filing down at a trot through 
 a pass among the buttes — the saddle-bands being 
 driven along at a smart pace to one side or behind, 
 the teamsters cracking their whips, and the horse- 
 wranglers calling and shouting as they ride rapidly 
 from side to side behind the horses, urging on the 
 stragglers by dexterous touches with the knotted 
 ends of their long lariats that are left trailing from 
 the saddle. The country driven over is very 
 rough, and it is often necessary to double up 
 teams and put on eight horses to each wagon in 
 going up an unusually steep pitch, or hauling 
 through a deep mud-hole, or over a river crossing 
 where there is quicksand. 
 
 The speed and thoroughness with which a 
 country can be worked depends, of course, very 
 largely upon the number of riders. Ours is 
 probably about an average round-up as regards 
 size. The last spring I was out, there were half 
 
88 Ranch Life 
 
 a dozen wagons along; the saddle-bands num- 
 bered about a hundred each ; and the morning 
 we started, sixty men in the saddle splashed 
 across the shallow ford of the river that divided 
 the plain where we had camped from the valley 
 of the long winding creek up which we were first 
 to work. 
 
 In the morning the cook is preparing breakfast 
 long before the first glimmer of dawn. As soon 
 as it is ready, probably about three o'clock, he 
 utters a long-drawn shout, and all the sleepers feel 
 it is time to be up on the instant, for they know 
 there can be no such thing as delay on the 
 roimd-up, under penalty of being set afoot. 
 Accordingly, they bundle out, rubbing their eyes 
 and yawning, draw on their boots and trousers, — 
 if they have taken the latter off, — roll up and 
 cord their bedding, and usually without any 
 attempt at washing crowd over to the little 
 smoldering fire, which is placed in a hole dug in 
 the ground, so that there may be no risk of its 
 spreading. The men are rarely very hungry at 
 breakfast, and it is a meal that has to be eaten 
 in shortest order, so it is perhaps the least im- 
 portant. Each man, as he comes up, grasps a 
 tin cup and plate from the mess-box, pours out 
 his tea or coffee, with sugar, but, of course, no 
 milk, helps himself to one or two of the biscuits 
 that have been baked in a Dutch oven, and per- 
 
The Round-up 89 
 
 haps also to a slice of the fat pork swimming in 
 the grease of the frying-pan, ladles himself out 
 some beans, if there are any, and squats down on 
 the ground to eat his breakfast. The meal is not 
 an elaborate one; nevertheless a man will have 
 to hurry if he wishes to eat it before hearing the 
 foreman sing out, "Come, boys, catch your 
 horses;" when he must drop everything and nm 
 out to the wagon with his lariat. The night 
 wrangler is now bringing in the saddle-band, 
 which he has been up all night guarding. A rope 
 corral is rigged up by stretching a rope from each 
 wheel of one side of the wagon, making a V-shaped 
 space, into which the saddle-horses are driven. 
 Certain men stand around to keep them inside, 
 while the others catch the horses: many outfits 
 have one man to do all the roping. As soon as 
 each has caught his horse — usually a strong, tough 
 animal, the small, quick ponies being reserved for 
 the work round the herd in the afternoon — the 
 band, now in charge of the day wrangler, is turned 
 loose, and every one saddles up as fast as possible. 
 It still lacks some time of being sunrise, and the 
 air has in it the peculiar chill of the early morning. 
 When all are saddled, many of the horses bucking 
 and dancing about, the riders from the different 
 wagons all assemble at the one where the captain 
 is sitting, already mounted. He waits a very short 
 time — for laggards receive but scant mercy — 
 
90 Ranch Life 
 
 before announcing the proposed camping-place 
 and parceling out the work among those present. 
 If, as is usually the case, the line of march is 
 along a river or creek, he appoints some man to 
 take a dozen others and drive down (or up) it 
 ahead of the day herd, so that the latter will not 
 have to travel through other cattle ; the day herd 
 itself being driven and guarded by a dozen men 
 detached for that purpose. The rest of the riders 
 are divided into two bands, placed under men 
 who know the country, and start out, one on each 
 side, to bring in every head for fifteen miles back. 
 The captain then himself rides down to the new 
 camping-place, so as to be there as soon as any 
 cattle are brought in. 
 
 Meanwhile the two bands, a score of riders in 
 each, separate and make their way in opposite 
 directions. The leader of each tries to get such a 
 "scatter" on his men that they will cover com- 
 pletely all the land gone over. This morning work 
 is called circle riding, and is peculiarly hard in the 
 Bad Lands on account of the remarkably broken, 
 rugged nature of the country. The men come in 
 on lines that tend to a common center — as if the 
 sticks of a fan were curved. As the band goes 
 out, the leader from time to time detaches one or 
 two men to ride down through certain sections 
 of the country, making the shorter, or what are 
 called inside, circles, while he keeps on; and 
 
The Round-up 91 
 
 finally, retaining as companions the two or there 
 whose horses are toughest, makes the longest 
 or outside circle himself, going clear back to the 
 divide, or whatever the point may be that marks 
 the limit of the round-up work, and then turning 
 and working straight to the meeting-place. Each 
 man, of course, brings in every head of cattle he 
 can see. 
 
 These long, swift rides in the glorious spring 
 mornings are not soon to be forgotten. The 
 sweet, fresh air, with a touch of sharpness thus 
 early in the day, and the rapid motion of the 
 fiery little horse combine to make a man's blood 
 thrill and leap with sheer buoyant lighthearted- 
 ness and eager, exultant pleasure in the boldness 
 and freedom of the life he is leading. As we climb 
 the steep sides of the first range of buttes, wisps 
 of wavering mist still cling in the hollows of the 
 valley ; when we come out on the top of the first 
 great plateau, the sun flames up over its edge, and 
 in the level, red beams the galloping horsemen 
 throw long fantastic shadows. Black care rarely 
 sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough ; at 
 any rate, not when he first feels the horse move 
 under him. 
 
 Sometimes we trot or pace, and again we lope 
 or gallop ; the few who are to take the outside 
 circle must needs ride both hard and fast. Al- 
 though only grass-fed, the horses are tough and 
 
92 Ranch Life 
 
 wiry; and, moreover, are each used but once in 
 four days, or thereabouts, so they stand the work 
 well. The course out lies across great grassy pla- 
 teaus, along knife-like ridge crests, among winding 
 valleys and ravines, and over acres of barren, sim- 
 scorched buttes, that look grimly grotesque and 
 forbidding, while in the Bad Lands the riders 
 unhesitatingly go down and over places where 
 it seems impossible that a horse should even stand. 
 The line of horsemen will quarter down the side 
 of a butte, where every pony has to drop from 
 ledge to ledge like a goat, and will go over the 
 shoulder of a soapstone cliff, when wet and slip- 
 pery, with a series of plimges and scrambles which 
 if unsuccessful would land horses and riders in the 
 bottom of the canyon-like washout below. In de- 
 scending a clay butte after a rain, the pony will 
 put all four feet together and slide down to the 
 bottom almost or quite on his haunches. In very 
 wet weather the Bad Lands are absolutely im- 
 passable ; but if the grotmd is not slippery, it is a 
 remarkable place that can shake the matter-of- 
 course confidence felt by the rider in the capacity 
 of his steed to go anywhere. 
 
 When the men on the outside circle have 
 reached the bound set them, — whether it is a 
 low divide, a group of jagged hills, the edge of 
 the rolling, limitless prairie, or the long, waste 
 reaches of alkali and sage brush, — they turn their 
 
The Round-up 93 
 
 horses' heads and begin to work down the branches 
 of the creeks, one or two riding down the bottom, 
 while the others keep off to the right and the left, 
 a little ahead and fairly high up on the side hills, 
 so as to command as much of a view as possible. 
 On the level or rolling prairies the cattle can be 
 seen a long way off, and it is an easy matter to 
 gather and to drive them ; but in the Bad Lands 
 every little pocket, basin, and coulee has to be 
 searched, every gorge or ravine entered, and the 
 dense patches of brushwood and spindling, wind- 
 beaten trees closely examined. All the cattle are 
 carried on ahead down the creek ; and it is curious 
 to watch the different behavior of the different 
 breeds. A cowboy riding off to one side of the 
 creek, and seeing a number of long-homed Texans 
 grazing in the branches of a set of coulees, has 
 merely to ride across the upper ends of these, 
 uttering the drawn-out "ei-koh-h-h," so familiar 
 to the cattlemen, and the long-horns will stop 
 grazing, stare fixedly at him, and then, wheeling, 
 strike off down the coulees at a trot, tails in air, 
 to be carried along by the center riders when they 
 reach the main creek into which the coulees lead. 
 Our own range cattle are not so wild, but never- 
 theless are easy to drive; while Eastern-raised 
 beasts have little fear of a horseman, and merely 
 stare stupidly at him until he rides directly to- 
 ward them. Every little bunch of stock is thus 
 
94 Ranch Life 
 
 collected, and all are driven along together. At the 
 place where some large fork joins the main creek 
 another band may be met, driven by some of the 
 men who have left earlier in the day to take one of 
 the shorter circles ; and thus, before coming down 
 to the bottom where the wagons are camped 
 and where the actual "roiind-up" itself is to take 
 place, this one herd may include a couple of thou- 
 sand head ; or, on the other hand, the longest ride 
 may not result in the finding of a dozen animals. 
 As soon as the riders are in, they disperse to their 
 respective wagons to get dinner and change horses, 
 leaving the cattle to be held by one or two of their 
 number. If only a small number of cattle have 
 been gathered, they will all be nm into one herd ; 
 if there are many of them, however, the different 
 herds will be held separate. 
 
 A plain where a round-up is taking place offers 
 a picturesque sight. I well remember one such. 
 It was on a level bottom in a bend of the river, 
 which here made an almost semicircular sweep. 
 The bottom was in shape a long oval, hemmed in 
 by an unbroken line of steep bluffs so that it 
 looked like an amphitheater. Across the faces of 
 the dazzling white cliffs there were sharp bands 
 of black and red, drawn by the coal seams and 
 the layers of burned clay : the leaves of the trees 
 and the grass had the vivid green of spring-time. 
 The wagons were camped among the cottonwood 
 
The Round-Up 95 
 
 trees fringing the river, a thin column of smoke 
 rising up from beside each. The horses were 
 grazing round the outskirts, those of each wagon 
 by themselves and kept from going too near the 
 others by their watchful guard. In the great 
 circular corral, toward one end, the men were 
 already branding calves, while the whole middle 
 of the bottom was covered with lowing herds of 
 cattle and shouting, galloping cowboys. Appar- 
 ently there was nothing but dust, noise, and con- 
 fusion ; but in reality the work was proceeding all 
 the while with the utmost rapidity and certainty. 
 
 As soon as, or even before, the last circle riders 
 have come in and have snatched a few hasty 
 mouthfuls to serve as their midday meal, we 
 begin to work the herd — or herds, if the one herd 
 would be of too unwieldy size. The animals are 
 held in a compact bunch, most of the riders form- 
 ing a ring outside, while a couple from each ranch 
 successively look the herds through and cut out 
 those marked with their own brand. It is diffi- 
 cult, in such a mass of moving beasts, — for they 
 do not stay still, but keep weaving in and out 
 among each other, — to find all of one's own ani- 
 mals: a man must have natural gifts, as well as 
 great experience, before he becomes a good brand- 
 reader and is able really to "clean up a herd" — 
 that is, be sure he has left nothing of his own in it. 
 
 To do good work in cutting out from a herd. 
 
g6 Ranch Life 
 
 not only should the rider be a good horseman, but 
 he should also have a skilful, thoroughly trained 
 horse. A good cutting pony is not common, and 
 is generally too valuable to be used anywhere but 
 in the herd. Such a one enters thoroughly into 
 the spirit of the thing, and finds out immediately 
 the animal his master is after ; he will then follow 
 it closely of his own accord through every wheel 
 and double at top speed. When looking through 
 the herd, it is necessary to move slowly ; and when 
 any animal is foimd it is taken to the outskirts at 
 a walk, so as not to alarm the others. Once at the 
 outside, however, the cowboy has to ride like light- 
 ning ; for as soon as the beast he is after finds itself 
 separated from its companions it endeavors to 
 break back among them, and a young, range- 
 raised steer or heifer runs like a deer. In cutting 
 out a cow and a calf two men have to work 
 together. As the animals of a brand are cut out 
 they are received and held apart by some rider 
 detailed for the purpose, who is said to be "hold- 
 ing the cut." 
 
 All this time the men holding the herd have 
 their hands full, for some animal is continually 
 trying to break out, when the nearest man flies 
 at it at once and after a smart chase brings it back 
 to its fellows. As soon as all the cows, calves, and 
 whatever else is being gathered have been cut out, 
 the rest are driven clear off the groimd and turned 
 
The Round-up 97 
 
 loose, being headed in the direction contrary to 
 that in which we travel the following day. Then 
 the riders surround the next herd, the men hold- 
 ing cuts move them up near it, and the work is 
 begun anew. 
 
 If it is necessary to throw an animal, either to 
 examine a brand or for any other reason, half a 
 dozen men will have their ropes down at once; 
 and then it is spur and quirt in the rivalry to see 
 which can outdo the other until the beast is roped 
 and thrown. A first-class hand will, unaided, 
 rope, throw, and tie down a cow or steer in won- 
 derfully short time; one of the favorite tests of 
 competitive skill among the cowboys is the speed 
 with which this feat can be accomplished. Usually, 
 however, one man ropes the animal by the head 
 and another at the same time gets the loop of his 
 lariat over one or both its hind legs, when it is 
 twisted over and stretched out in a second. In 
 following an animal on horseback the man keeps 
 steadily swinging the rope round his head, by a 
 dexterous motion of the wrist only, until he gets 
 a chance to throw it; when on foot, especially if 
 catching horses in a corral, the loop is allowed to 
 drag loosely on the groimd. A good roper will 
 hurl out the coil with marvelous accuracy and 
 force; it fairly whistles through the air, and 
 settles round the object with almost infallible 
 certainty. Mexicans make the best ropers; but 
 
 7 
 
98 Ranch Life 
 
 some Texans are very little behind them. A good 
 horse takes as much interest in the work as does 
 his rider, and, the instant the noose settles over 
 the victim, wheels and braces himself to meet the 
 shock, standing with his legs firmly planted, the 
 steer or cow being thrown with a jerk. An iin- 
 skilful rider and untrained horse will often them- 
 selves be thrown when the strain comes. 
 
 Sometimes an animal — usually a cow or steer, 
 but, strangely enough, very rarely a bull — will get 
 fighting mad, and turn on the men. If on the 
 drive, such a beast usually is simply dropped out ; 
 but if they have time, nothing delights the cow- 
 boys more than an encounter of this sort, and the 
 charging brute is roped and tied down in short 
 order. Often such a one will make a very vicious 
 fight, and is most dangerous. Once a fighting cow 
 kept several of us busy for nearly an hour; she 
 gored two ponies, one of them, which was, luckily, 
 hurt but slightly, being my own pet cutting horse. 
 If a steer is hauled out of a mud-hole, its first act 
 is usually to charge the rescuer. 
 
 As soon as all the brands of cattle are worked, 
 and the animals that are to be driven along have 
 been put in the day herd, attention is turned to 
 the cows and calves, which are already gathered 
 in different bands, consisting each of all the cows 
 of a certain brand and all the calves that are fol- 
 lowing them. If there is a corral, each band is in 
 
The Round-up 99 
 
 turn driven Into it; if there is none, a ring of 
 riders does duty in its place, A fire is built, the 
 irons heated, and a dozen men dismount to, as it 
 is called, "wrestle" the calves. The best two 
 ropers go in on their horses to catch the latter; 
 one man keeps tally, a couple put on the brands, 
 and the others seize, throw, and hold the little 
 unfortunates. A first-class roper invariably 
 catches the calf by both hind feet, and then, 
 having taken a twist with his lariat round the 
 horn of the saddle, drags the bawling little 
 creature, extended at full length, up to the fire, 
 where it is held, before it can make a struggle. 
 A less skilful roper catches round the neck, and 
 then, if the calf is a large one, the man who seizes 
 it has his hands full, as the bleating, bucking ani- 
 mal develops astonishing strength, cuts the 
 wildest capers, and resists frantically and with 
 all its power. If there are seventy or eighty 
 calves in a corral, the scene is one of the greatest 
 confusion. The ropers, spurring and checking the 
 fierce little horses, drag the calves up so quickly 
 that a dozen men can hardly hold them ; the men 
 with the irons, blackened with soot, run to and 
 fro; the calf -wrestlers, grimy with blood, dust, 
 and sweat, work like beavers; while with the 
 voice of a stentor the tallyman shouts out the 
 number and sex of each calf. The dust rises in 
 clouds, and th^ ^houts, cheers, curses, and laughter 
 
loo Ranch Life 
 
 of the men unite with the lowing of the cows 
 and the frantic bleating of the roped calves to 
 make a perfect babel. Now and then an old cow 
 turns vicious and puts every one out of the corral. 
 Or a maverick bull, — that is, an unbranded bull, — 
 a yearling or a two-years-old, is caught, thrown, 
 and branded; when he is let up there is sure to 
 be a fine scatter. Down goes his head, and he 
 bolts at the nearest man, who makes out of the 
 way at top speed, amidst roars of laughter from 
 all of his companions; while the men holding 
 down calves swear savagely as they dodge charg- 
 ing mavericks, trampling horses, and taut lariats 
 with frantic, plunging little beasts at the farther 
 ends. 
 
 Every morning certain riders are detached to 
 drive and to guard the day herd, which is most 
 monotonous work, the men being on from four 
 in the morning till eight in the evening, the only 
 rest coming at dinner-time, when they change 
 horses. When the herd has reached the camping- 
 groimd there is nothing to do but to loll listlessly 
 over the saddle-bow in the blazing sun watching 
 the cattle feed and sleep, and seeing that they do 
 not spread out too much. Plodding slowly along 
 on the trail through the columns of dust stirred up 
 by the hoofs is not much better. Cattle travel 
 best and fastest stnmg out in long lines; the 
 swiftest taking the lead in single file, while the 
 
The Round-up loi 
 
 weak and the lazy, the young calves and the poor 
 cows, crowd together in the rear. Two men travel 
 along with the leaders, one on each side, to point 
 them in the right direction ; one or two others 
 keep by the flanks, and the rest are in the rear to 
 act as "drag-drivers" and hurry up the phalanx 
 of reluctant weaklings. If the foremost of the 
 string travels too fast, one rider will go along on 
 the trail a few rods ahead, and thus keep them 
 back so that those in the rear will not be left behind. 
 Generally all this is very tame and irksome; 
 but by fits and starts there will be little flurries 
 of excitement. Two or three of the circle riders 
 may tmexpectedly come over a butte near by 
 with a bunch of cattle, which at once start for the 
 day herd, and then there will be a few minutes' 
 furious riding hither and thither to keep them out. 
 Or the cattle may begin to run, and then get 
 "milling" — that is, all crowd together into a 
 mass like a ball, wherein they move roimd and 
 round, trying to keep their heads toward the 
 center, and refusing to leave it. The only way 
 to start them is to force one's horse in among 
 them and cut out some of their number, which 
 then begin to travel off by themselves, when the 
 others will probably follow. But in spite of occa- 
 sional incidents of this kind, day-herding has a 
 dreary sameness about it that makes the men 
 dislike and seek to avoid it. 
 
I02 Ranch Life 
 
 From eight in the evening till four in the morn- 
 ing the day herd becomes a night herd. Each 
 wagon in succession undertakes to guard it for a 
 night, dividing the time into watches of two hours 
 apiece, a couple of riders taking each watch. This 
 is generally chilly and tedious ; but at times it is 
 accompanied by intense excitement and danger, 
 when the cattle become stampeded, whether by 
 storm or otherwise. The first and the last watches 
 are those chosen by preference; the others are 
 disagreeable, the men having to turn out cold and 
 sleepy, in the pitchy darkness, the two hours of 
 chilly wakefulness completely breaking the night's 
 rest. The first guards have to bed the cattle 
 down, though the day-herders often do this them- 
 selves: it simply consists in hemming them into 
 as small a space as possible, and then riding round 
 them until they lie down and fall asleep. Often, 
 especially at first, this takes some time — the 
 beasts will keep rising and lying down again. 
 When at last most become quiet, some perverse 
 brute of a steer will deliberately hook them all up ; 
 they keep moving in and out among one another, 
 and long strings of animals suddenly start out 
 from the herd at a stretching walk, and are turned 
 back by the nearest cowboy only to break forth 
 at a new spot. When finally they have lain 
 down and are chewing their cud or slumbering, 
 the two night guards begin riding round them in 
 
 1 
 
The Round-up 103 
 
 opposite ways, often, on very dark nights, calling 
 or singing to them, as the sound of the human 
 voice on such occasions seems to have a tendency 
 to quiet them. In inky black weather, especially 
 when rainy, it is both difficult and unpleasant 
 work ; the main trust must be placed in the horse, 
 which, if old at the business, will of its own accord 
 keep pacing steadily round the herd, and head off 
 any animals that, unseen by the rider's eyes in 
 the darkness, are trying to break out. Usually 
 the watch passes off without incident, but on rare 
 occasions the cattle become restless and prone to 
 stampede. Anything may then start them — the 
 plunge of a horse, the sudden approach of a coyote, 
 or the arrival of some outside steers or cows that 
 have smelt them and come up. Every animal in 
 the herd will be on its feet in an instant, as if by an 
 electric shock, and off with a rush, horns and tail 
 up. Then, no matter how rough the groimd nor 
 how pitchy black the night, the cowboys must 
 ride for all there is in them and spare neither 
 their own nor their horses' necks. Perhaps their 
 charges break away and are lost altogether ; per- 
 haps, by desperate galloping, they may head them 
 off, get them nmning in a circle, and finally stop 
 them. Once stopped, they may break again, and 
 possibly divide up, one cowboy, perhaps, follow- 
 ing each band. I have known six such stops and 
 renewed stampedes to take place in one night, the 
 
I04 Ranch Life 
 
 cowboy staying with his ever-diminishing herd of 
 steers until daybreak, when he managed to get 
 them under control again, and, by careful humor- 
 ing of his jaded, staggering horse, finally brought 
 those that were left back to the camp, several 
 miles distant. The riding in these night stam- 
 pedes is wild and dangerous to a degree, espe- 
 cially if the man gets caught in the rush of the 
 beasts. It also frequently necessitates an im- 
 mense amount of work in collecting the scattered 
 animals. On one such occasion a small party of 
 us were thirty-six hours in the saddle, dismoimt- 
 ing only to change horses or to eat. We were 
 almost worn out at the end of the time; but it 
 must be kept in mind that for a long spell of such 
 work a stock-saddle is far less tiring than the 
 ordinary Eastern or English one, and in every way 
 superior to it. 
 
 By very hard riding, such a stampede may 
 sometimes be prevented. Once we were bring- 
 ing a thousand head of young cattle down to my 
 lower ranch, and as the river was high were obliged 
 to take the inland trail. The third night we were 
 forced to make a dry camp, the cattle having had 
 no water since the morning. Nevertheless, we got 
 them bedded down without difficulty, and one of 
 the cowboys and myself stood first guard. But 
 very soon after nightfall, when the darkness had 
 become complete, the thirsty brutes of one accord 
 
The Round-up 105 
 
 got on their feet and tried to break out. The only- 
 salvation was to keep them close together, as, if 
 they once got scattered, we knew they could never 
 be gathered ; so I kept on one side, and the cow- 
 boy on the other, and never in my life did I ride 
 so hard. In the darkness I could but dimly see 
 the shadowy outlines of the herd, as with whip and 
 spurs I ran the pony along its edge, turning back 
 the beasts at one point barely in time to wheel 
 and keep them in at another. The ground was 
 cut up by numerous little gullies, and each of us 
 got several falls, horses and riders turning com- 
 plete somersaults. We were dripping with sweat, 
 and our ponies quivering and trembling like 
 quaking aspens, when, after more than an hour 
 of the most violent exertion, we finally got the 
 herd quieted again. 
 
 On another occasion while with the roimd-up 
 we were spared an excessively unpleasant night 
 only because there happened to be two or three 
 great corrals not more than a mile or so away. 
 All day long it had been raining heavily, and we 
 were well drenched ; but toward evening it lulled 
 a little, and the day herd, a very large one, of 
 some two thousand head, was gathered on an 
 open bottom. We had turned the horses loose, 
 and in our oilskin slickers cowered, soaked and 
 comfortless, imder the lee of the wagon, to take 
 a meal of damp bread and lukewarm tea, the 
 
io6 Ranch Life 
 
 sizzling embers of the fire having about given up 
 the ghost after a fruitless struggle with the steady 
 downpour. Suddenly the wind began to come in 
 quick, sharp gusts, and soon a regular blizzard 
 was blowing, driving the rain in stinging level 
 sheets before it. Just as we were preparing to 
 turn into bed, with the certainty of a night of 
 more or less chilly misery ahead of us, one of my 
 men, an iron-faced personage, whom no one would 
 ever have dreamed had a weakness for poetry, 
 looked toward the plain where the cattle were, and 
 remarked, " I guess there's 'racing and chasing on 
 Cannobie Lea' now, sure." Following his gaze, 
 I saw that the cattle had begiin to drift before the 
 storm, the night guards being evidently imable to 
 cope with them, while at the other wagons riders 
 were saddling in hot haste and spurring off to their 
 help through the blinding rain. Some of us at 
 once ran out to our own saddle-band. All of the 
 ponies were standing huddled together, with their 
 heads down and their tails to the wind. They 
 were wild and restive enough usually; but the 
 storm had cowed them, and we were able to catch 
 them without either rope or halter. We made 
 quick work of saddling ; and the second each man 
 was ready, away he loped through the dusk, 
 splashing and slipping in the pools of water that 
 studded the muddy plain. Most of the riders 
 were already out when we arrived. The cattle 
 
The Round-up 107 
 
 were gathered in a compact, wedge-shaped, or 
 rather fan-shaped mass, with their tails to the 
 wind — that is, toward the thin end of the wedge 
 or fan. In front of this fan-shaped mass of 
 frightened, maddened beasts was a long line 
 of cowboys, each muffled in his slicker and with 
 his broad hat pulled down over his eyes, to shield 
 him from the pelting rain. When the cattle were 
 quiet for a moment every horseman at once turned 
 roimd w4th his back to the wind, and the whole 
 line stood as motionless as so many sentries. Then, 
 if the cattle began to spread out and overlap at 
 the ends, or made a rush and broke through at 
 one part of the lines, there would be a change into 
 wild activity. The men, shouting and swaying in 
 their saddles, darted to and fro with reckless speed, 
 utterly heedless of danger — now racing to the 
 threatened point, now checking and wheeling their 
 horses so sharply as to bring them square on their 
 haimches, or even throw them fiat down, while 
 the hoofs plowed long furrows in the slippery soil, 
 until, after some minutes of this mad galloping 
 hither and thither, the herd, having drifted a 
 hundred yards or so, would be once more brought 
 up standing. We always had to let them drift a 
 little to prevent their spreading out too much. 
 The din of the thunder was terrific, peal following 
 peal until they mingled in one continuous, rum- 
 bling roar ; and at every thimder-clap louder than 
 
io8 Ranch Life 
 
 its fellows the cattle would try to break away. 
 Darkness had set in, but each flash of lightning 
 showed us a dense array of tossing horns and 
 staring eyes. It grew always harder to hold in 
 the herd ; but the drift took us along to the corrals 
 already spoken of, whose entrances were luckily to 
 windward. As soon as we reached the first we 
 cut off part of the herd, and turned it within ; and 
 after again doing this with the second, we were 
 able to put all the remaining animals into the 
 third. The instant the cattle were housed five- 
 sixths of the horsemen started back at full speed 
 for the wagons; the rest of us barely waited to 
 put up the bars and make the corrals secure before 
 galloping after them. We had to ride right in 
 the teeth of the driving storm; and once at the 
 wagons we made small delay in crawling under 
 our blankets, damp though the latter were, for 
 we were ourselves far too wet, stiff, and cold not 
 to hail with grateful welcome any kind of shelter 
 from the wind and the rain. 
 
 All animals were benumbed by the violence of 
 this gale of cold rain : a prairie chicken rose from 
 under my horse's feet so heavily that, thought- 
 lessly striking at it, I cut it down with my whip ; 
 while when a jack-rabbit got up ahead of us, it 
 was barely able to limp clumsily out of our way. 
 
 But though there is much work and hardship, 
 rough fare, monotony, and exposure connected 
 
The Round-up 109 
 
 with the round-up, yet there are few men who do 
 not look forward to it and back to it with pleasure. 
 The only fault to be found is that the hours of 
 work are so long that one does not usually have 
 enough time to sleep. The food, if rough, is good : 
 beef, bread, pork, beans, coffee or tea, always 
 canned tomatoes, and often rice, canned com, or 
 sauce made from dried apples. The men are 
 good-humored, bold, and thoroughly interested in 
 their business, continually vying with one another 
 in the effort to see which can do the work best. 
 It is superbly health-giving, and is full of excite- 
 ment and adventure, calling for the exhibition of 
 pluck, self-reliance, hardihood, and dashing horse- 
 manship; and of all forms of physical labor the 
 easiest and pleasantest is to sit in the saddle. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 WINTER WEATHER. 
 
 WHEN the days have dwindled to their 
 shortest, and the nights seem never 
 ending, then all the great northern 
 plains are changed into an abode of iron desola- 
 tion. Sometimes furious gales blow out of the 
 north, driving before them the clouds of blinding 
 snowdust, wrapping the mantle of death roimd 
 every imsheltered being that faces their im- 
 shackled anger. They roar in a thunderous bass 
 as they sweep across the prairie or whirl through 
 the naked canyons ; they shiver the great brittle 
 cotton woods, and beneath their rough touch the 
 icy limbs of the pines that cluster in the gorges 
 sing like the chords of an yEolian harp. Again, 
 in the coldest midwinter weather, not a breath of 
 wind may stir; and then the still, merciless, 
 terrible cold that broods over the earth like the 
 shadow of silent death seems even more dreadful 
 in its gloomy rigor than is the lawless madness of 
 the storms. All the land is like granite; the 
 great rivers stand still in their beds, as if turned 
 to frosted steel. In the long nights there is no 
 sound to break the lifeless silence. Under the 
 ceaseless, shifting play of the Northern Lights, 
 
 no 
 
Winter Weather m 
 
 or lighted only by the wintry brilliance of the 
 stars, the snow-clad plains stretch out into dead 
 and endless wastes of glimmering white. 
 
 Then the great fireplace of the ranch house is 
 choked with blazing logs, and at night we have 
 to sleep under so many blankets that the weight 
 is fairly oppressive. Outside, the shaggy ponies 
 huddle together in the corral, while long icicles 
 hang from their lips, and the hoarfrost whitens 
 the hollow backs of the cattle. For the ranchman 
 the winter is occasionally a pleasant holiday, but 
 more often an irksome period of enforced rest and 
 gloomy foreboding. 
 
 In the winter there is much less work than at 
 any other season, but what there is involves great 
 hardship and exposure. Many of the men are 
 discharged after the summer is over, and during 
 much of the cold weather there is little to do 
 except hunt now and then, and in very bitter 
 days lotmge listlessly about the house. But 
 some of the men are out in the line camps, and 
 the ranchman has occasionally to make the roimd 
 of these; and besides that, one or more of the 
 cowboys who are at home ought to be out every 
 day when the cattle have become weak, so as to 
 pick up and drive in any beast that will otherwise 
 evidently fail to get through the season — a cow 
 that has had an unusually early calf being par- 
 ticularly apt to need attention. The horses shift 
 
112 Ranch Life 
 
 for themselves and need no help. Often, in 
 winter, the Indians cut down the cottonwood 
 trees and feed the tops to their ponies; but this 
 is not done to keep them from starving, but only 
 to keep them from wandering off in search of 
 grass. Besides, the ponies are very fond of the 
 bark of the yoimg cottonwood shoots, and it is 
 healthy for them. 
 
 The men in the line camps lead a hard life, for 
 they have to be out in every kind of weather, and 
 should be especially active and watchful during 
 the storms. The camps are established along 
 some line which it is proposed to make the boim- 
 dary of the cattle's drift in a given direction. 
 For example, we care very little whether our 
 cattle wander to the Yellowstone ; but we strongly 
 object to their drifting east and southeast toward 
 the granger coimtry and the Sioux reservation, 
 especially as when they drift that way they come 
 out on flat, bare plains where there is danger of 
 perishing. Accordingly, the cowmen along the 
 Little Missouri have imited in establishing a row 
 of camps to the east of the river, along the line 
 where the broken ground meets the prairie. The 
 camps are usually for two men each, and some 
 fifteen or twenty miles apart; then, in the 
 morning, its two men start out in opposite ways, 
 each riding till he meets his neighbor of the next 
 camp nearest on that side, when he returns. The 
 
Winter Weather 113 
 
 camp itself is sometimes merely a tent pitched in 
 a sheltered coulee, but ought to be either made of 
 logs or else a dug-out in the ground. A small 
 corral and horse-shed is near by, with enough 
 hay for the ponies, of which each rider has two 
 or three. In riding over the beat each man drives 
 any cattle that have come near it back into the 
 Bad Lands, and if he sees by the hoof -marks that 
 a few have strayed out over the line very recently, 
 he will follow and fetch them home. They must 
 be shoved well back into the Bad Lands before a 
 great storm strikes them ; for if they once begin 
 to drift in masses before an icy gale it is impos- 
 sible for a small number of men to hold them, 
 and the only thing is to let them go, and then to 
 organize an expedition to follow them as soon as 
 possible. Line riding is very cold work, and 
 dangerous too, when the men have to be out in 
 a blinding snow-storm, or in a savage blizzard 
 that takes the spirit in the thermometer far down 
 below zero. In the worst storms it is impossible 
 for any man to be out. 
 
 But other kinds of work besides line riding 
 necessitate exposure to bitter weather. Once, 
 while spending a few days over on Beaver Creek 
 hunting up a lost horse, I happened to meet a 
 cowboy who was out on the same errand, and 
 made friends with him. We started home to- 
 gether across the open prairies, but were caught 
 8 
 
114 Ranch Life 
 
 in a very heavy snow-storm almost immediately 
 after leaving the ranch where we had spent the 
 night. We were soon completely turned round, 
 the great soft flakes — for, luckily, it was not 
 cold — almost blinding us, and we had to travel 
 entirely by compass. After feeling our way along 
 for eight or nine hours, we finally got down into 
 the broken country near Sentinel Butte and came 
 across an empty hut, a welcome sight to men as 
 cold, hungry, and tired as we were. In this hut 
 we passed the night very comfortably, picketing 
 our horses in a sheltered nook near by, with 
 plenty of hay from an old stack. To while away 
 the long evening, I read Hamlet aloud, from a 
 little pocket Shakespeare. The cowboy, a Texan, 
 — one of the best riders I have seen, and also a 
 very intelligent as well as a thoroughly good 
 fellow in every way, — was greatly interested in it 
 and commented most shrewdly on the parts he 
 liked, especially Polonius's advice to Laertes, 
 which he translated into more homely language 
 with great relish, and ended with the just criticism 
 that "old Shakspere saveyed human natur' some" 
 — savey being a verb presumably adapted into the 
 limited plains ' vocabulary from the Spanish. 
 
 Even for those who do not have to look up stray 
 horses, and who are not forced to ride the line day 
 in and day out, there is apt to be some hardship 
 and danger in being abroad during the bitter 
 
Winter Weather 115 
 
 v/eather; yet a ride in midwinter is certainly- 
 fascinating. The great white country wrapped 
 in the powdery snow-drift seems like another land ; 
 and the familiar landmarks are so changed that a 
 man must be careful lest he lose his way, for the 
 discomfort of a night in the open during such 
 weather is very great indeed. When the sim is 
 out the glare from the endless white stretches daz- 
 zles the eyes; and if the gray snow-clouds hang 
 low and only let a pale, wan light struggle through, 
 the lonely wastes become fairly appalling in their 
 desolation. For hour after hour a man may go 
 on and see no sign of life except, perhaps, a big 
 white owl sweeping noiselessly by, so that in the 
 dark it looks like a snow-wreath; the cold grad- 
 ually chilling the rider to the bones, as he draws 
 his fur cap tight over his ears and muffles his face 
 in the huge collar of his wolf -skin coat, and making 
 the shaggy little steed drop head and tail as it 
 picks its way over the frozen soil. There are few 
 moments more pleasant than the home-coming, 
 when, in the gathering darkness, after crossing 
 the last chain of ice-covered buttes, or after coming 
 roimd the last turn in the wind-swept valley, we 
 see, through the leafless trees, or across the frozen 
 river, the red gleam of the firelight as it shines 
 through the ranch windows and flickers over the 
 trunks of the cottonwoods outside, warming a 
 man's blood by the mere hint of the warmth 
 
ii6 Ranch Life 
 
 awaiting him within. The winter scenery is 
 especially striking in the Bad Lands, with their 
 queer fantastic formations. 
 
 Among the most interesting features are the 
 burning mines. These are formed by the coal seams 
 that get on fire. They vary greatly in size. Some 
 send up smoke-columns that are visible miles 
 away, while others are not noticeable a few rods 
 off. The old ones gradually bum away, while 
 new ones unexpectedly break out. Thus, last fall, 
 one suddenly appeared but half a mile from the 
 ranch house. We never knew it was there until 
 one cold moonlight night, when we were riding 
 home, we roimded the comer of a ravine and saw 
 in our path a tall white column of smoke rising 
 from a rift in the snowy crags ahead of us. As 
 the trail was over perfectly familiar groimd, we 
 were for a moment almost as startled as if we had 
 seen a ghost. 
 
 The burning mines are tincanny places, anyhow. 
 A strong smell of sulphur hangs round them, the 
 heated earth crumbles and cracks, and through 
 the long clefts that form in it we can see the lurid 
 glow of the subterranean fires, with here and 
 there tongues of blue or cherry colored flame 
 dancing up to the surface. 
 
 The winters vary greatly in severity with us. 
 During some seasons men can go lightly clad even 
 in January and February, and the cattle hardly 
 
Winter Weather 117 
 
 suffer at all ; during others there will be spells of 
 bitter weather, accompanied by furious blizzards, 
 which render it impossible for days and weeks at 
 a time for men to stir out-of-doors at all, save at 
 the risk of their lives. Then line rider, ranchman, 
 hunter, and teamster alike all have to keep within 
 doors. I have known of several cases of men 
 freezing to death when caught in shelterless 
 places by such a blizzard, a strange fact being 
 that in about half of them the doomed man had 
 evidently gone mad before dying, and had stripped 
 himself of most of his clothes, the body when 
 found being nearly naked. On our ranch we have 
 never had any bad accidents, although every 
 winter some of us get more or less frost-bitten. 
 My last experience in this line was while returning 
 by moonlight from a successful hunt after moun- 
 tain sheep. The thermometer was 26° below 
 zero, and we had had no food for twelve hours. 
 I became numbed, and before I was aware of it 
 had frozen my face, one foot, both knees, and one 
 hand. Luckily, I reached the ranch before serious 
 damage was done. 
 
 About once every six or seven years we have 
 a season when these storms follow one another 
 almost without interval throughout the winter 
 months, and then the loss among the stock is 
 frightful. One such winter occurred in 1880-81. 
 This was when there were very few ranchmen in 
 
ii8 Ranch Life 
 
 the country. The grass was so good that the old 
 range stock escaped pretty well; but the trail 
 herds were almost destroyed. The next severe 
 winter was that of 1886-87, when the rush of 
 incoming herds had overstocked the ranges, and 
 the loss was in consequence fairly appalling, 
 especially to the outfits that had just put on cattle. 
 The snow-fall was imprecedented, both for its 
 depth and for the way it lasted ; and it was this, 
 and not the cold, that caused the loss. About 
 the middle of November the storms began. Day 
 after day the snow came down, thawing and then 
 freezing and piling itself higher and higher. By 
 January the drifts had filled the ravines and 
 coulees almost level. The snow lay in great 
 masses on the plateaus and river-bottoms; and 
 this lasted until the end of February. The pre- 
 ceding summer we had been visited by a pro- 
 longed drought, so that the short, scanty grass 
 was already well cropped down; the snow cov- 
 ered what pasturage there was to the depth of 
 several feet, and the cattle could not get at it at 
 all, and could hardly move roimd. It was all but 
 impossible to travel on horseback — except on a 
 few well-beaten trails. It was dangerous to 
 attempt to penetrate the Bad Lands, whose shape 
 had been completely altered by the great white 
 mounds and drifts. The starving cattle died by 
 scores of thousands before their helpless owners' 
 
Winter Weather 119 
 
 eyes. The bulls, the cows who were suckling 
 calves, or who were heavy with calf, the weak 
 cattle that had just been driven up on the trail, 
 and the late calves suffered most; the old range 
 animals did better, and the steers best of all ; but 
 the best was bad enough. Even many of the 
 horses died. An outfit near me lost half its 
 saddle-band, the animals having been worked so 
 hard that they were very thin when fall came. 
 
 In the thick brush the stock got some shelter 
 and sustenance. They gnawed every twig and 
 bough they could get at. They browsed the 
 bitter sage brush down to where the branches 
 were the thickness of a man's finger. When near 
 a ranch they crowded into the outhouses and 
 sheds to die, and fences had to be built around 
 the windows to keep the wild-eyed, desperate 
 beasts from thrusting their heads through the 
 glass panes. In most cases it was impossible 
 either to drive them to the haystacks or to haul 
 the hay out to them. The deer even were so 
 weak as to be easily run down; and on one or 
 two of the plateaus where there were bands of 
 antelope, these wary creatures grew so numbed 
 and feeble that they could have been slaughtered 
 like rabbits. But the himters could hardly get 
 out, and could bring home neither hide nor meat, 
 so the game went unharmed. 
 
 The way in which the cattle got through the 
 
120 Ranch Life 
 
 winter depended largely on the different localities 
 in which the bands were caught when the first 
 heavy snows came. A group of animals in a bare 
 valley, without underbrush and with steepish 
 sides, would all die, weak and strong alike ; they 
 could get no food and no shelter, and so there 
 would not be a hoof left. On the other hand, 
 hundreds wintered on the great thickly wooded 
 bottoms near my ranch house with little more 
 than ordinary loss, though a skinny sorry-looking 
 crew by the time the snow melted. In inter- 
 mediate places the strong survived and the weak 
 perished. 
 
 It would be impossible to imagine any sight 
 more dreary and melancholy than that offered by 
 the ranges when the snow went off in March. The 
 land was a mere barren waste ; not a green thing 
 could be seen; the dead grass eaten off till the 
 country looked as if it had been shaved with a 
 razor. Occasionally among the desolate hills a 
 rider would come across a band of gaimt, hollow- 
 flanked cattle feebly cropping the sparse, dry pas- 
 turage, too listless to move out of the way; and 
 the blackened carcasses lay in the sheltered spots, 
 some stretched out, others in as natural a position 
 as if the animals had merely lain down to rest. 
 It was small wonder that cheerful stockmen were 
 rare objects that spring. 
 
 Our only comfort was that we did not, as usual, 
 
 J 
 
Winter Weather 
 
 121 
 
 suffer a heavy loss from weak cattle getting mired 
 down in the springs and mud-holes when the ice 
 broke up — for all the weak animals were dead 
 already. The truth is, ours is a primitive indus- 
 try, and we suffer the reverses as well as enjoy 
 the successes only known to primitive peoples. 
 A hard winter is to us in the north what a dry 
 summer is to Texas or Australia — what seasons 
 of famine once were to all peoples. We still live 
 in an iron age that the old civilized world has long 
 passed by. The men of the border reckon upon 
 stem and unending struggles with their iron- 
 botind surroundings; against the grim harshness 
 of their existence they set the strength and the 
 aboimding vitality that come with it. They nm 
 risks to life and limb that are unknown to the 
 dwellers in cities ; and what the men freely brave, 
 the beasts that they own must also sometimes 
 suffer. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FRONTIER TYPES. 
 
 THE old race of Rocky Mountain hunters 
 and trappers, of reckless, dauntless Indian 
 fighters, is now fast dying out. Yet here 
 and there these restless wanderers of the un- 
 trodden wilderness still linger, in wooded fast- 
 nesses so inaccessible that the miners have not 
 yet explored them, in mountain valleys so far 
 off that no ranchman has yet driven his herds 
 thither. To this day many of them wear the 
 fringed timic or hunting-shirt, made of buckskin 
 or homespun, and belted in at the waist, — the 
 most picturesque and distinctively national dress 
 ever worn in America. It was the dress in which 
 Daniel Boon was clad when he first passed 
 through the trackless forests of the Alleghanies 
 and penetrated into the heart of Kentucky, to 
 enjoy such hunting as no man of his race had 
 ever had before; it was the dress worn by grim 
 old Davy Crockett when he fell at the Alamo. 
 The wild soldiery of the backwoods wore it when 
 they marched to victory over Ferguson and 
 Pakenham, at King's Mountain and New Orleans ; 
 when they conquered the French towns of the 
 Illinois; and when they won at the cost of Red 
 
 122 
 
Frontier Types 123 
 
 Eagle's warriors the bloody triumph of the 
 Horseshoe Bend. 
 
 These old-time hunters have been the fore- 
 runners of the white advance throughout all our 
 Western land. Soon after the beginning of the 
 present century they boldly struck out beyond 
 the Mississippi, steered their way across the flat 
 and endless seas of grass, or pushed up the 
 valleys of the great lonely rivers, crossed the 
 passes that woimd among the towering peaks of 
 the Rockies, toiled over the melancholy wastes of 
 sage brush and alkali, and at last, breaking 
 through the gloomy woodland that belts the 
 coast, they looked out on the heaving waves of 
 the greatest of all the oceans. They lived for 
 months, often for years, among the Indians, now 
 as friends, now as foes, warring, himting, and 
 marrying with them; they acted as guides for 
 exploring parties, as scouts for the soldiers who 
 from time to time were sent against the different 
 hostile tribes. At long intervals they came into 
 some frontier settlement or some fur company's 
 fort, posted in the heart of the wilderness, to 
 dispose of their bales of furs, or to replenish their 
 stock of ammimition and purchase a scanty 
 supply of coarse food and clothing. 
 
 From that day to this they have not changed 
 their way of life. But there are not many of 
 them left now. The basin of the Upper Missouri 
 
124 
 
 Ranch Life 
 
 was their last stronghold, being the last great 
 hunting-ground of the Indians, with whom the 
 white trappers were always fighting and bicker- 
 ing, but who nevertheless by their presence pro- 
 tected the game that gave the trappers their 
 livelihood. My cattle were among the very first 
 to come into the land, at a time when the buffalo 
 and beaver still abounded, and then the old 
 himters were common. Many a time I have 
 hunted with them, spent the night in their smoky 
 cabins, or had them as guests at my ranch. But 
 in a couple of years after the inrush of the cattle- 
 men the last herds of the buffalo were destroyed, 
 and the beaver were trapped out of all the plains' 
 streams. Then the hunters vanished likewise, 
 save that here and there one or two still remain 
 in some nook or out-of-the-way comer. The 
 others wandered off restlessly over the land, — 
 some to join their brethren in the Coeur d'Alene 
 or the northern Rockies, others to the coast ranges 
 or to far-away Alaska. Moreover, their ranks 
 were soon thinned by death, and the places of 
 the dead were no longer taken by new recruits. 
 They led hard lives, and the imending strain of ] 
 their toilsome and dangerous existence shattered 
 even such iron frames as theirs. They were killed 
 in drunken brawls, or in nameless fights with 
 roving Indians ; they died by one of the thousand 
 accidents incident to the business of their lives, — • 
 
Frontier Types 125 
 
 by flood or quicksand, by cold or starvation, by 
 the stnmble of a horse or a footsHp on the edge 
 of a cHff ; they perished by diseases brought on 
 by terrible privation, and aggravated by the 
 savage orgies with which it was varied. 
 
 Yet there was not only much that was attrac- 
 tive in their wild, free, reckless lives, but there 
 was also very much good about the men them- 
 selves. They were — and such of them as are left 
 still are — frank, bold, and self-reliant to a degree. 
 They fear neither man, brute, nor element. They 
 are generous and hospitable; they stand loyally 
 by their friends, and pursue their enemies with 
 bitter and vindictive hatred. For the rest, they 
 differ among themselves in their good and bad 
 points even more markedly than do men in 
 civilized life, for out on the border virtue and 
 wickedness alike take on very pronoimced colors. 
 A man who in civilization would be merely a 
 backbiter becomes a murderer on the frontier; 
 and, on the other hand, he who in the city would 
 do nothing more than bid you a cheery good- 
 morning, shares his last bit of sun- jerked venison 
 with you when threatened by starvation in the 
 wilderness. One hunter may be a dark-browed, 
 evil-eyed ruffian, ready to kill cattle or run off 
 horses without hesitation, who if game fails will 
 at once, in Western phrase, "take to the road," — 
 that is, become a highwayman. The next is 
 
126 Ranch Life 
 
 perhaps a quiet, kindly, simple-hearted man, law- 
 abiding, modestly unconscious of the worth of 
 his own fearless courage and iron endurance, 
 always faithful to his friends, and full of chivalric 
 and tender loyalty to women. 
 
 The hunter is the arch-type of freedom. His 
 well-being rests in no man's hands save his own. 
 He chops down and hews out the logs for his 
 hut, or perhaps makes merely a rude dug-out in 
 the side of a hill, with a skin roof, and skin flaps 
 for the door. He buys a little flour and salt, and 
 in times of plenty also sugar and tea; but not 
 much, for it must all be carried hundreds of miles 
 on the backs of his shaggy pack-ponies. In one 
 comer of the hut, a bunk covered with deer-skins 
 forms his bed ; a kettle and a frying-pan may be 
 all his cooking utensils. When he can get no 
 fresh meat he falls back on his stock of jerked 
 venison, dried in long strips over the fire or in 
 the sun. 
 
 Most of the trappers are Americans, but they 
 also include some Frenchmen and half-breeds. 
 Both of the last, if on the plains, occasionally 
 make use of queer wooden carts, very rude in 
 shape, with stout wheels that make a most doleful 
 squeaking. In old times they all had Indian 
 wives ; but nowadays those who live among and 
 intermarry with the Indians are looked down 
 upon by the other frontiersmen, who contemptu- 
 
Frontier Types 127 
 
 ously term them "squaw men." All of them 
 depend upon their rifles only for food and for 
 self-defense, and make their living by trapping, 
 peltries being very valuable and yet not bulky. 
 They are good game shots, especially the pure 
 Americans; although, of course, they are very 
 boastful, and generally stretch the truth tre- 
 mendously in telling about their own marks- 
 manship. Still they oftendo very remarkable 
 shooting, both for speed and accuracy. One of 
 their feats, that I never could learn to copy, is 
 to make excellent shooting after nightfall. Of 
 course all this applies only to the regular hunters ; 
 not to the numerous pretenders who hang around 
 the outskirts of the towns to try to persuade 
 imwary strangers to take them for guides. 
 
 On one of my trips to the mountains I hap- 
 pened to come across several old-style hunters at 
 the same time. Two were on their way out of 
 the woods, after having been all winter and 
 spring without seeing a white face. They had 
 been lucky, and their battered pack-saddles 
 carried bales of valuable furs — fisher, sable, otter, 
 mink, beaver. The two men, though fast friends 
 and allies for many years, contrasted oddly. One 
 was a short, square-built, good-humored Kanuck, 
 always laughing and talking, who interlarded his 
 conversation with a singularly original mixture 
 of the most villainous French and English 
 
128 
 
 Ranch Life 
 
 profanity. His partner was an American, gray- 
 eyed, tall and straight as a young pine, with a 
 saturnine, rather haughty face, and proud bearing. 
 He spoke very little, and then in low tones, never 
 using an oath; but he showed now and then a 
 most unexpected sense of dry humor. Both were 
 images of bronzed and rugged strength. Neither 
 had the slightest touch of the bully in his nature ; 
 they treated others with the respect that they 
 also exacted for themselves. They bore an excel- 
 lent reputation as being not only highly skilled 
 in woodcraft and the use of the rifle, but also men 
 of tried courage and strict integrity, whose word 
 could be always implicitly trusted. 
 
 I had with me at the time a himter who, though 
 their equal as marksman or woodsman, was their 
 exact opposite morally. He was a pleasant com- 
 panion and useful assistant, being very hard- 
 working, and possessing a temper that never 
 was ruffled by anything. He was also a good- 
 looking fellow, with honest brown eyes; but he 
 no more knew the difference between right and 
 wrong than Adam did before the fall. Had he 
 been at all conscious of his wickedness, or had he 
 possessed the least sense of shame, he would 
 have been unbearable as a companion; but he 
 was so perfectly pleasant and easy, so good- 
 humoredly tolerant of virtue in others, and he so 
 wholly lacked even a glimmering suspicion that 
 
Frontier Types 129 
 
 murder, theft, and adultery were matters of 
 anything more than individual taste, that I 
 actually grew to be rather fond of him. He never 
 related any of his past deeds of wickedness as 
 matters either for boastfulness or for regret ; they 
 were simply repeated incidentally in the course of 
 conversation. Thus once, in speaking of the 
 profits of his different enterprises, he casually 
 mentioned making a good deal of money as a 
 Government scout in the Southwest by buying 
 cartridges from some negro troops at a cent apiece 
 and selling them to the hostile Apaches for a 
 dollar each. His conduct was not due to sym- 
 pathy with the Indians, for it appeared that later 
 on he had taken part in massacring some of these 
 same Apaches when they were prisoners. He 
 brushed aside as irrelevant one or two questions 
 which I put to him: matters of sentiment were 
 not to be mixed up with a purely mercantile 
 speculation. Another time we were talking of 
 the curious angles bullets sometimes fly off at 
 when they ricochet. To illustrate the matter he 
 related an experience which I shall try to give in 
 his own words. "One time, when I was keeping 
 a saloon down in New Mexico, there was a man 
 owed me a grudge. Well, he took sick of the 
 small-pox, and the doctor told him he'd sure die, 
 and he said if that was so he reckoned he'd 
 kill me first. So he come a-riding in with his 
 
 9 
 
I30 Ranch Life 
 
 gun [in the West a revolver is generally called a 
 gun] and begun shooting ; but I hit him first, and 
 away he rode. I started to get on my horse to 
 follow him ; but there was a little Irishman there 
 who said he'd never killed a man, and he begged 
 hard for me to give him my gim and let him go 
 after the other man and finish him. So I let him 
 go; and when he caught up, blamed if the little 
 cuss didn't get so nervous that he fired off into 
 the ground, and the darned bullet struck a 
 crowbar, and glanced up, and hit the other man 
 square in the head and killed him! Now, that 
 was a funny shot, wasn't it?" 
 
 The fourth member of our party round the 
 camp-fire that night was a powerfully built 
 trapper, partly French by blood, who wore a 
 gayly colored capote, or blanket-coat, a greasy 
 fur cap, and moccasins. He had grizzled hair, 
 and a certain uneasy, half -furtive look about the 
 eyes. Once or twice he showed a curious reluc- 
 tance about allowing a man to approach him 
 suddenly from behind. Altogether his actions 
 were so odd that I felt some curiosity to learn 
 his history. It turned out that he had been 
 through a rather imcanny experience the winter 
 before. He and another man had gone into a 
 remote basin, or enclosed valley, in the heart of 
 the mountains, where game was very plentiful; 
 indeed, it was so abundant that they decided to 
 
Frontier Types 131 
 
 pass the winter there. Accordingly they put up 
 a log-cabin, working hard, and merely killing 
 enough meat for their immediate use. Just as it 
 was finished winter set in with tremendous snow- 
 storms. Going out to hunt, in the first lull, they 
 found, to their consternation, that every head of 
 game had left the valley. Not an animal was to 
 be foimd therein; they had abandoned it for 
 their winter haunts. The outlook for the two 
 adventurers was appalling. They were afraid of 
 trying to break out through the deep snow-drifts, 
 and starvation stared them in the face if they 
 stayed. The man I met had his dog with him. 
 They put themselves on very short commons, so 
 as to use up their flour as slowly as possible, and 
 hunted unweariedly, but saw nothing. Soon a 
 violent quarrel broke out between them. The 
 other man, a fierce, sullen fellow, insisted that 
 the dog should be killed, but the owner was 
 exceedingly attached to it, and refused. For a 
 couple of weeks they spoke no word to each other, 
 though cooped in the little narrow pen of logs. 
 Then one night the owner of the dog was awakened 
 by the animal crying out; the other man had 
 tried to kill it with his knife, but failed. The 
 provisions were now almost exhausted, and the 
 two men were glaring at each other with the rage 
 of maddened, ravening hunger. Neither dared to 
 sleep, for fear that the other would kill him. 
 
132 Ranch Life 
 
 Then the one who owned the dog at last spoke, 
 and proposed that, to give each a chance for his 
 Hfe, they should separate. He would take half 
 of the handful of flour that was left and start off 
 to try to get home ; the other should stay where 
 he was ; and if he tried to follow the first, he was 
 warned that he would be shot without mercy. 
 A like fate was to be the portion of the wanderer 
 if driven to return to the hut. The arrangement 
 was agreed to and the two men separated, neither 
 daring to turn his back while they were within 
 rifle-shot of each other. For two days the one 
 who went off toiled on with weary weakness 
 through the snow-drifts. Late on the second 
 afternoon, as he looked back from a high ridge, 
 he saw in the far distance a black speck against 
 the snow, coming along on his trail. His com- 
 panion was dogging his footsteps. Immediately 
 he followed his own trail back a little and lay in 
 ambush. At dusk his companion came stealthily 
 up, rifle in hand, peering cautiously ahead, his 
 drawn face showing the starved, eager ferocity of 
 a wild beast, and the man he was hunting shot 
 him down exactly as if he had been one. Leaving 
 the body where it fell, the wanderer continued his 
 journey, the dog staggering painfully behind him. 
 The next evening he baked his last cake and 
 divided it with the dog. In the morning, with 
 his belt drawn still tighter round his skeleton 
 
Frontier Types 133 
 
 body, he once more set out, with apparently only 
 a few hours of dull misery between him and death. 
 At noon he crossed the track of a huge timber- 
 wolf ; instantly the dog gave tongue, and, rallying 
 its strength, ran along the trail. The man 
 struggled after. At last his strength gave out 
 and he sat down to die; but while sitting still, 
 slowly stiffening with the cold, he heard the dog 
 baying in the woods. Shaking off his mortal 
 numbness, he crawled toward the soimd, and 
 found the wolf over the body of a deer that he 
 had just killed, and keeping the dog from it. At 
 the approach of the new assailant the wolf sul- 
 lenly drew off, and man and dog tore the raw 
 deer-flesh with hideous eagerness. It made them 
 very sick for the next twenty-four hours; but, 
 lying by the carcass for two or three days, they 
 recovered strength. A week afterward the trapper 
 reached a miner's cabin in safety. There he told 
 his tale, and the unknown man who alone might 
 possibly have contradicted it lay dead in the 
 depths of the wolf -haunted forest. 
 
 The cowboys, who have supplanted these old 
 hunters and trappers as the typical men of the 
 plains, themselves lead lives that are almost as 
 full of hardship and adventure. The unbearable 
 cold of winter sometimes makes the small out- 
 lying camps fairly uninhabitable if fuel runs 
 short; and if the line riders are caught in a 
 
134 
 
 Ranch Life 
 
 blizzard while making their way to the home 
 ranch, they are lucky if they get off with nothing 
 worse than frozen feet and faces. 
 
 They are, in the main, hard-working, faithful 
 fellows, but of course are frequently obliged to 
 get into scrapes through no fault of their own. 
 Once, while out on a wagon trip, I got caught 
 while camped by a spring on the prairie, through 
 my horses all straying. A few miles off was the 
 camp of two cowboys, who were riding the line 
 for a great Southern cow-outfit. I did not even 
 know their names, but happening to pass by 
 them I told of my loss, and the day after they 
 turned up with the missing horses, which they 
 had been hunting for twenty-four hours. All I 
 could do in return was to give them some reading 
 matter— something for which the men in these 
 lonely camps are always grateful. Afterward I 
 spent a day or two with my new friends, and we 
 became quite intimate. They were Texans. 
 Both were quiet, clean-cut, pleasant-spoken young 
 fellows, who did not even swear, except imder 
 great provocation, — and there can be no greater 
 provocation than is given by a "mean" horse or 
 a refractory steer. Yet, to my surprise, I found 
 that they were, in a certain sense, fugitives from 
 justice. They were complaining of the extreme 
 severity of the winter weather, and mentioned 
 their longing to go back to the South. The 
 
Frontier Types 135 
 
 reason they could not was that the summer before 
 they had taken part in a small civil war in one of 
 the wilder coimties of New Mexico. It had origi- 
 nated in a quarrel between two great ranches over 
 their respective water rights and range rights, — 
 a quarrel of a kind rife among pastoral peoples 
 since the days when the herdsmen of Lot and 
 Abraham strove together for the grazing lands 
 roimd the mouth of the Jordan. There were col- 
 lisions between bands of armed cowboys, the 
 cattle were harried from the springs, outlying 
 camps were burned down, and the sons of the 
 rival owners fought each other to the death with 
 bowie-knife and revolver when they met at the 
 drinking-booths of the squalid towns. Soon the 
 smoldering jealousy which is ever existent between 
 the Americans and Mexicans of the frontier was 
 aroused, and when the original cause of quarrel 
 was adjusted, a fierce race struggle took its place. 
 It was soon quelled by the arrival of a strong 
 sheriff's posse and the threat of interference by 
 the regular troops, but not until after a couple of 
 affrays, each attended with bloodshed. In one of 
 these the American cowboys of a certain range, 
 after a brisk fight, drove out the Mexican vaqueros 
 from among them. In the other, to avenge the 
 murder of one of their number, the cowboys 
 gathered from the country round about and fairly 
 stormed the "Greaser" (that is, Mexican) village 
 
136 Ranch Life 
 
 where the murder had been committed, kilHng 
 four of the inhabitants. My two friends had 
 borne a part in this last affair. They were careful 
 to give a rather cloudy account of the details, 
 but I gathered that one of them was "wanted" 
 as a participant, and the other as a witness. 
 
 However, they were both good fellows, and 
 probably their conduct was justifiable, at least 
 according to the rather fitful lights of the border. 
 Sitting up late with them, around the sputtering 
 fire, they became quite confidential. At first our 
 conversation touched only the usual monotonous 
 roimd of subjects worn threadbare in every cow- 
 camp. A btinch of steers had been seen traveling 
 over the scoria buttes to the head of Elk Creek; 
 they were mostly Texan doughgies (a name I have 
 never seen written ; it applies to young immigrant 
 cattle), but there were some of the Hash-Knife 
 four-year-olds among them. A stray horse with 
 a blurred brand on the left hip had just joined the 
 bunch of saddle-ponies. The red F. V. cow, one 
 of whose legs had been badly bitten by a wolf, 
 had got mired down in an alkali spring, and when 
 hauled out had charged upon her rescuer so 
 viciously that he barely escaped. The old mule, 
 Sawback, was getting over the effects of the rat- 
 tlesnake bite. The river was going down, but the 
 fords were still bad, and the quicksand at the Cus- 
 ter Trail crossing had worked along so that wagons 
 
Frontier Types 137 
 
 had to be taken over opposite the blasted cotton - 
 wood. One of the men had seen a Three-Seven-B 
 rider who had just left the Green River round-up, 
 and who brought news that they had found some 
 cattle on the reservation, and were now holding 
 about twelve hvindred head on the big brushy- 
 bottom below Rainy Butte. Bronco Jim, our 
 local flash rider, had tried to ride the big, bald- 
 faced sorrel belonging to the Oregon horse-outfit, 
 and had been bucked off and his face smashed in. 
 This piece of information of course drew forth 
 much condemnation of the imfortunate Jim's 
 equestrian skill. It was at once agreed that he 
 "wasn't the sure-enough bronco-buster he thought 
 himself," and he was compared very imfavorably 
 to various heroes of the quirt and spurs who lived 
 in Texas and Colorado ; for the best rider, like the 
 best himter, is invariably either dead or else a resi- 
 dent of some other district. 
 
 These topics having been exhausted, we dis- 
 cussed the rumor that the vigilantes had given 
 notice to quit to two men who had just built a 
 shack at the head of the Little Dry, and whose 
 horses included a suspiciously large number of 
 different brands, most of them blurred. Then 
 i our conversation became more personal, and they 
 ' asked if I would take some letters to post for them. 
 ' Of course I said yes, and two letters — evidently 
 the product of severe manual labor — were 
 
138 Ranch Life 
 
 produced. Each was directed to a girl ; and my 
 companions, now very friendly, told me that they 
 both had sweethearts, and for the next hour I 
 listened to a full accoimt of their charms and 
 virtues. 
 
 But it is not often that plainsmen talk so freely. 
 They are rather reserved, especially to strangers ; 
 and are certain to look with dislike on any man 
 who, when they first meet him, talks a great deal. 
 It is always a good plan, if visiting a strange camp 
 or ranch, to be as silent as possible. 
 
 Another time, at a ranch not far from my own, 
 I found among the cowboys gathered for the 
 round-up two Bible-reading Methodists. They 
 were as strait-laced as any of their kind, but did 
 not obtrude their opinions on any one else, and 
 were first-class workers, so that they had no 
 trouble with the other men. Associated with 
 them were two or three blear-eyed, slit-mouthed 
 ruffians, who were as loose of tongue as of life. 
 
 Generally some form of stable government is 
 provided for the counties as soon as their popula- 
 tion has become at all fixed, the frontiersmen 
 showing their national aptitude for organization. 
 Then lawlessness is put down pretty effectively. 
 For example, as soon as we organized the govern- 
 ment of Medora — an excessively imattractive little 
 hamlet, the county seat of our huge, scantily 
 settled coimty — we elected some good officers, 
 
Frontier Types 139 
 
 built a log jail, prohibited all shooting in the 
 streets, and enforced the prohibition, etc., etc. 
 
 Up to that time there had been a good deal of 
 lawlessness of one kind or another, only checked 
 by an occasional piece of individual retribution 
 or by a sporadic outburst of vigilance committee 
 work. In such a society the desperadoes of every 
 grade flourish. Many are merely ordinary rogues 
 and swindlers, who rob and cheat on occasion, but 
 are dangerous only when led by some villain of 
 real intellectual power. The gambler, with hawk 
 eyes and lissome fingers, is scarcely classed as a 
 criminal ; indeed, he may be a very public-spirited 
 citizen. But as his trade is so often plied in 
 saloons, and as even if, as sometimes happens, 
 he does not cheat, many of his opponents are 
 certain to attempt to do so, he is of necessity 
 obliged to be skilful and ready with his weapon, 
 and gambling rows are very common. Cowboys 
 lose much of their money to gamblers ; it is with 
 them hard come and light go, for they exchange 
 the wages of six months' grinding toil and lonely 
 peril for three days' whooping carousal, spending 
 their money on poisonous whisky or losing it over 
 greasy cards in the vile dance-houses. As already 
 explained, they are in the main good men; and 
 the disturbance they cause in a town is done from 
 sheer rough lightheartedness. They shoot off 
 boot-heels or tall hats occasionally, or make some 
 
I40 Ranch Life 
 
 obnoxious butt "dance" by shooting round his 
 feet; but they rarely meddle in this way with 
 men who have not themselves played the fool. 
 A fight in the streets is almost always a duel be- 
 tween two men who bear each other malice; it 
 is only in a general melee in a saloon that out- 
 siders often get hurt, and then it is their own 
 fault, for they have no business to be there. One 
 evening at Medora a cowboy spurred his horse 
 up the steps of a rickety "hotel" piazza into the 
 bar-room, where he began firing at the clock, the 
 decanters, etc., the bartender meanwhile taking 
 one shot at him, which missed. When he had 
 emptied his revolver he threw down a roll of bank- 
 notes on the counter, to pay for the damage he 
 had done, and galloped his horse out through the 
 door, disappearing in the darkness with loud yells 
 to a rattling accompaniment of pistol shots inter- 
 changed between himself and some passer-by who 
 apparently began firing out of pure desire to enter 
 into the spirit of the occasion, — for it was the 
 night of the Fourth of July, and all the cotmtry 
 round about had come into town for a spree. 
 
 All this is mere horse-play; it is the cowboy's 
 method of "painting the town red," as an inter- 
 lude in his harsh, monotonous life. Of course 
 there are plenty of hard characters among cow- 
 boys, but no more than among lumbermen and 
 the like; only the cowboys are so ready with 
 
Frontier Types 141 
 
 their weapons that a bully in one of their camps 
 is apt to be a murderer instead of merely a bruiser. 
 Often, moreover, on a long trail, or in a far-off 
 camp, where the men are for many months alone, 
 feuds spring up that are in the end sure to be 
 slaked in blood. As a rule, however, cowboys 
 who become desperadoes soon perforce drop their 
 original business, and are no longer employed on 
 ranches, imless in counties or territories where 
 there is very little heed paid to the law, and 
 where, in consequence a cattle-owner needs a 
 certain number of hired bravos. Until within 
 two or three years this was the case in parts of 
 Arizona and New Mexico, where land claims were 
 "jumped" and cattle stolen all the while, one 
 effect being to insure high wages to every indi- 
 vidual who combined murderous proclivities with 
 skill in the use of the six-shooter. ^ 
 
 Even in much more quiet regions different out- 
 fits vary greatly as regards the character of their 
 employees : I know one or two where the men are 
 good ropers and riders, but a gambling, brawling, 
 hard-drinking set, always shooting each other or 
 strangers. Generally, in such a case, the boss is 
 himself as objectionable as his men ; he is one of 
 those who have risen by unblushing rascality, and 
 is always sharply watched by his neighbors, 
 because he is sure to try to shift calves on to his 
 own cows, to brand any blurred animal with his 
 
142 Ranch Life 
 
 own mark, and perhaps to attempt the alteration 
 of perfectly plain brands. The last operation, 
 however, has become very risky since the organi- 
 zation of the cattle country, and the appointment 
 of trained brand-readers as inspectors. These 
 inspectors examine the hide of every animal 
 slain, sold, or driven off, and it is wonderful to 
 see how quickly one of them will detect any signs 
 of a brand having been tampered with. Now 
 there is, in consequence, very little of this kind 
 of dishonesty ; whereas formerly herds were occa- 
 sionally stolen almost bodily. 
 
 Claim-jumpers are, as a rule, merely black- 
 mailers. Sometimes they will by threats drive 
 an ignorant foreigner from his claim, but never 
 an old frontiersman. They delight to squat down 
 beside ranchmen who are themselves trying to 
 keep land to which they are not entitled, and who 
 therefore know that their only hope is to bribe or 
 to bully the intruder. 
 
 Cattle-thieves, for the reason given above, are 
 not common, although there are plenty of vicious, 
 shiftless men who will kill a cow or a steer for the 
 meat in winter, if they get a chance. 
 
 Horse-thieves, however, are always numerous 
 and formidable on the frontier; though in our 
 own country they have been summarily thinned 
 out of late years. It is the fashion to laugh at 
 the severity with which horse-stealing is pimished 
 
Frontier Types 143 
 
 on the border, but the reasons are evident. Horses 
 are the most valuable property of the frontiers- 
 man, whether cowboy, hunter, or settler, and are 
 often absolutely essential to his well-being, and 
 even to his life. They are always marketable, 
 and they are very easily stolen, for they carry 
 themselves off, instead of having to be carried. 
 Horse-stealing is thus a most tempting business, 
 especially to the more reckless ruffians, and it is 
 always followed by armed men; and they can 
 only be kept in check by ruthless severity. Fre- 
 quently they band together with the road agents 
 (highwaymen) and other desperadoes into secret 
 organizations, which control and terrorize a dis- 
 trict until overthrown by force. After the Civil 
 War a great many guerrillas, notably from Arkan- 
 sas and Missouri, went out to the plains, often 
 drifting northward. They took naturally to horse- 
 stealing and kindred pursuits. Since I have been 
 in the northern cattle country I have known of 
 half a dozen former members of Quantrell's gang 
 being himg or shot. 
 
 The professional man-killers, or "bad men," 
 may be horse-thieves or highwaymen, but more 
 often are neither one nor the other. Some of 
 them, like some of the Texan cowboys, become 
 very expert in the use of the revolver, their in- 
 variable standby; but in the open a cool man 
 with a rifle is always an overmatch for one of 
 
144 Ranch Life 
 
 them, unless at very close quarters, on account 
 of the superiority of his weapon. Some of the 
 "bad men" are quiet, good fellows, who have 
 been driven into their career by accident. One 
 of them has perhaps at some time killed a man 
 in self-defense ; he acquires some reputation, and 
 the neighboring bullies get to look on him as a 
 rival whom it would be an honor to slay ; so that 
 from that time on he must be ever on the watch, 
 must learn to draw quick and shoot straight, — 
 the former being even more important than the 
 latter, — and probably has to take life after life 
 in order to save his own. 
 
 Some of these men are brave only because of 
 their confidence in their own skill and strength; 
 once convince them that they are overmatched 
 and they turn into abject cowards. Others have 
 nerves of steel and will face any odds, or certain 
 death itself, without flinching a hand's breadth. 
 I was once staying in a town where a desperately 
 plucky fight took place. A noted desperado, an 
 Arkansas man, had become involved in a quarrel 
 with two others of the same ilk, both Irishmen and 
 partners. For several days all three lurked about 
 the saloon-infested streets of the roaring little 
 board-and-canvas "city," each trying to get "the 
 drop," — that is, the first shot, — the other inhab- 
 itants looking forward to the fight with pleased 
 curiosity, no one dreaming of interfering. At last 
 
Frontier Types 145 
 
 one of the partners got a chance at his opponent 
 as the latter was walking into a gambling hell, and 
 broke his back near the hips; yet the crippled, 
 mortally wounded man twisted aroimd as he fell 
 and shot his slayer dead. Then, knowing that 
 he had but a few moments to live, and expecting 
 that his other foe would run up on hearing the 
 shooting, he dragged himself by his arms out into 
 the street; immediately afterward, as he antici- 
 pated, the second partner appeared, and was killed 
 on the spot. The victor did not live twenty min- 
 utes. As in most of these encounters, all of the 
 men who were killed deserved their fate. In my 
 own not very extensive experience I can recall 
 but one man killed in these fights whose death 
 was regretted, and he was slain by a European. 
 Generally every one is heartily glad to hear of the 
 death of either of the contestants, and the only 
 regret is that the other survives. 
 
 One curious shooting scrape that took place in 
 Medora was worthy of being chronicled by Bret 
 Harte. It occurred in the summer of 1884, I 
 believe, but it may have been the year following. 
 I did not see the actual occurrence, but I saw 
 both men immediately afterwards; and I heard 
 the shooting, which took place in a saloon on the 
 bank, while I was swimming my horse across the 
 river, holding my rifle up so as not to wet it. I 
 will not give their full names, as I am not certain 
 10 
 
146 Ranch Life 
 
 what has become of them ; though I was told that 
 one had since been either put in jail or hung, I 
 forget which. One of them was a saloon-keeper, 
 familiarly called Welshy. The other man, Hay, 
 had been bickering with him for some time. One 
 day Hay, who had been defeated in a wrestling 
 match by one of my own boys, and was out of 
 temper, entered the other's saloon, and became 
 very abusive. The quarrel grew more and more 
 violent, and suddenly Welshy whipped out his 
 revolver and blazed away at Hay. The latter 
 staggered slightly, shook himself, stretched out 
 his hand, and gave back to his would-be slayer the 
 ball, saying, "Here, man, here's the bullet." It 
 had glanced along his breast-bone, gone into the 
 body, and come out at the point of the shoulder, 
 when, being spent, it dropped down the sleeve 
 into his hand. Next day the local paper, which 
 rejoiced in the title of "The Bad Lands Cowboy," 
 chronicled the event in the usual vague way as 
 an "imfortunate occurrence" between "two of 
 our most esteemed fellow-citizens." The editor 
 was a good fellow, a college graduate, and a first- 
 class baseball player, who always stood stoutly 
 up against any corrupt dealing ; but, like all other 
 editors in small Western towns, he was intimate 
 with both combatants in almost every fight. 
 
 The winter after this occurrence I was away, 
 and on my return began asking my foreman — a 
 
1^ 
 
Frontier Types 147 
 
 particular crony of mine — about the fates of my 
 various friends. Among others I inquired after 
 a traveHng preacher who had come to our neigh- 
 borhood; a good man, but irascible. After a 
 moment's pause a gleam of remembrance came 
 into my informant's eye: "Oh, the parson! 
 Well — he beat a man over the head with an ax, 
 and they put him in jail!" It certainly seemed 
 a rather summary method of repressing a refrac- 
 tory parishioner. Another acquaintance had 
 shared a like doom. "He started to go out of 
 the country, but they ketched him at Bismarck 
 and put him in jail" — apparently on general 
 principles, for I did not hear of his having com- 
 mitted any specific crime. My foreman some- 
 times developed his own theories of propriety. I 
 remember his objecting strenuously to a proposal 
 to lynch a certain French-Canadian who had lived 
 in his own cabin, back from the river, ever since 
 the whites came into the land, but who was sus- 
 pected of being a horse-thief. His chief point 
 against the proposal was, not that the man was 
 innocent, but that "it didn't seem anyways right 
 to hang a man who had been so long in the coun- 
 try." 
 
 Sometimes we had a comic row. There was 
 one huge man from Missouri called "The Pike," 
 who had been the keeper of a wood-yard for 
 steamboats on the Upper Missouri. Like most 
 
148 Ranch Life 
 
 of his class he was a hard case, and, though pleas- 
 ant enough when sober, always insisted on fighting 
 when drunk. One day, when on a spree, he 
 announced his intention of thrashing the entire 
 population of Medora seriatim, and began to 
 make his promise good with great vigor and praise- 
 worthy impartiality. He was victorious over the 
 first two or three eminent citizens whom he en- 
 countered, and then tackled a gentleman known 
 as "Cold Turkey Bill." Under ordinary circum- 
 stances. Cold Turkey, though an able-bodied man, 
 was no match for The Pike; but the latter was 
 still rather drunk, and moreover was wearied by 
 his previous combats. So Cold Turkey got him 
 down, lay on him, choked him by the throat with 
 one hand, and began poimding his face with a 
 triangular rock held in the other. To the on- 
 lookers the fate of the battle seemed decided ; but 
 Cold Turkey better appreciated the endurance of 
 his adversary, and it soon appeared that he sym- 
 pathized with the traditional himter who, having 
 caught a wildcat, earnestly besought a comrade 
 to help him let it go. While still pounding vigor- 
 ously he raised an agonized wail : ' ' Help me off, 
 fellows, for the Lord's sake; he's tiring me out!" 
 There was no resisting so plaintive an appeal, and 
 the bystanders at once abandoned their attitude of 
 neutrality for one of armed intervention. 
 
 I have always been treated with the utmost 
 
Frontier Types 149 
 
 courtesy by all cowboys, whether on the round-up 
 or in camp ; and the few real desperadoes I have 
 seen were also perfectly polite. Indeed, I never 
 was shot at maliciously but once. This was on 
 an occasion when I had to pass the night in a 
 little frontier hotel where the bar-room occupied 
 the whole lower floor, and was in consequence the 
 place where every one, drunk or sober, had to sit. 
 My assailant was neither a cowboy nor a bona fide 
 "bad man," but a broad-hatted ruffian of cheap 
 and commonplace type, who had for the moment 
 terrorized the other men in the bar-room, these 
 being mostly sheep-herders and small grangers. 
 The fact that I wore glasses, together with my 
 evident desire to avoid a fight, apparently gave 
 him the impression — a mistaken one — that I 
 would not resent an injury. 
 
 The first deadly affray that took place m our 
 town, after the cattlemen came in and regular 
 settlement began, was between a Scotchman and 
 a Minnesota man, the latter being one of the small 
 stockmen. Both had "shooting" records, and 
 each was a man with a varied past. The Scotch- 
 man, a noted bully, was the more daring of the 
 two, but he was much too hot-headed and over- 
 bearing to be a match for his gray-eyed, hard- 
 ' featured foe. After a furious quarrel and threats 
 I of violence, the Scotchman mounted his horse, 
 and, rifle in hand, rode to the door of the mud- 
 
ISO Ranch Life 
 
 ranch, perched on the brink of the river-blufi, 
 where the American hved, and was instantly shot 
 down by the latter from behind a comer of the 
 building. 
 
 Later on I once opened a cowboy ball with the 
 wife of the victor in this contest, the husband 
 himself dancing opposite. It was the lanciers, 
 and he knew all the steps far better than I did. 
 He could have danced a minuet very well with a 
 little practice. The scene reminded one of the 
 ball where Bret Harte's heroine "danced down 
 the middle with the man who shot Sandy Magee." 
 
 But though there were plenty of men present 
 each of whom had shot his luckless Sandy Magee, 
 yet there was no Lily of Poverty Flat. There 
 is an old and true border saying that " the frontier 
 is hard on women and cattle." There are some 
 striking exceptions; but, as a rule, the grinding 
 toil and hardship of a life passed in the wilderness, 
 or on its outskirts, drive the beauty and bloom 
 from a woman's face long before her youth has 
 left her. By the time she is a mother she is 
 sinewy and angular, with thin, compressed lips 
 and furrowed, sallow brow. But she has a hun- 
 dred qualities that atone for the grace she lacks. 
 She is a good mother and a hardworking house- 
 wife, always putting things to rights, washing and 
 cooking for her stalwart spouse and offspring. 
 She is faithful to her husband, and, like the true 
 
Frontier Types 151 
 
 American that she is, exacts faithfulness in return. 
 Peril cannot daunt her, nor hardship and poverty 
 appall her. Whether on the mountains in a log 
 hut chinked with moss, in a sod or adobe hovel 
 on the desolate prairie, or in a mere temporary 
 camp, where the white-topped wagons have been 
 drawn up in a protection-giving circle near some 
 spring, she is equally at home. Clad in a dingy 
 gown and a hideous sun-bonnet she goes bravely 
 about her work, resolute, silent, uncomplaining. 
 The children grow up pretty much as fate dictates. 
 Even when very small they seem well able to pro- 
 tect themselves. The wife of one of my teamsters, 
 who lived in a small outlying camp, used to keep 
 the yotmgest and most troublesome members of 
 her family out of mischief by the simple expedient 
 of picketing them out, each child being tied by the 
 leg, with a long leather string, to a stake driven 
 into the groimd, so that it could neither get at 
 another child nor at anything breakable. 
 
 The best buckskin maker I ever met was, if 
 not a typical frontierswoman, at least a woman 
 who could not have reached her full development 
 save on the border. She made first-class himting- 
 shirts, leggins, and gaimtlets. When I knew her 
 she was living alone in her cabin on mid-prairie, 
 having dismissed her husband six months previ- 
 ously in an exceedingly summary manner. She 
 not only possessed redoubtable qualities of head 
 
152 Ranch Life 
 
 and hand, but also a nice sense of justice, even 
 toward Indians, that is not always found on the 
 frontier. Once, going there for a buckskin shirt, 
 I met at her cabin three Sioux, and from their 
 leader, named One Bull, purchased a tobacco- 
 pouch, beautifully worked with porcupine quills. 
 She had given them some dinner, for which they 
 had paid with a deer-hide. Falling into conver- 
 sation, she mentioned that just before I came up 
 a white man, apparently from Deadwood, had 
 passed by, and had tried to steal the Indians' 
 horses. The latter had been too quick for him, 
 had run him down, and brought him back to the 
 cabin. " I told 'em to go right on and hang him, 
 and / wouldn't never cheep about it," said my 
 informant; "but they let him go, after taking 
 his gun. There ain't no sense in stealing from 
 Indians any more than from white folks, and I'm 
 not going to have it round my ranch, neither. 
 There! I'll give 'em back the deer-hide they give 
 me for the dinner and things, anyway." I told 
 her I sincerely wished we could make her sheriff 
 and Indian agent. She made the Indians — and 
 whites, too, for that matter — behave themselves 
 and walk the straightest kind of line, not toler- 
 ating the least symptom of rebellion ; but she had 
 a strong natural sense of justice. 
 
 The cowboy balls, spoken of above, are always 
 great events in the small towns where they take 
 
 '^^ 
 
Frontier Types 153 
 
 place, being usually given when the round-up 
 passes near ; everybody round about comes in for 
 them. They are almost always conducted with 
 great decorum; no unseemly conduct would be 
 tolerated. There is usually some master of the 
 ceremonies, chosen with due regard to brawn as 
 well as brain. He calls off the figures of the square 
 dances, so that even the inexperienced may get 
 through them, and incidentally preserves order. 
 Sometimes we are allowed to wear our revolvers, 
 and sometimes not. The nature of the band, of 
 course, depends upon the size of the place. I 
 remember one ball that came near being a failure 
 because our half-breed fiddler " went and got him- 
 self shot," as the indignant master of the cere- 
 monies phrased it. 
 
 But all these things are merely incidents in the 
 cowboy's life. It is utterly imfair to judge the 
 whole class by what a few individuals do in the 
 course of two or three days spent in town, instead 
 of by the long months of weary, honest toil com- 
 mon to all alike. To appreciate properly his fine, 
 manly qualities, the wild rough-rider of the plains 
 should be seen in his o^vn home. There he passes 
 his days, there he does his lifework, there, when 
 he meets death, he faces it as he has faced many 
 other evils, with quiet, imcomplaining fortitude. 
 Brave, hospitable, hardy, and adventurous, he is 
 the grim pioneer of our race ; he prepares the way 
 
154 Ranch Life 
 
 for the civilization from before whose face he must 
 himself disappear. Hard and dangerous though 
 his existence is, it has yet a wild attraction that 
 strongly draws to it his bold, free spirit. He lives 
 in the lonely lands where mighty rivers twist in 
 long reaches between the barren bluffs ; where the 
 prairies stretch out into billowy plains of waving 
 grass, girt only by the blue horizon, — plains across 
 whose endless breadth he can steer his course for 
 days and weeks and see neither man to speak to 
 nor hill to break the level ; where the glory and 
 the burning splendor of the simsets kindle the 
 blue vault of heaven and the level brown earth 
 till they merge together in an ocean of flaming fire. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RED AND WHITE ON THE BORDER. 
 
 UP to 1880 the country through which the 
 Little Missouri flows remained as wild and 
 almost as imknown as it was when the 
 old explorers and fur-traders crossed it in the 
 early part of the century. It was the last great 
 Indian hunting-groimd, across which Gros ventres 
 and Mandans, Sioux and Cheyennes, and even 
 Crows and Rees wandered in chase of game, and 
 where they fought one another and plundered 
 the small parties of white trappers and hunters 
 that occasionall}^ ventured into it. Once or twice 
 generals like Sully and Custer had penetrated it 
 in the course of the long, tedious, and bloody 
 campaigns that finally broke the strength of the 
 northern Horse Indians ; indeed, the trail made 
 by Custer's baggage train is to this day one of 
 the well-known landmarks, for the deep ruts worn 
 by the wheels of the heavy wagons are in many 
 places still as distinctly to be seen as ever. 
 
 In 1883, a regular long-range skirmish took 
 place just south of us between some Cheyennes 
 and some cowboys, with bloodshed on both sides, 
 while about the same time a band of Sioux 
 plundered a party of buffalo hunters of every- 
 
 155 
 
156 Ranch Life 
 
 thing they owned, and some Crows who attempted 
 the same feat with another party were driven off 
 with the loss of two of their number. Since then 
 there have been in our neighborhood no stand-up 
 fights or regular raids ; but the Indians have at 
 different times proved more or less troublesome, 
 burning the grass, and occasionally killing stock 
 or carrying off horses that have wandered some 
 distance away. They have also themselves suffered 
 somewhat at the hands of white horse thieves. 
 Bands of them, accompanied by their squaws 
 and children, often come into the ranch country, 
 either to trade or to hunt, and are then, of course, 
 perfectly meek and peaceable. If they stay any 
 time they build themselves quite comfortable 
 tepees (wigwams, as they would be styled in the 
 East) , and an Indian camp is a rather interesting, 
 though very dirty, place to visit. On our ranch 
 we get along particularly well with them, as it is 
 a rule that they shall be treated as fairly as if 
 they were whites: we neither wrong them our- 
 selves nor allow others to wrong them. We have 
 always, for example, been as keen in putting down 
 horse-stealing from Indians as from whites — 
 which indicates rather an advanced stage of 
 frontier morahty, as theft from the "redskins" 
 or the "Government" is usually held to be a very 
 trivial matter compared with the heinous crime 
 of theft from "citizens." 
 
 ii'. 
 
Red and White on the Border 157 
 
 There is always danger in meeting a band of 
 young bucks in lonely, uninhabited country — 
 those that have barely reached manhood being 
 the most truculent, insolent, and reckless. A man 
 meeting such a party runs great risk of losing his 
 horse, his rifle, and all else he has. This has hap- 
 pened quite frequently during the past few years 
 to himters or cowboys who have wandered into 
 the debatable territory where our country borders 
 on the Indian lands; and in at least one such 
 instance, that took place three years ago, the 
 unfortimate individual lost his life as well as his 
 belongings. But a frontiersman of any experi- 
 ence can generally "stand off" a small number 
 of such assailants, unless he loses his nerve or is 
 taken by surprise. 
 
 My only adventure with Indians was of a very 
 mild kind. It was in the course of a solitary trip 
 to the north and east of our range, to what was 
 then practically imknown country, although now 
 containing many herds of cattle. One morning 
 I had been traveling along the edge of the prairie, 
 and about noon I rode Manitou up a slight rise 
 and came out on a plateau that was perhaps half 
 a mile broad. When near the middle, four or 
 five Indians suddenly came up over the edge, 
 directly in front of me. The second they saw me 
 they whipped their gtms out of their slings, 
 started their horses into a nm, and came on at 
 
158 Ranch Life 
 
 full tilt, whooping and brandishing their weapons. 
 I instantly reined up and dismoiinted. The level 
 plain where we were was of all places the one on 
 which such an onslaught could best be met. In 
 any broken country, or where there is much 
 cover, a white man is at a great disadvantage if 
 pitted against such adepts in the art of hiding as 
 Indians ; while, on the other hand, the latter will 
 rarely rush in on a foe who, even if overpowered 
 in the end, will probably inflict severe loss on his 
 assailants. The fury of an Indian charge, and 
 the whoops by which it is accompanied, often 
 scare horses so as to stampede them; but in 
 Manitou I had perfect trust, and the old fellow 
 stood as steady as a rock, merely cocking his ears 
 and looking round at the noise. I waited tmtil 
 the Indians were a hundred yards off, and then 
 threw up my rifle and drew a bead on the fore- 
 most. The effect was like magic. The whole 
 party scattered out as wild pigeons or teal ducks 
 sometimes do when shot at, and doubled back on 
 their tracks, the men bending over alongside their 
 horses. When some distance off they halted and 
 gathered together to consult, and after a minute 
 one came forward alone, ostentatiously dropping 
 his rifle and waving a blanket over his head. 
 When he came to within fifty yards I stopped 
 him, and he pulled out a piece of paper — all 
 Indians, when absent from their reservations, are 
 
Red and White on the Border 159 
 
 supposed to carry passes — and called out, "How! 
 Me good Indian!" I answered, "How," and 
 assured him most sincerely I was very glad he 
 was a good Indian, but I -would not let him come 
 closer; and when his companions began to draw 
 near, I covered him with the rifle and made him 
 move off, which he did with a sudden lapse into 
 the most canonical Anglo-Saxon profanity. I 
 then started to lead my horse out to the prairie; 
 and after hovering roimd a short time they rode 
 off, while I followed suit, but in the opposite 
 direction. It had all passed too quickly for me 
 to have time to get frightened; but during the 
 rest of my ride I was exceedingly uneasy, and 
 pushed tough, speedy old Manitou along at a 
 rapid rate, keeping well out on the level. How- 
 ever, I never saw the Indians again. They may 
 not have intended any mischief beyond giving me 
 a fright ; but I did not dare to let them come to 
 close quarters, for they would have probably 
 taken my horse and rifle, and not impossibly my 
 scalp as well. Toward nightfall I fell in with two 
 old trappers who lived near Killdeer Moimtains, 
 and they informed me that my assailants were 
 some yoimg Sioux bucks, at whose hands they 
 themselves had just suffered the loss of two horses. 
 A few cool, resolute whites, well armed, can 
 generally beat back a much larger number of 
 Indians if attacked in the open. One of the first 
 
i6o Ranch Life 
 
 cattle outfits that came to the Powder River 
 country, at the very end of the last war with the 
 Sioux and Cheyennes, had an experience of this 
 sort. There were six or eight whites, including 
 the foreman, who was part owner, and they had 
 about a thousand head of cattle. These they 
 intended to hold just out of the dangerous dis- 
 trict tmtil the end of the war, which was evidently 
 close at hand. They would thus get first choice 
 of the new grazing groimds. But they ventured 
 a little too far, and one day while on the trail 
 were suddenly charged by fifty or sixty Indians. 
 The cattle were scattered in every direction, and 
 many of them slain in wantonness, though most 
 were subsequently recovered. All the loose horses 
 were driven off. But the men themselves in- 
 stantly ran together and formed a ring, fighting 
 from behind the pack and saddle ponies. One of 
 their number was killed, as well as two or three of 
 the animals composing their Hving breastwork; 
 but being good riflemen, they drove off their foes. 
 The latter did not charge them directly, but 
 circled round, each rider concealed on the outside 
 of his horse; and though their firing was very 
 rapid, it was, naturally, very wild. The whites 
 killed a good many ponies, and got one scalp, 
 belonging to a yoimg Sioux brave who dashed up 
 too close, and whose body in consequence could 
 not be carried off by his comrades, as happened 
 
Red and White on the Border i6i 
 
 to the two or three others who were seen to fall. 
 Both the men who related the incident to me had 
 been especially struck by the skill and daring 
 shown by the Indians in thus carrying off their 
 dead and wounded the instant they fell. 
 
 The relations between the white borderers and 
 their red-skinned foes and neighbors are rarely 
 pleasant. There are incessant quarrels, and each 
 side has to complain of bitter wrongs. Many of 
 the frontiersmen are brutal, reckless, and over- 
 bearing; most of the Indians are treacherous, 
 revengeful, and fiendishly cruel. Crime and 
 bloodshed are the only possible results when such 
 men are brought in contact. Writers usually pay 
 heed only to one side of the story ; they recite the 
 crimes committed by one party, whether whites 
 or Indians, and omit all reference to the equally 
 numerous sins of the other. In our dealings with 
 the Indians we have erred quite as often through 
 sentimentality as through wilful wrong-doing. 
 Out of my own short experience I could recite a 
 dozen instances of white outrages which, if told 
 alone, would seem to justify all the outcry raised 
 on behalf of the Indian ; and I could also tell of 
 as many Indian atrocities which make one almost 
 feel that not a single one of the race should be 
 left alive. 
 
 The chief trouble arises from the feeling alluded 
 to in this last sentence — the tendency on each 
 II 
 
1 62 Ranch Life 
 
 side to hold the race, and not the individual, 
 responsible for the deeds of the latter. The 
 skirmish between the cowboys and the Cheyennes, 
 spoken of above, offers a case in point. It was 
 afterward found out that two horse-thieves had 
 stolen some ponies from the Cheyennes. The 
 latter at once sallied out and attempted to take 
 some from a cow camp, and a fight resulted. In 
 exactly the same way I once knew a party of 
 buffalo hunters, who had been robbed of their 
 horses by the Sioux, to retaliate by stealiag an 
 equal number from some perfectly peaceful Gros- 
 ventres. A white or an Indian who would not 
 himself commit any outrage will yet make no 
 effort to prevent his fellows from organizing 
 expeditions against men of the rival race. This is 
 natural enough where law is weak, and where, in 
 consequence, every man has as much as he can do 
 to protect himself without meddlrag in the quar- 
 rels of his neighbors. Thus a white community 
 will often refrain from taking active steps against 
 men who steal horses only from the Indians, 
 although I have known a number of instances 
 where the ranchmen have themselves stopped 
 such outrages. The Indians behave in the same 
 way. There is a peaceful tribe not very far from 
 us which harbors two or three red horse-thieves, 
 who steal from the whites at every chance. 
 Recently, in our country, an expedition was 
 
Red and White on the Border 163 
 
 raised to go against these horse-thieves, and it 
 was only with the utmost difficulty that it was 
 stopped : had it actually gone, accompanied as it 
 would have been by scoundrels bent on plunder, 
 as well as by wronged men who thought all 
 redskins pretty much alike, the inevitable result 
 would have been a bloody fight with all the 
 Indians, both good and bad. 
 
 Not only do Indians differ individually, but 
 they differ as tribes. An upper-class Cherokee is 
 nowadays as good as a white. The Nez Perces 
 differ from the Apaches as much as a Scotch laird 
 does from a Calabrian bandit. A Cheyenne 
 warrior is one of the most redoubtable foes in 
 the whole world; a "digger" Snake one of the 
 most despicable. The Pueblo is as thrifty, indus- 
 trious, and peaceful as any European peasant, 
 and no Arab of the Soudan is a lazier, wilder 
 robber than is the Arapahoe. 
 
 The frontiersmen themselves differ almost as 
 widely from one another. But in the event of an 
 Indian outbreak all suffer alike, and so all are 
 obliged to stand together : when the reprisals for 
 a deed of guilt are sure to fall on the innocent, 
 the latter have no resource save to ally them- 
 selves with the guilty. Moreover, even the best 
 Indians are very apt to have a good deal of the 
 wild beast in them ; when they scent blood they 
 with their share of it, no matter from whose veins 
 
1 64 Ranch Life 
 
 it flows. I once had a German in my employ, 
 who, when a young child, had lost all his relations 
 by a fate so terrible that it had weighed down his 
 whole after-life. His family was living out on 
 the extreme border at the time of the great Sioux 
 outbreak toward the end of the Civil War. There 
 were many Indians aroimd, seemingly on good 
 terms with them; and to two of these Indians 
 they had been able to be of much service, so that 
 they became great friends. When the outbreak 
 occurred, the members of this family were among 
 the first captured. The two friendly Indians then 
 endeavored to save their lives, doing all they, 
 could to dissuade their comrades from com- 
 mitting violence. Finally, after an angry dis- 
 cussion, the chief, who was present, suddenly 
 ended it by braining the mother. The two 
 former friends then, finding their efforts useless, 
 forthwith turned round and joined with the 
 others, first in violating the wretched daughters, 
 and then in putting them to death with tortures 
 that cannot even be hinted at. The boy alone 
 was allowed to live. If he had been a native- 
 bom frontiersman, instead of a peaceful, quiet 
 German, he probably would have turned into an 
 inveterate Indian-slayer, resolute to kill any of 
 the hated race wherever and whenever met — a 
 type far from unknown on the border, of which I 
 have myself seen at least one example. 
 
Red and White on the Border 165 
 
 With this incident it is only fair to contrast 
 another that I heard related while spending the 
 night in a small cow ranch on the Beaver, whither 
 I had ridden on one of our many tedious hunts 
 after lost horses. Being tired, I got into my 
 bimk early, and while lying there listened to the 
 conversation of two cowboys — ^both strangers to 
 me — who had also ridden up to the ranch to spend 
 the night. They were speaking of Indians, and 
 mentioned, certainly without any marked disap- 
 probation, a jury that had just acquitted a noted 
 horse-thief of the charge of stealing stock from 
 some Piegans, though he himself had openly 
 admitted its truth. One, an unprepossessing, 
 beetle-browed man, suddenly remarked that he 
 had once met an Indian who was a pretty good 
 fellow, and he proceeded to tell the story. A 
 small party of Indians had passed the winter near 
 the ranch at which he was employed. The chief 
 had two particularly fine horses, which so excited 
 his cupidity that one night he drove them off and 
 " cached "—that is, hid— them in a safe place. 
 The chief looked for them high and low, but 
 without success. Soon afterward one of the 
 cowboy's own horses strayed. When spring came 
 the Indians went away ; but three days afterward 
 the chief returned, bringing with him the strayed 
 horse, which he had happened to nm across. 
 "I couldn't stand that," said the narrator, "so I 
 
i66 Ranch Life 
 
 just told him I reckoned I knew where his own 
 lost horses were, and I saddled up my bronch* 
 and piloted him to them." 
 
 Here and there on the border there is a certain 
 amount of mixture with the Indian blood ; much 
 more than is commonly supposed. One of the 
 most hard-working and prosperous men in our 
 neighborhood is a Chippewa half-breed; he is 
 married to a white wife, and ranks in every 
 respect as a white. Two of our richest cattle- 
 men are married to Indian women ; their children 
 are being educated in convents. In several of the 
 most thriving Northwestern cities men could be 
 pointed out, standing high in the community, who 
 have a strong dash of Indian blood in their veins. 
 Often, however, especially in the lower classes, 
 they seem to feel some shame about admitting 
 the cross, so that in a couple of generations it is 
 forgotten. 
 
 Indians are excellent fighters, though they do 
 not shoot well — being in this respect much inferior 
 not only to the old hunters, but also, nowadays, 
 to the regular soldiers, who during the past three 
 or four years have improved wonderfully in marks- 
 manship. They have a very effective discipline 
 of their own, and thus a body of them may 
 readily be an overmatch for an equal number of 
 frontiersmen if the latter have no leader whom 
 they respect. If the cowboys have rifles — for the 
 
Red and White on the Border 167 
 
 revolver is useless in long-range individual fight- 
 ing — they feel no fear of the Indians, so long as 
 there are but half a dozen or so on a side; but, 
 though infinitely quicker in their movements than 
 regular cavalry, yet, owing to their heavy saddles, 
 they are not able to make quite so wonderful 
 marches as the Indians do, and their imruly spirit 
 often renders them ineffective when gathered in 
 any number without a competent captain. Under 
 a man like Forrest they would become the most 
 formidable fighting horsemen in the world. 
 
 In the summer of 1886, at the time of the war- 
 scare over the "Cutting incident," we began the 
 organization of a troop of cavalry in our district, 
 notifying the Secretary of War that we were at 
 the service of the Government, and being prom- 
 ised every assistance by our excellent chief execu- 
 tive of the Territory, Governor Pierce, Of course 
 the cowboys were all eager for war, they did not 
 much care with whom ; they were very patriotic,^ 
 they were fond of adventure, and, to tell the 
 truth, they were by no means averse to the 
 prospect of pliinder. News from the outside 
 world came to us very irregularly, and often in 
 distorted form, so that we began to think we 
 might get involved in a conflict not only with 
 
 *The day that the Anarchists were hung in Chicago, my 
 men joined with the rest of the neighborhood in burning them 
 in effigy. 
 
1 68 Ranch Life 
 
 Mexico, but with England also. One evening at ; 
 my ranch the men began talking over the English 
 soldiers, so I got down "Napier" and read them 
 several extracts from his descriptions of the fight- 
 ing in the Spanish peninsula, also recoimting as 
 well as I could the great deeds of the British 
 cavalry from Waterloo to Balaklava, and finishing 
 up by describing from memory the fine appear- 
 ance, the magnificent equipment, and the superb 
 horses of the Household cavalry and of a regiment 
 of hussars I had once seen. 
 
 All of this produced much the same effect on 
 my listeners that the sight of Marmion's cavalcade 
 produced in the minds of the Scotch moss-troopers 
 on the eve of Flodden; and at the end, one of 
 them, who had been looking into the fire and 
 rubbing his hands together, said with regretful 
 emphasis, "Oh, how I would like to kill one of 
 them!" 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 sheriff's work on a ranch, 
 
 IN our own immediate locality we have had 
 more difficulty with white desperadoes than 
 with the redskins. At times there has been 
 a good deal of cattle-killing and horse-stealing, 
 and occasionally a murder or two. But as regards 
 the last, a man has very little more to fear in the 
 West than in the East, in spite of all the lawless 
 acts one reads about. Undoubtedly a long-stand- 
 ing quarrel sometimes ends in a shooting-match; 
 and of course savage affrays occasionally take 
 place in the bar-rooms ; in which, be it remarked, 
 that, inasmuch as the men are generally dnmk, 
 and, furthermore, as the revolver is at best a 
 rather inaccurate weapon, outsiders are nearly as 
 apt to get hurt as are the participants. But if a 
 man minds his own business and does not go into 
 bar-rooms, gambling saloons, and the like, he need 
 have no fear of being molested ; while a revolver 
 is a mere foolish encumbrance for any but a trained 
 expert, and need never be carried. Against horse- 
 thieves, cattle-thieves, claim- jumpers, and the like, 
 however, every ranchman has to be on his guard ; 
 and armed collisions with these gentry are some- 
 times inevitable. The fact of such scoundrels 
 
 169 
 
170 Ranch Life 
 
 being able to ply their trade with impunity for 
 any length of time can only be understood if the 
 absolute wildness of our land is taken into account. 
 The country is yet imsurveyed and unmapped; 
 the course of the river itself, as put down on the 
 various Government and railroad maps, is very 
 much a mere piece of guesswork, its bed being in 
 many parts — as by my ranch — ten or fifteen miles, 
 or more, away from where these maps make it. 
 White himters came into the land by 1880; but 
 the actual settlement only began in 1882, when 
 the first cattlemen drove in their herds, all of 
 Northern stock, the Texans not passing north of 
 the country arouind the head-waters of the river 
 tintil the following year, while -until 1885 the ter- 
 ritory through which it ran for the final hundred 
 and fifty miles before entering the Big Missouri 
 remained as little known as ever. 
 
 Some of us had always been anxious to run 
 down the river in a boat during the time of the 
 spring floods, as we thought we might get good 
 duck and goose shooting, and also kill some beaver, 
 while the trip would, in addition, have all the 
 charm of an exploring expedition. Twice, so far 
 as we knew, the feat had been performed, both 
 times by hunters, and in one instance with very 
 good luck in shooting and trapping. A third 
 attempt, by two men on a raft, made the spring 
 preceding that on which we made ours, had been 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 171 
 
 less successful; for, when a score or so of miles 
 below our ranch, a bear killed one of the two 
 adventurers, and the survivor returned. 
 
 We could only go down during a freshet; for 
 the Little Missouri, like most plains' rivers, is 
 usually either a dwindling streamlet, a mere slen- 
 der thread of sluggish water, or else a boiling, 
 muddy torrent, running over a bed of shifting 
 quicksand, that neither man nor beast can cross. 
 It rises and falls with extraordinary suddenness 
 and intensity, an instance of which has just 
 occurred as this very page is being written. Last 
 evening, when the moon rose, from the ranch 
 veranda we could see the river-bed almost dry, 
 the stream having shrunk imder the drouth till 
 it was little but a string of shallow pools, with 
 between them a trickle of water that was not 
 ankle deep, and hardly wet the fetlocks of the 
 saddle-band when driven across it; yet at day- 
 break this morning, without any rain having 
 fallen near us, but doubtless in consequence of 
 some heavy cloudburst near its head, the swift, 
 swollen current was foaming brim high between 
 the banks, and even the fords were swimming-deep 
 for the horses. 
 
 Accordingly we had planned to run down the 
 river some time toward the end of April, taking 
 advantage of a rise ; but an accident made us start 
 three or four weeks sooner than we had intended. 
 
172 Ranch Life 
 
 In 1886 the ice went out of the upper river ver}' 
 early, during the first part of February ; but it at 
 times almost froze over again, the bottom ice did 
 not break up, and a huge gorge, scores of miles in 
 length, formed in and above the bend known as 
 the Ox-bow, a long distance up-stream from my 
 ranch. About the middle of March this great 
 Ox-bow jam came down past us. It moved 
 slowly, its front forming a high, cnmibling 
 wall, and creaming over like an immense 
 breaker on the seashore: we could hear the dull 
 roaring and crunching as it plowed down the river- 
 bed long before it came in sight roxmd the bend 
 above us. The ice kept piling and tossing up in 
 the middle, and not only heaped itself above the 
 level of the banks, but also in many places spread 
 out on each side beyond them, grinding against 
 the Cottonwood trees in front of the ranch veranda, 
 and at one moment bidding fair to overwhelm the 
 house itself. It did not, however, but moved 
 slowly down past us with that look of vast, resist- 
 less, relentless force that any great body of moving 
 ice, as a glacier, or an iceberg, always conveys to 
 the beholder. The heaviest pressure from the 
 water that was backed up behind being, of course, 
 always in the middle, this part kept breaking 
 away, and finally was pushed on clear through, 
 leaving the river so changed that it could hardly 
 be known. On each bank, and for a couple of 
 
Sheriffs Work on a Ranch 173 
 
 hundred feet out from it into the stream, was a 
 solid mass of ice, edging the river along most of 
 its length, at least as far as its course lay through 
 lands that we knew; and in the narrow channel 
 between the sheer ice-walls the water ran like a 
 mill-race. 
 
 At night the snowy, glittering masses, tossed up 
 and heaped into fantastic forms, shone like crystal 
 in the moonlight ; but they soon lost their beauty, 
 becoming fouled and blackened, and at the same 
 time melted and settled down until it was possible 
 to clamber out across the slippery hummocks. 
 
 We had brought out a clinker-built boat espe- 
 cially to ferry ourselves over the river when it was 
 high, and were keeping our ponies on the opposite 
 side, where there was a good range shut in by some 
 very broken coimtry that we knew they would 
 not be apt to cross. This boat had already 
 proved very useful and now came in handier than 
 ever, as without it we could take no care of our 
 horses. We kept it on the bank, tied to a tree, 
 and every day would carry it or slide it across the 
 hither ice bank, usually with not a little tumbling 
 and scrambling on our part, lower it gently into 
 the swift current, pole it across to the ice on the 
 farther bank, and then drag it over that, repeating 
 the operation when we came back. One day we 
 crossed and walked off about ten miles to a tract 
 of wild and rugged country, cleft in every direction 
 
174 Ranch Life 
 
 by ravines and cedar canyons, in the deepest of 
 which we had left four deer hanging a fortnight 
 before, as game thus hung up in cold weather 
 keeps indefinitely. The walking was very bad, 
 especially over the clay buttes; for the sun at 
 midday had enough strength to thaw out the soil 
 to the depth of a few inches only, and accordingly 
 the steep hillsides were covered by a crust of slip- 
 pery mud, with the frozen ground underneath. 
 It was hard to keep one's footing, and to avoid 
 falling while balancing along the knifelike ridge 
 crests, or while clinging to the stimted sage brush 
 as we went down into the valleys. The deer had 
 been hung in a thicket of dwarfed cedars; but 
 when we reached the place we found nothing save 
 scattered pieces of their carcasses, and the soft 
 mud was tramped all over with rotmd, deeply 
 marked footprints, some of them but a few hours 
 old, showing that the plunderers of our cache were 
 a pair of cougars — "mountain lions," as they are 
 called by the Westerners. They had evidently 
 been at work for some time, and had eaten almost 
 every scrap of flesh; one of the deer had been 
 carried for some distance to the other side of a 
 deep, narrow, chasmlike gully across which the 
 cougar must have leaped with the carcass in its 
 mouth. We followed the fresh trail of the cougars 
 for some time, as it was well marked, especially in 
 the snow still remaining in the bottoms of the 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 175 
 
 deeper ravines ; finally it led into a tangle of rocky- 
 hills riven by dark cedar-clad gorges, in which we 
 lost it, and we retraced our steps, intending to 
 return on the morrow with a good track hound. 
 
 But we never carried out our intentions, for 
 next morning one of my men who was out before 
 breakfast came back to the house with the start- 
 ling news that our boat was gone — stolen, for he 
 brought with him the end of the rope with which 
 it had been tied, evidently cut off with a sharp 
 knife ; and also a red woolen mitten with a leather 
 palm, which he had picked up on the ice. We had 
 no doubt as to who had stolen it; for whoever 
 had done so had certainly gone down the river in 
 it, and the only other thing in the shape of a boat 
 on the Little Missouri was a small flat-bottomed 
 scow in the possession of three hard characters 
 who lived in a shack, or hut, some twenty miles 
 above us, and whom we had shrewdly suspected 
 for some time of wishing to get out of the country, 
 as certain of the cattlemen had begim openly to 
 threaten to lynch them. They belonged to a class 
 that always holds sway during the raw youth of 
 a frontier commimity, and the putting down of 
 which is the first step toward decent government. 
 Dakota, west of the Missouri, has been settled 
 very recently, and every town within it has seen 
 strange antics performed during the past six or 
 seven years. Medora, in particular, has had more 
 
176 Ranch Life 
 
 than its full share of shooting and stabbing affrays, 
 horse-stealing, and cattle-killing. But the time 
 for such things was passing away ; and during the 
 preceding fall the vigilantes — locally known as 
 "stranglers," in happy allusion to their summary 
 method of doing justice — had made a clean sweep 
 of the cattle coimtry along the Yellowstone and 
 that part of the Big Missouri around and below 
 its mouth. Be it remarked, in passing, that while 
 the outcome of their efforts had been in the main 
 wholesome, yet, as is always the case in an ex- 
 tended raid of vigilantes, several of the sixty odd 
 victims had been perfectly innocent men who had 
 been hung or shot in company with the real 
 scoundrels, either through carelessness and 
 misapprehension or on accoimt of some personal 
 spite. 
 
 The three men we suspected had long been 
 accused — justly or unjustly — of being implicated 
 both in cattle-killing and in that worst of frontier 
 crimes, horse-stealing : it was only by an accident 
 that they had escaped the clutches of the vigi- 
 lantes the preceding fall. Their leader was a 
 well-built fellow named Finnigan, who had long 
 red hair reaching to his shoulders, and always 
 wore a broad hat and a fringed buckskin shirt. 
 He was rather a hard case, and had been chief 
 actor in a number of shooting scrapes. The other 
 two were a half-breed, a stout, muscular man, and 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 177 
 
 an old German, whose viciousness was of the weak 
 and shiftless type. 
 
 We knew that these three men were becoming 
 uneasy and were anxious to leave the locality ; and 
 we also knew that traveling on horseback, in the 
 direction in which they would wish to go, was 
 almost impossible, as the swollen, ice-fringed rivers 
 could not be crossed at all, and the stretches of 
 broken groimd would form nearly as impassable 
 barriers. So we had little doubt that it was they 
 who had taken our boat ; and as they knew there 
 was then no boat left on the river, and as the 
 coimtry along its banks was entirely impracticable 
 for horses, we felt sure they would be confident 
 that there could be no pursuit. 
 
 Accordingly we at once set to work in our turn 
 to build a flat-bottomed scow, wherein to follow 
 them. Our loss was very annoying, and might 
 prove a serious one if we were long prevented 
 from crossing over to look after the saddle-band ; 
 but the determining motive in our minds was 
 neither chagrin nor anxiety to recover our prop- 
 erty. In any wild country where the power of 
 the law is little felt or heeded, and where every 
 one has to rely upon himself for protection, men 
 soon get to feel that it is in the highest degree 
 unwise to submit to any wrong without making 
 an immediate and resolute effort to avenge it 
 upon the wrong-doers, at no matter what cost of 
 
178 Ranch Life 
 
 risk or trouble. To submit tamely and meekly 
 to theft, or to any other injury, is to invite almost 
 certain repetition of the offense, in a place where 
 self-reliant hardihood and the ability to hold one's 
 own under all circumstances rank as the first of 
 virtues. 
 
 Two of my cowboys. Seawall and Dow, were 
 originally from Maine, and were mighty men of 
 their hands, skilled in woodcraft and the use of 
 the ax, paddle, and rifle. They set to work with 
 a will, and, as by good luck there were plenty of 
 boards, in two or three days they had turned out 
 a first-class flat-bottom, which was roomy, drew 
 very little water, and was dry as a bone; and 
 though, of course, not a handy craft, was easily 
 enough managed in going down-stream. Into 
 this we packed flour, coffee, and bacon enough 
 to last us a fortnight or so, plenty of warm bed- 
 ding, and the mess kit ; and early one cold March 
 morning slid it into the icy current, took our seats, 
 and shoved off down the river. 
 
 There could have been no better men for a trip 
 of this kind than my two companions, Seawall and 
 Dow. They were tough, hardy, resolute fellows, 
 quick as cats, strong as bears, and able to travel 
 like bull moose. We felt very little imeasiness 
 as to the result of a fight with the men we were 
 after, provided we had anything like a fair show; 
 moreover, we intended, if possible, to get them at 
 
Sheriffs Work on a Ranch 179 
 
 such a disadvantage that there would not be any 
 fight at all. The only risk of any consequence 
 that we ran was that of being ambushed ; for the 
 extraordinary formation of the Bad Lands, with 
 the groimd cut up into gullies, serried walls, and 
 battlemented hilltops, makes it the country of 
 all others for hiding-places and ambuscades. 
 
 For several days before we started the weather 
 had been bitterly cold, as a furious blizzard was 
 blowing; but on the day we left there was a lull, 
 and we hoped a thaw had set in. We all were 
 most warmly and thickly dressed, with woolen 
 socks and imderclothes, heavy jackets and trou- 
 sers, and great fur coats, so that we felt we could 
 bid defiance to the weather. Each carried his 
 rifle, and we had in addition a double-barreled 
 duck gun, for water-fowl and beaver. To manage 
 the boat, we had paddles, heavy oars, and long 
 iron-shod poles. Seawall steering while Dow sat 
 in the bow. Altogether we felt as if we were off 
 on a holiday trip, and set to work to have as good 
 a time as possible. 
 
 The river twisted in every direction, winding 
 to and fro across the alluvial valley bottom, only 
 to be brought up by the rows of great barren 
 buttes that bounded it on each edge. It had worn 
 away the sides of these till they towered up as 
 cliffs of clay, marl, or sandstone. Across their 
 white faces the seams of coal drew sharp black 
 
i8o Ranch Life 
 
 bands, and they were elsewhere blotched and 
 varied with brown, yellow, purple, and red. This 
 fantastic coloring, together with the jagged irregu- 
 larity of their crests, channeled by the weather 
 into spires, buttresses, and battlements, as well 
 as their barrenness and the distinctness with 
 which they loomed up through the high, dry air, 
 gave them a look that was a singular mixture of 
 the terrible and the grotesque. The bottoms were 
 covered thickly with leafless cottonwood trees, 
 or else with withered brown grass and stimted, 
 sprawling sage bushes. At times the cliffs rose 
 close to us on either hand, and again the valley 
 would widen into a sinuous oval a mile or two long, 
 boimded on every side, as far as our eyes could see, 
 by a bluff line without a break, until, as we floated 
 down close to its other end, there would suddenly 
 appear in one comer a cleft through which the 
 stream rushed out. As it grew dusk the shadowy 
 outlines of the buttes lost nothing of their weird- 
 ness ; the twilight only made their imcouth shape- 
 lessness more grim and forbidding. They looked 
 like the crouching figures of great goblin beasts. 
 
 Those two hills on the right 
 Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight — 
 While to the left a tall scalped mountain. . . . 
 The dying sunset kindled through a cleft : 
 The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay 
 Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay — 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch i8i 
 
 might well have been written after seeing the 
 strange, desolate lands lying in western Dakota. 
 
 All through the early part of the day we drifted 
 swiftly down between the heaped-up piles of ice, 
 the cakes and slabs now dirty and unattractive 
 looking. Toward evening, however, there came 
 long reaches where the banks on either side were 
 bare, though even here there would every now 
 and then be necks where the jam had been 
 crowded into too narrow a spot and had risen 
 over the side as it had done up-stream, grinding 
 the bark from the big cottonwoods and snapping 
 the smaller ones short off. In such places the ice- 
 walls were sometimes eight or ten feet high, con- 
 tinually undermined by the restless current; and 
 every now and then overhanging pieces would 
 break off and slide into the stream with a loud 
 sullen splash, like the plunge of some great water 
 beast. Nor did we dare to go in too close to the 
 high cliffs, as boulders and earth masses, freed 
 by the thaw from the grip of the frost, kept roll- 
 ing and leaping down their faces and forced us 
 to keep a sharp lookout lest our boat should be 
 swamped. 
 
 At nightfall we landed, and made our camp on 
 a point of wood-covered land jutting out into the 
 stream. We had seen very little trace of life until 
 late in the day, for the ducks had not yet arrived ; 
 but in the afternoon a sharp-tailed prairie fowl 
 
1 82 Ranch Life 
 
 flew across stream ahead of the boat, lighting on 
 a low branch by the water's edge. Shooting him, 
 we landed and picked off two others that were 
 perched high up in leafless cotton woods, plucking 
 the buds. These three birds served us as supper; 
 and shortly afterward, as the cold grew more and 
 more biting, we rolled in under our furs and 
 blankets and were soon asleep. 
 
 In the morning it was evident that instead of 
 thawing it had grown decidedly colder. The 
 anchor ice was running thick in the river, and we 
 spent the first hour or two after sunrise in hiinting 
 over the frozen swamp bottom for white-tail deer, 
 of which there were many tracks; but we saw 
 nothing. Then we broke camp and again started 
 down-stream — a simple operation, as we had no 
 tent, and all we had to do was to cord up our 
 bedding, and gather the mess kit. It was colder 
 than before, and for some time we went along in 
 chilly silence, nor was it until midday that the 
 sun warmed our blood in the least. The crooked 
 bed of the current twisted hither and thither, but 
 whichever way it went the icy north wind, blow- 
 ing stronger all the time, drew steadily up it. 
 One of us remarking that we bade fair to have 
 it in our faces all day, the steersman annoimced 
 that we couldn't, unless it was the crookedest wind 
 in Dakota ; and half an hour afterward we over- 
 heard him muttering to himself that it was the 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 183 
 
 crookedest wind in Dakota. We passed a group 
 of tepees on one bottom, marking the deserted 
 winter camp of some Grosventre Indians, which 
 some of my men had visited a few months previ- 
 ously on a trading expedition. It was almost the 
 last point on the river with which we were ac- 
 quainted. At midday we landed on a sand-bar 
 for lunch — a simple enough meal, the tea being 
 boiled over a fire of driftwood, that also fried the 
 bacon, while the bread only needed to be baked 
 every other day. Then we again shoved off. As 
 the afternoon waned the cold grew still more bitter 
 and the wind increased, blowing in fitful gusts 
 against us, until it chilled us to the marrow when 
 we sat still. But we rarely did sit still ; for even 
 the rapid current was unable to urge the light- 
 draught scow down in the teeth of the strong 
 blasts, and we only got her along by dint of hard 
 work with pole and paddle. Long before the 
 sun went down the ice had begim to freeze on the 
 handles of the poles, and we were not sorry to 
 haul on shore for the night. For supper we again 
 had prairie fowl, having shot four from a great 
 patch of bulberry bushes late in the afternoon. 
 A man doing hard open-air work in cold weather 
 is always hungry for meat. 
 
 During the night the thermometer went down 
 to zero, and in the morning the anchor ice was 
 running so thickly that we did not care to start 
 
i84 Ranch Life 
 
 at once, for it is most difficult to handle a boat 
 in the deep frozen slush. Accordingly we took a 
 couple of hours for a deer hunt, as there were 
 evidently many white-tail on the bottom. We 
 selected one long, isolated patch of tangled trees 
 and brushwood, two of us beating through it 
 while the other watched one end; but almost 
 before we had begun four deer broke out at one 
 side, loped easily off, evidently not much scared, 
 and took refuge in a deep glen or gorge, densely 
 wooded with cedars, that made a blind pocket in 
 the steep side of one of the great plateaus boimd- 
 ing the bottom. After a short consultation, one 
 of our number crept roimd to the head of the 
 gorge, making a wide detour, and the other two 
 advanced up it on each side, thus completely sur- 
 rounding the doomed deer. They attempted to 
 break out past the man at the head of the glen, 
 who shot down a couple, a buck and a yearling 
 doe. The other two made their escape by run- 
 ning off over groimd so rough that it looked fitter 
 to be crossed by their upland-loving cousins, the 
 black-tail. 
 
 This success gladdened our souls, insuring us 
 plenty of fresh meat. We carried pretty much 
 all of both deer back to camp, and, after a hearty 
 breakfast, loaded our scow and started merrily 
 off once more. The cold still continued intense, 
 and as the day wore away we became numbed 
 
 % 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 185 
 
 by it, until at last an incident occurred that set 
 our blood running freely again. 
 
 We were, of course, always on the alert, keep- 
 ing a sharp lookout ahead and around us, and 
 making as little noise as possible. Finally our 
 watchfulness was rewarded, for in the middle of 
 the afternoon of this, the third day we had been 
 gone, as we came aroimd a bend, we saw in front 
 of us the lost boat, together with a scow, moored 
 against the bank, while from among the bushes 
 some little way back the smoke of a campfire 
 curled up through the frosty air. We had come 
 on the camp of the thieves. As I glanced at the 
 faces of my two followers I was struck by the 
 grim, eager look in their eyes. Our overcoats 
 were off in a second, and after exchanging a few 
 muttered words, the boat was hastily and silently 
 shoved toward the bank. As soon as it touched 
 the shore ice I leaped out and ran up behind a 
 clump of bushes, so as to cover the landing of the 
 others, who had to make the boat fast. For a 
 moment we felt a thrill of keen excitement, and 
 our veins tingled as we crept cautiously toward 
 the fire, for it seemed likely that there would be 
 a brush; but, as it turned out, this was almost 
 the only moment of much interest, for the capture 
 itself was as tame as possible. 
 
 The men we were after knew they had taken 
 with them the only craft there was on the river, 
 
1 86 Ranch Life 
 
 and so felt perfectly secure ; accordingly, we took 
 them absolutely by surprise. The only one in 
 camp was the German, whose weapons were on 
 the grotmd, and who, of course, gave up at once, 
 his two companions being off himting. We made 
 him safe, delegating one of our number to look 
 after him particularly and see that he made no 
 noise, and then sat down and waited for the 
 others. The camp was under the lee of a cut 
 bank, behind which we crouched, and, after wait- 
 ing an hour or over, the men we were after came 
 in. We heard them a long way off and made 
 ready, watching them for some minutes as they 
 walked toward us, their rifles on their shoulders 
 and the sunlight glinting on the steel barrels. 
 When they were within twenty yards or so we 
 straightened up from behind the bank, covering 
 them with our cocked rifles, while I shouted to 
 them to hold up their hands — an order that in 
 such a case, in the West, a man is not apt to dis- 
 regard if he thinks the giver is in earnest. The 
 half-breed obeyed at once, his knees trembling as 
 if they had been made of whalebone. Finnigan 
 hesitated for a second, his eyes fairly wolfish; 
 then, as I walked up within a few paces, covering 
 the center of his chest so as to avoid overshooting, 
 and repeating the command, he saw that he had 
 no show, and, with an oath, let his rifle drop and 
 held his hands up beside his head. 
 
Sheriffs Work on a Ranch 187 
 
 It was nearly dusk, so we camped where we 
 were. The first thing to be done was to collect 
 enough wood to enable us to keep a blazing fire 
 all night long. While Seawall and Dow, thor- 
 oughly at home in the use of the ax, chopped 
 down dead cottonwood trees and dragged the 
 logs up into a huge pile, I kept guard over the 
 three prisoners, who were huddled into a sullen 
 group some twenty yards off, just the right dis- 
 tance for the buckshot in the double-barrel. 
 Having captured our men, we were in a quandary 
 how to keep them. The cold was so intense that 
 to tie them tightly hand and foot meant, in all 
 likelihood, freezmg both hands and feet off during 
 the night; and it was no use tying them at all 
 unless we tied them tightly enough to stop in part 
 the circulation. So nothing was left for us to do 
 but to keep perpetual guard over them. Of 
 course we had carefully searched them, and 
 taken away not only their firearms and knives, 
 but everything else that could possibly be used as 
 a weapon. By this time they were pretty well 
 cowed, as they found out very quickly that they 
 would be well treated so long as they remained 
 quiet, but would receive some rough handling if 
 they attempted any disturbance. 
 
 Our next step was to cord their weapons up in 
 some bedding, which we sat on while we took sup- 
 per. Immediately afterward we made the men 
 
1 88 Ranch Life 
 
 take off their boots— an additional safeguard, as 
 it was a cactus country, in which a man could 
 travel barefoot only at the risk of almost certainly 
 laming himself for life — and go to bed, all three 
 lying on one buffalo robe and being covered by 
 another, in the full light of the blazing fire. We 
 determined to watch in succession a half-night 
 apiece, thus each getting a full rest every third 
 night. I took first watch, my two companions, 
 revolver under head, rolling up in their blankets 
 on the side of the fire opposite that on which the 
 three captives lay; while I, in fur cap, gantlets, 
 and overcoat, took my station a little way back 
 in the circle of firelight, in a position in which I 
 could watch my men with the absolute certainty 
 of being able to stop any movement, no matter 
 how sudden. For this night-watching we always 
 used the double-barrel with buckshot, as a rifle 
 is uncertain in the dark ; while with a shotgun at 
 such a distance, and with men lying down, a 
 person who is watchful may be sure that they can- 
 not get up, no matter how quick they are, without 
 being riddled. The only danger lies in the extreme 
 monotony of sitting still in the dark guarding 
 men who make no motion, and the consequent ten- 
 dency to go to sleep, especially when one has had 
 a hard day's work and is feeling really tired. But 
 neither on the first night nor on any subsequent 
 one did we ever abate a jot of our watchfulness. 
 
Sheriffs Work on a Ranch 189 
 
 Next morning we started down-stream, having 
 a well-laden flotilla, for the men we had caught 
 had a good deal of plunder in their boats, in- 
 cluding some saddles, as they evidently intended 
 to get horses as soon as they reached a part of 
 the coimtry where there were any, and where it 
 was possible to travel. Finnigan, who was the 
 ringleader, and the man I was especially after, I 
 kept by my side in our boat, the other two being 
 put in their own scow, heavily laden and rather 
 leaky, and with only one paddle. We kept them 
 just in front of us, a few yards distant, the river 
 being so broad that we knew, and they knew also, 
 any attempt at escape to be perfectly hopeless. 
 
 For some miles we went swiftly down-stream, 
 the cold being bitter and the slushy anchor ice 
 choking the space between the boats; then the 
 current grew sluggish, eddies forming along the 
 sides. We paddled on imtil, coming into a long 
 reach where the water was almost backed up, we 
 saw there was a stoppage at the other end. Work- 
 ing up to this, it proved to be a small ice jam, 
 through which we broke our way only to find our- 
 selves, after a few hundred yards, stopped by 
 another. We had hoped that the first was merely 
 a jam of anchor ice, caused by the cold of the last 
 few days ; but the jam we had now come to was 
 black and solid, and, nmning the boats ashore, 
 one of us went off down the bank to find out what 
 
190 Ranch Life 
 
 the matter was. On climbing a hill that com- 
 manded a view of the valley for several miles, the 
 explanation became only too evident, — as far as 
 we could see, the river was choked with black ice. 
 The great Ox-bow jam had stopped, and we had 
 come down to its tail. 
 
 We had nothing to do but to pitch camp, after 
 which we held a consultation. The Little Mis- 
 souri has much too swift a current, — when it has 
 any current at all, — with too bad a bottom, for 
 it to be possible to take a boat up-stream ; and to 
 walk meant, of course, abandoning almost all we 
 had. Moreover we knew that a thaw would very 
 soon start the jam, and so made up our minds that 
 we had best simply stay where we were, and work 
 down -stream as fast as we could, trusting that the 
 spell of bitter weather would pass before our food 
 gave out. 
 
 The next eight days were as irksome and 
 monotonous as any I ever spent: there is very 
 little amusement in combining the fiinctions of 
 a sheriff with those of an arctic explorer. The 
 weather kept as cold as ever. During the night 
 the water in the pail would freeze solid. Ice 
 formed all over the river, thickly along the banks ; 
 and the clear, frosty sim gave us so little warmth 
 that the melting hardly began before noon. Each 
 day the great jam would settle down-stream a 
 few miles, only to wedge again, leaving behind 
 
Sheriffs Work on a Ranch 191 
 
 it several smaller jams, through which we would 
 work our way until we were as close to the tail of 
 the large one as we dared to go. Once we came 
 round a bend and got so near that we were in a 
 good deal of danger of being sucked under. The 
 current ran too fast to let us work back against 
 it, and we could not pull the boat up over the 
 steep banks of rotten ice, which were breaking off 
 and falling in all the time. We could only land 
 and snub the boats up with ropes, holding them 
 there for two or three hours until the jam worked 
 down once more — all the time, of course, having 
 to keep guard over the captives, who had caused 
 us so much trouble that we were boimd to bring 
 them in, no matter what else we lost. 
 
 We had to be additionally cautious on account 
 of being in the Indian country, having worked 
 down past Killdeer Mountains, where some of my 
 cowboys had run across a band of Sioux — said to 
 be Tetons— the year before. Very probably the 
 Indians would not have harmed us anyhow, but 
 as we were hampered by the prisoners, we pre- 
 ferred not meeting them ; nor did we, though we 
 saw plenty of fresh signs, and found, to our 
 sorrow, that they had just made a grand hunt 
 all down the river, and had killed or driven off 
 almost every head of game in the coiintry through 
 which we were passing. 
 
 As our stock of provisions grew scantier and 
 
J 92 Ranch Life 
 
 scantier, we tried in vain to eke it out by the 
 chase ; for we saw no game. Two of us would go 
 out hunting at a time, while the third kept guard 
 over the prisoners. The latter would be made to 
 sit down together on a blanket at one side of the 
 fire, while the guard for the time being stood or 
 sat some fifteen or twenty yards off. The pris- 
 oners being imarmed, and kept close together, 
 there was no possibility of their escaping, and 
 the guard kept at such a distance that they could 
 not overpower him by springing on him, he having 
 a Winchester or the double-barreled shot-gun 
 always in his hands cocked and at the ready. 
 So long as we kept wide-awake and watchful, 
 there was not the least danger, as our three men 
 knew us, and understood perfectly that the 
 slightest attempt at a break would result in their 
 
 • being shot down ; but, although there was thus 
 no risk, it was harassing, tedious work, and the 
 strain, day in and day out, without any rest or 
 let up, became very tiresome. 
 
 7 The days were monotonous to a degree. The 
 endless rows of hills bounding the valley, barren 
 and naked, stretched along without a break. 
 When we roimded a bend, it was only to see on 
 each hand the same lines of broken buttes 
 dwindling off into the distance ahead of us as 
 they had dwmdled off into the distance behind. 
 If, in hunting, we climbed to their tops, as far 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 193 
 
 as our eyes could scan there was nothing but the 
 great rolling prairie, bleak and lifeless, reaching 
 off to the horizon. We broke camp in the 
 morning, on a point of land covered with brown, 
 leafless, frozen cotton woods ; and in the afternoon 
 we pitched camp on another point in the midst 
 of a grove of the same stiff, dreary trees. The 
 discolored river, whose eddies boiled into yellow 
 foam, flowed always between the same banks of 
 frozen mud or of muddy ice. And what was, 
 from a practical standpoint, even worse, our diet 
 began to be as same as the scenery. Being able 
 to kill nothing, we exhausted all our stock of 
 provisions, and got reduced to flour, without 
 yeast or baking-powder; and unleavened bread, 
 made with exceedingly muddy water, is not, as a 
 steady thing, attractive. 
 
 Finding that they were well treated and were 
 also watched with the closest vigilance, our pris- 
 oners behaved themselves excellently and gave 
 no trouble, though afterward, when out of our 
 hands and shut up in j^il, the half-breed got into 
 a stabbing affray. They conversed freely with 
 my two men on a number of indifferent subjects, 
 and after the first evening no allusion was made 
 to the theft, or anything connected with it; so 
 that an outsider overhearing the conversation 
 would never have guessed what our relations to 
 each other really were. Once, and once only, did 
 13 
 
194 Ranch Life 
 
 Finnigan broach the subject. Somebody had 
 been speaking of a man whom we all knew, called 
 "Calamity," who had been recently taken by the 
 sheriff on a charge of horse-stealing. Calamity 
 had escaped once, but was caught at a disadvan- 
 tage the next time; nevertheless, when sum- 
 moned to hold his hands up, he refused, and 
 attempted to draw his own revolver, with the 
 result of having two bullets put through him. 
 Finnigan commented on Calamity as a fool for 
 "not knowing when a man had the drop on him;" 
 and then, suddenly turning to me, said, his 
 weather-beaten face flushing darkly: "If I'd had 
 any show at all, you'd have sure had to fight, 
 Mr. Roosevelt ; but there wasn't any use making 
 a break when I'd only have got shot myself, with 
 no chance of harming anyone else." I laughed 
 and nodded, and the subject was dropped. 
 
 Indeed, if the time was tedious to us, it must 
 have seemed never-ending to our prisoners, who 
 had nothing to do but to lie still and read, or 
 chew the bitter cud of their reflections, always 
 conscious that some pair of eyes was watching 
 them every moment, and that at least one loaded 
 rifle was ever ready to be used against them. 
 They had quite a stock of books, some of a 
 rather unexpected kind. Dime novels and the 
 inevitable "History of the James Brothers" — a 
 book that, together with the "Police Gazette," 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 195 
 
 is to be found in the hands of every professed or 
 putative ruffian in the West — seemed perfectly in 
 place; but it was somewhat surprising to find 
 that a large number of more or less drearily silly 
 "society" novels, ranging from Ouida's to those 
 of The Duchess and Augusta J. Evans, were most 
 greedily devoured. As for me, I had brought 
 with me "Anna Karenina," and my surrotmdings 
 were quite gray enough to harmonize well with 
 Tolstoi. 
 
 Our commons grew shorter and shorter; and 
 finally even the flour was nearly gone, and we 
 were again forced to think seriously of abandoning 
 the boats. The Indians had driven all the deer 
 out of the coimtry; occasionally we shot prairie 
 fowl, but they were not plentiful. A flock of 
 geese passed us one morning, and afterward an 
 old gander settled down on the river near our 
 camp; but he was over two himdred yards off, 
 and a rifle-shot missed him. Where he settled 
 down, by the way, the river was covered with 
 thick glare ice that would just bear his weight; 
 and it was curious to see him stretch his legs out 
 in front and slide forty or fifty feet when he 
 struck, balancing himself with his outspread 
 wings. 
 
 But when the day was darkest the dawn 
 appeared. At last, having worked down some 
 thirty miles at the tail of the ice jam, we struck 
 
196 Ranch Life 
 
 an outlying cow-camp of the C Diamond (C O) 
 ranch, and knew that our troubles were almost 
 over. There was but one cowboy in it, but we 
 were certain of his cordial help, for in a stock 
 country all make common cause against either 
 horse-thieves or cattle-thieves. He had no wagon, 
 but told us we could get one up at a ranch near 
 Killdeer Moimtains, some fifteen miles off, and 
 lent me a pony to go up there and see about it — 
 which I accordingly did, after a sharp preliminary 
 tussle when I came to mount the wiry bronco 
 (one of my men remarking in a loud aside to our 
 cowboy host, "the boss ain't no bronco-buster"). 
 When I .reached the solitary ranch spoken of, I 
 was able to hire a large prairie schooner and two 
 tough little bronco mares, driven by the settler 
 himself, a rugged old plainsman, who evidently 
 could hardly imderstand why I took so much 
 bother with the thieves instead of hanging them 
 off-hand. Returning to the river the next day, 
 we walked our men up to the Killdeer Moimtains. 
 Seawall and Dow left me the following morning, 
 went back to the boats, and had no further diffi- 
 culty, for the weather set in very warm, the ice 
 went through with a rush, and they reached 
 Mandan in about ten days, killing four beaver 
 and five geese on the way, but lacking time to 
 stop to do any regular hunting. 
 
 Meanwhile I took the three thieves into Dick- 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 197 
 
 inson, the nearest town. The going was bad, and 
 the Httle mares could only drag the wagon at a 
 walk; so, though we drove during the daylight, 
 it took us two days and a night to make the 
 journey. It was a most desolate drive. The 
 prairie had been burned the fall before, and was 
 a mere bleak waste of blackened earth, and a 
 cold, rainy mist lasted throughout the two days. 
 The only variety was where the road crossed the 
 shallow headwaters of Knife and Green rivers. 
 Here the ice was high along the banks, and the 
 wagon had to be taken to pieces to get it over. 
 My three captives were unarmed, but as I was 
 alone with them, except for the driver, of whom 
 I knew nothing, I had to be doubly on my guard, 
 and never let them close to me. The little 
 mares went so slowly, and the heavy road ren- 
 dered any hope of escape by flogging up the 
 horses so entirely out of the question, that I soon 
 found the safest plan was to put the prisoners in 
 the wagon, and myself walk behind with the in- 
 inevitable Winchester. Accordingly I trudged 
 steadily the whole time behind the wagon through 
 the ankle-deep mud. It was a gloomy walk. 
 Hour after hour went by always the same, while 
 I plodded along through the dreary landscape 
 — himger, cold, and fatigue struggling with a 
 sense of dogged, weary resolution. At night, 
 when we put up at the squalid hut of a frontier 
 
198 Ranch Life 
 
 granger, the only habitation on our road, it was 
 even worse. I did not dare to go to sleep, but 
 making my three men get into the upper biink, 
 from which they could get out only with diffi- 
 culty, I sat up with my back against the cabin- 
 door and kept watch over them all night long. 
 So, after thirty-six hours' sleeplessness, I was most 
 heartily glad when we at last jolted into the long, 
 straggling main street of Dickinson, and I was 
 able to give my imwilling companions into the 
 hands of the sheriff. 
 
 Under the laws of Dakota I received my fees 
 as a deputy sheriff for making the three arrests, 
 and also mileage for the three hundred odd miles 
 gone over — a total of some fifty dollars.^ 
 
 ^One of the men wrote me from prison, giving me his 
 reasons for taking the boat. Part of his letter is worth 
 giving, not only because it contains his own story, but also 
 for the sake of the delicious sense of equality shown in the 
 last few sentences. He had been explaining that he believed 
 I had accused him of stealing some saddles: "In the first 
 place I did not take your boat Mr. Roosevelt because I 
 wanted to steal something, no indeed, when I took that 
 vessel I was labouring under the impression, die dog or eat 
 the hachette. . . . When I was a couple of miles above 
 your ranch the boat I had sprung a leak and I saw that I could 
 not make the Big Missouri in it in the shape that it was in. 
 I thought of asking assistance of you, but I supposed that 
 you had lost some saddles and blamed me for taking them. 
 Now there I was with a leaky boat and under the circum- 
 stances what was I two do, two ask you for help, the answer 
 I expected two get was two look down the mouth of a Win- 
 
 I 
 
Sheriff's Work on a Ranch 199 
 
 Chester. I saw your boat and made up my mind two get 
 possession of it. I was bound two get out of that country 
 cost what it might, when people talk lynch law and threaten 
 a persons life, I think that it is about time two leave. I did 
 not want to go back up river on the account that I feared a 
 
 mob I have read a good many of your sketches of 
 
 ranch life in the papers since I have been here, and they 
 interested me deeply. 
 
 " Yoiirs sincerely, 
 "&c. 
 "P. S. Should you stop over at Bismarck this fall make 
 a call to the Prison. I shotild be glad to meet you." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ranchman's RIFLE ON CRAG AND PRAIRIE. 
 
 THE ranchman owes to his rifle not only the 
 keen pleasure and strong excitement of the ' 
 chase, but also much of his bodily comfort ; 
 for, save for his prowess as a himter and his skill 
 as a marksman with this, his favorite weapon, he 
 would almost always be sadly stinted for fresh 
 meat. Now that the buffalo have gone, and the 
 Sharps rifle by which they were destroyed is also 
 gone, almost all ranchmen use some form of 
 repeater. Personally I prefer the Winchester, 
 using the new model, with a 45-caliber bullet of 
 300 grains, backed by 90 grains of powder, or else 
 falling back on my faithful old stand-by, the 
 45-75. But the truth is that all good modem 
 rifles are efficient weapons; it is the man behind 
 the gim that makes the difference. An inch or 
 two in trajectory or a second or two in rapidity 
 of fire is as nothing compared to sureness of eye 
 and steadiness of hand. 
 
 From April to August antelope are the game 
 we chiefly follow, killing only the bucks; after 
 that season, black-tail and white-tail deer. Now 
 and then we get a chance at mountain sheep, and 
 more rarely at larger game still. As a rule, I 
 
 200 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 201 
 
 never shoot anything but bucks. But in the 
 rutting season, when the bucks' flesh is poor, or 
 when we need to lay in a good stock of meat for 
 the winter, this rule of course must be broken. 
 
 The smoked venison stored away in the fall 
 lasts us through the bitter weather, as well as 
 through the even less attractive period covering 
 the first weeks of spring. At that time we go 
 out as little as possible. The roads are mere 
 morasses, crusted after nightfall with a shell of 
 thin ice, through which the shaggy horses break 
 heavily. Walking is exceedingly tiresome, the 
 boots becoming caked with masses of adhesive 
 clay. The deer stay with us all the time; but 
 they are now in poor condition, the does heavy 
 with fawn and the bucks with imgrown 
 antlers. 
 
 Antelope gather together in great bands in the 
 fall, and either travel south, leaving the country 
 altogether, or else go to some out-of-the-way 
 place where they are not likely to be disturbed. 
 Antelope are queer, freaky beasts, and it is hard 
 to explain why, when most of these great bands 
 go off south, one or two always stay in the Bad 
 Lands. Such a band having chosen its wintering 
 ground, which is usually in a valley or on a range 
 of wide plateaus, will leave it only with great 
 reluctance, and if it is discovered by hunters most 
 of its members will surely be butchered before 
 
202 Ranch Life 
 
 the survivors are willing to abandon the place 
 and seek new quarters. 
 
 In April the prong-homed herds come back, 
 but now all broken up into straggling parties. 
 They have regular passes, through which they go 
 every year: there is one such not far from my 
 ranch, where they are certain to cross the Little 
 Missouri in great numbers each spring on their 
 return march. In the fall, when they are travel- 
 ing in dense crowds, hunters posted in these 
 passes sometimes butcher enormous numbers. 
 
 Soon after they come back in the spring they 
 scatter out all over the plains, and for four 
 months after their return — that is, until August — 
 they are the game we chiefly follow. This is 
 because at that time we only himt enough to keep 
 the ranch in fresh meat, and kill nothing but the 
 bucks; and as antelope, though they shed their 
 horns, are without them for but a very short 
 time, and as, moreover, they are. always seen at a 
 distance, it is easy to tell the sexes apart. 
 
 Antelope shooting is the kind in which a man 
 most needs skill in the use of the rifle at long 
 ranges ; for they are harder to get near than any 
 other game — partly from their wariness, and still 
 more from the nature of the ground they inhabit. 
 Many more cartridges are spent, in proportion 
 to the amount of game killed, in hunting antelope 
 than is the case while after deer, elk, or sheep. 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 203 
 
 Even good hunters reckon on using six or seven 
 cartridges for every prong-horn that they kill; 
 for antelope are continually offering standing 
 shots at very long distances, which, nevertheless, 
 it is a great temptation to try, on the chance of 
 luck favoring the marksman. Moreover, alone 
 among plains' game, they must generally be shot 
 at over a himdred and fifty yards, and often at 
 between two and three hundred. Over this dis- 
 tance, a man will kill occasionally, — I have done 
 so myself, — but at such long range it is mainly a 
 matter of accident. The best field-shot alive 
 lacks a good deal of always killing, if the distance 
 is much over two hundred yards ; and with every 
 increase beyond that amoimt, the chances of 
 failure augment in geometrical proportion. Ex- 
 ceptional individuals perform marvelous feats 
 with the rifle, exactly as still more exceptional 
 individuals perform marvelous feats with the 
 revolver; but even these men, when they have to 
 guess their distances, miss very often when firing 
 at game three hundred yards, or thereabouts, 
 distant. 
 
 As in all other kinds of big-game shooting, 
 success in himting antelope often depends upon 
 sheer, downright luck. A man may make a 
 week's trip over good groimd and get nothing; 
 and then again he may go to the same place and 
 in two days kill a wagon -load of venison. 
 
204 Ranch Life 
 
 In the fall the prairie fires ravage the land, for >; 
 at the close of summer the matted, sim-dried I 
 grass bums like tinder, and the fires are some- 
 times so numerous as to cover whole cotmties 
 beneath a pall of smoke, while at night they look 
 very grand, burning in curved lines of wavering 
 flame, now advancing fastest at one point, now 
 at another, as if great red snakes were writhing 
 sideways across the prairie. The land across 
 which they have nm remains a blackened, charred 
 waste until the young grass begins to sprout in the 
 spring. The short, tender blades at once change 
 the cinder-colored desert into a bright emerald 
 plain, and are so much more toothsome than the 
 dry, withered winter grass that both stock and 
 game forsake the latter and travel out to the 
 tracts of burned land. The feed on these places 
 is too sparse to support, of itself, horses or cattle, 
 who accordingly do not penetrate far beyond the 
 edges; but antelope are like sheep, and prefer 
 scanty, short herbage, and in consequence at this 
 time fairly swarm in the burned districts. Indeed, 
 they are sometimes so numerous that they can 
 hardly be stalked, as it is impossible to approach 
 any animal without being seen by some of its 
 coimtless comrades, which at once nm off and 
 give the alarm. 
 
 While on these early spring trips we sometimes 
 vary the sport, and our fare as well, by trying 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 205 
 
 our rifles on the mallards in the reedy sloughs, 
 or on the jack rabbits as they sit up on their 
 haunches to look at us, eighty or a hundred yards 
 off. Now and then we creep up to and kill the 
 cock prairie fowl, when they have gathered into 
 their dancing rings to posture with outstretched 
 neck and outspread wings as they shuffle round 
 each other, keeping up a curious clucking and 
 booming that accord well with their grotesque 
 attitudes. 
 
 Late in the season any one of us can usually 
 get antelope in a day's himt from the ranch by 
 merely riding off alone, with a good hunting 
 horse, to a great tract of broken, mound-dotted 
 prairie some fifteen miles off, where the prong- 
 horns are generally abundant. 
 
 On such a trip I leave the ranch house by dawn, 
 the rifle across my saddle-bow, and some strips 
 of smoked venison in the saddle-pockets. In the 
 cool air the horse lopes smartly through the 
 wooded bottoms. The meadow-larks, with black 
 crescents on their yellow breasts, sing all day 
 long, but the thrushes only in the morning and 
 evening ; and their melody is heard at its best on 
 such a ride as this. By the time I get out of the 
 last ravines and canter along the divide, the dark 
 bluff -tops in the east have begun to redden in 
 the simrise, while in the flushed west the hills 
 stand out against a rosy sky. The sun has been 
 
2o6 Ranch Life 
 
 up some little time before the hunting-grounds 
 are fairly reached ; for the antelope stands alone 
 in being a diurnal game animal that from this 
 peculiarity, as well as from the nature of its 
 haimts, can be hunted as well at midday as at 
 any other hour. Arrived at the hunting-grounds 
 I generally, but not always, dismount and hunt 
 on foot, leaving the horse tethered out to graze. 
 
 Limch is taken at some spring, which may be 
 only a trickle of water at the base of a butte, 
 where a hole must be dug out with knife and 
 hands before the horse can drink. Once or twice 
 I have enjoyed imusual delicacies at such a Itmch, 
 in the shape of the eggs of curlew or prairie 
 fowl baked in the hot ashes. 
 
 The day is spent in still-himting, a much easier 
 task among the ridges and low hills than out on 
 the gently rolling prairies. Antelope see much 
 better than deer, their great bulging eyes, placed 
 at the roots of the horns, being as strong as twin 
 telescopes. Extreme care must be taken not to 
 let them catch a glimpse of the intruder, for it is 
 then hopeless to attempt approaching them. On 
 the other hand, there is never the least difficulty 
 about seeing them; for they are conspicuous 
 beasts, and, unlike deer, they never hide, being 
 careless whether they are seen or not, so long as 
 they can keep a good lookout. They trust only 
 to their own alert watchfulness and quick senses 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 207 
 
 for safety. The game is carried home behind the 
 saddle ; and the bottom on which the ranch house 
 stands is not often reached until the moon, 
 showing crimson through the haze, has risen 
 above the bluffs that skirt the river, 
 
 Antelope are very tough, and will carry off a 
 great deal of lead unless struck in exactly the 
 right place; and even when mortally hit they 
 sometimes receive the blow without flinching, 
 and gallop off as if iinharmed. They always 
 should be followed up a little distance after being 
 fired at, as if unhurt. Sometimes they show the 
 rather curious trait of walking backward a 
 nimiber of steps just before falling in death. 
 
 Although ordinarily harder to get at than deer, 
 they are far more frequently killed in what may 
 be called accidental ways. At times they seem 
 to be heedless of danger, and they suffer from 
 occasional panic fits of fear or curiosity, when it 
 is no feat at all to slay them. Hunters can thus 
 occasionally rake very large bags of antelope, but 
 a true sportsman who only shoots for peculiarly 
 fine trophies, or to supply the ranch table, will 
 not commit such needless butcheries. Often acci- 
 dents have thrown it into my power to make a 
 big killing; but the largest number I have ever 
 shot was on one day when I bagged four, all 
 bucks, and then we were sorely in need of fresh 
 meat, and it was an object to get as much as 
 
2o8 Ranch Life 
 
 possible. This day's shooting was peculiar be- 
 cause it took place during a heavy rain-storm, 
 which, taken in connection with my own remark- 
 able costume, apparently made the animals act 
 with less than their usual shyness. I wore a 
 great flapping yellow slicker, or oilskin overcoat, 
 about as unlikely a garb as a hunter could pos- 
 sibly don; but it seemed to fascinate the game, 
 for more than once a band huddled up and stood 
 gazing at me, while I clambered awkwardly off 
 the horse. The cold rain numbed my fingers and 
 beat into my eyes, and I was hampered by the 
 coat; so I wasted a good many cartridges to get 
 my four head. 
 
 In some places they now seem to have learned 
 wisdom, for the slaughter among them has been 
 so prodigious that the survivors have radically 
 changed their character. Their senses are as 
 keen as ever, and their wits much keener. They 
 no longer give way to bursts of panic curiosity; 
 they cannot be attracted by any amoimt of 
 flagging, or by the appearance of unknown 
 objects, as formerly. Where they are still com- 
 mon, as with us, they refuse, imder any stress of 
 danger, to enter woodland or thickets, but keep 
 to the flat or broken plains and the open prairies, 
 which they have from time immemorial inhabited. 
 But elsewhere their very nature seems to have 
 altered. They have not only learned to climb 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 209 
 
 and take to the hills, but, what is even more 
 singular, have intruded on the domain of the elk 
 and the deer, frequently making their abode in 
 the thick timber, and there proving the most 
 difficult of all animals to stalk. 
 
 In May and June the little antelope kids appear: 
 funny little fellows, odd and ungainly, but at an 
 astonishingly early age able to run nearly as fast 
 as their parents. They will lie very close if they 
 think that they are imobserved. Once several of 
 us were driving in a herd of cattle while on the 
 round-up. The cattle, traveling in loose order, 
 were a few paces ahead, when, happening to cast 
 down my eyes, I saw, right among their hoofs, 
 a little antelope kid. It was lying flat down with 
 outstretched neck, and did not move, although 
 some of the cattle almost stepped on it. I reined 
 up, got off my horse, and lifted it in my arms. 
 At first it gave two or three convulsive struggles, 
 bleating sharply, then became perfectly passive, 
 standing quietly by me for a minute or two when 
 I put it down, after which it suddenly darted off 
 like a flash. These little antelope kids are very 
 easily tamed, being then very familiar, amusing, 
 and inquisitive — much more so than deer fawns, 
 though they are not so pretty. Within a few 
 days of their birth they stop seeking protection 
 in hiding and adopt the habits of their parents, 
 following them everywhere, or going off on their 
 14 
 
2IO Ranch Life 
 
 own account, being almost as swift, although, of 
 course, not nearly so enduring. 
 
 Three of us witnessed a rather curious incident 
 last spring, showing how little the bringing forth 
 of a fawn affects the does of either deer or ante- 
 lope. We were walking through a patch of low 
 brushwood, when up got a black-tail doe and 
 went off at full speed. At the second jump she 
 gave birth to a fawn ; but this did not alter her 
 speed in the least, and she ran off quite as well 
 and as fast as ever. We walked up to where she 
 had been lying and found in her bed another fawn, 
 evidently but a few seconds old. We left the two 
 sprawling, imlicked little creatures where they 
 were, knowing that the mother would soon be 
 back to care for them. 
 
 Although sometimes we go out to the antelope 
 grotmd and back in one day, yet it is always more 
 convenient to take the buckboard with us and 
 spend the night, camping by a water hole in one 
 of the creeks. The last time we took such a trip 
 I got lost, and nearly spent the night in the open. 
 I had been riding with one of my cowboys, while 
 another acted as teamster and drove the buck- 
 board and pair. We killed two antelope and 
 went into camp rather early. After taking dinner 
 and picketing out the four horses we found it still 
 lacked an hour or two of sunset, and accordingly 
 my companions and I started out on foot, leaving 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 
 
 211 
 
 our teamster in camp, and paying no particular 
 heed to our surroimdings. We saw a herd of 
 prong-horn and woimded one, which we followed 
 in vain until dusk, and then started to go back to 
 camp. Very soon we foimd that we had quite a 
 task before us, for in the dim starlight all the 
 hollows looked exactly alike, and the buttes 
 seemed either to have changed form entirely or 
 else loomed up so vaguely through the darkness 
 that we could not place them in the least. We 
 walked on and on imtil we knew that we must be 
 far past the creek, or coulee, where our camp lay, 
 and then turned toward the divide. The night 
 had grown steadily darker, and we could hear the 
 far-off mutter and roll that told of an approaching 
 thimder-storm. Hour after hour we trudged 
 wearily on, as fast as we could go without 
 stumbling, the gloom and the roughness of the 
 unknown grotmd proving serious drawbacks to 
 our progress. When on the top of a hillock, the 
 blackness of the hollow beneath was so intense 
 that we could not tell whether we were going 
 to walk down a slope or over a cliff, and in con- 
 sequence we met with one or two tumbles. At 
 last we reached the top of a tall butte that we 
 knew must be on the divide. The night was now 
 as dark as pitch, and we were so entirely unable 
 to tell where we were that we decided to give up 
 the quest in despair and try to find some washout 
 
212 Ranch Life 
 
 that would yield us at least partial shelter from 
 the approaching rain-storm. We had fired off 
 our rifles several times without getting any re- 
 sponse ; but now, as we took one last look around, 
 we suddenly saw a flash of light, evidently from a 
 gim, flare up through the darkness so far off that 
 no soimd came to our ears. We trotted toward 
 it as fast as we could through the inky gloom, 
 and when no longer sure of our direction climbed 
 a little hill, fired off our rifles, and after a minute 
 or two again saw the guiding flash. The next 
 time we had occasion to signal, the answering 
 blaze was accompanied by a faint report ; and in 
 a few minutes more, when it was close on mid- 
 night, we were warming our hands at the great 
 camp-fire, and hungrily watching the venison 
 steaks as they sizzled in the frying-pan. 
 
 The morning after this adventure I shot an 
 antelope before breakfast. We had just risen, 
 and while sitting round the smoldering coals, 
 listening to the simmering of the camp-kettle and 
 the coffee-pot, we suddenly caught sight of a large 
 prong-horn buck that was walking toward us over 
 the hill-crest nearly half a mile away. He stopped 
 and stared fixedly at us for a few minutes, and 
 then resumed his course at a leisurely trot, occa- 
 sionally stopping to crop a mouthful of grass, and 
 paying no further heed to us. His course was 
 one that would lead him within a quarter of a 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 213 
 
 mile of camp, and, grasping my rifle, I slipped off 
 as soon as he was out of sight and ran up over 
 the bluff to intercept him. Just as I reached the 
 last crest I saw the buck crossing in front of me 
 at a walk, and almost two himdred yards off. 
 I knelt, and, as he halted and turned his head 
 sharply toward me, pulled trigger. It was a 
 lucky shot, and he fell over, with his back broken. 
 He had very imusually good horns; as fine as 
 those of any of his kind that I ever killed. 
 
 Antelope often suffer from such freaks of 
 apathetic indifference to danger, which are doubly 
 curious as existing in an animal normally as wary 
 as that wildest of game, the moiintain sheep. 
 They are fond of wandering, too, and appear at 
 times in very tmlikely places. Thus once, while 
 we were building the cow corral, in an open 
 bottom, five antelope came down. After much 
 snorting and stamping, they finally approached 
 to within fifty yards of the men who were at work, 
 and, as the latter had no weapons with them, 
 retired unmolested. 
 
 In winter the great herds consist of the two 
 sexes ; and this is true also of the straggling parties 
 that come back to us in spring, soon to split up 
 into smaller ones. During early summer the 
 males may be foiind singly, or else three or four 
 together, with possibly a barren doe or two ; while 
 two or three does, with their kids, and perhaps 
 
214 Ranch Life 
 
 the last year's young, will form the nucleus of a 
 little flock by themselves. With the coming of 
 the rutting season they divide into regular bands, 
 for they are polygamous. Every large, powerful 
 buck gathers his little group of does, driving out 
 all his rivals, though perhaps a yearling buck or 
 two will hang round the outskirts at a respectful 
 distance, every now and then rousing the older 
 one to a fit of jealous impatience. More often 
 the young bucks go in small parties by them- 
 selves, while those older ones that have been 
 driven out by their successful rivals wander 
 roimd singly. The old bucks are truculent and 
 courageous, and do fierce battle with each other 
 until it is evident which is master, when the 
 defeated combatant makes off at top speed. One 
 of these beaten bucks will occasionally get hold 
 of a single doe, whom he promptly appropriates 
 and guards with extreme watchfulness; and, not 
 being overconfident in his own prowess, drives her 
 off very rapidly if any other antelope show signs 
 of coming near. A successful buck may have 
 from four or five to ten or fifteen does in his 
 harem. In such a band there is always an old 
 doe that acts as leader, precisely as with deer 
 and elk. This doe is ever on the alert, is most 
 likely to take the alarm at the approach of 
 danger, and always leads the flight. The buck, 
 however, is prompt to take command, if he sees 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 215 
 
 fit, or deems that the doe's fears have over- 
 powered her judgment; and frequently, when a 
 band is in full flight, the buck may be seen 
 deliberately to round it up and stop it, so that 
 he may gaze on the cause of the alarm — a trait 
 the exercise of which often costs him his life. 
 The bucks occasionally bully the does immerci- 
 fully, if they show symptoms of insubordination. 
 Individual antelope vary very widely in speed. 
 Once I fairly rode one down, but this is generally 
 an almost impossible feat. Among deer, the fat, 
 heavy antlered bucks are usually slower than the 
 does and the young males ; but there seems to be 
 little difference of this sort among prong-horns. 
 
 With the first touch of sharp fall weather we 
 abandon the chase of the antelope for that of the 
 deer. Then our favorite quarry is the noble 
 black-tail, whose haunts are in the mountains 
 and the high, craggy hills. We kill him by fair 
 still-hunting, and to follow him successfully 
 through the deep ravines and across the steep 
 ridges of his upland home a man should be soimd 
 in wind and limbs, and a good shot with the rifle 
 as well. Many a glorious fall morning I have 
 passed in his pursuit; often, moreover, I have 
 slain him in the fading evening as I walked 
 homeward through the still dim twilight— for all 
 wild game dearly love the gloaming. 
 
 Once on a frosty evening I thus killed one when 
 
21 6 Ranch Life 
 
 it was so dark that my aim was little but guess- 
 work. I was walking back to camp through a 
 winding valley, hemmed in by steep cedar- 
 crowned walls of clay and rock. All the land- 
 scape glimmered white with the new-fallen snow, 
 and in the west the sky was still red with the 
 wintry sunset. Suddenly a great buck came out 
 of a grove of snow-laden cedars, and walked with 
 swift strides up to the point of a crag that over- 
 looked the valley. There he stood motionless 
 while I crouched rmseen in the shadow beneath. 
 As I fired he reared upright and then plimged 
 over the cliff. He fell a hundred feet before 
 landing in the bushes, yet he did not gash or mar 
 his finely molded head and shapely, massive 
 antlers. 
 
 On one of the last days I himted, in November, 
 1887, I killed two black-tail, a doe and a buck, 
 with one bullet. They were feeding in a glen 
 high up the side of some steep hills, and by a 
 careful stalk over rough ground I got within fifty 
 yards. Peering over the brink of the cliff-like 
 slope up which I had clambered, I saw them 
 standing in such a position that the neck of the 
 doe covered the buck's shoulder. The chance 
 was too tempting to be lost. My bullet broke the 
 doe's neck, and of course she fell where she was; 
 but the buck went off, my next two or three shots 
 missing him. However, we followed his bloody 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 217 
 
 trail, through the high pass he had crossed, down 
 a steep slope, and roused him from the brushwood 
 in a valley bottom. He soon halted and lay down 
 again, making off at a faltering gallop when ap- 
 proached, and the third time we came up to him 
 he was too weak to rise. He had splendid antlers. 
 
 Sometimes we kill the deer by the aid of 
 hounds. Of these we have two at the ranch. 
 One is a rough-coated, pure-blood Scotch stag- 
 hoimd, named Rob. The other. Brandy, is a 
 track-hoimd, bell-mouthed, lop-eared, keen-nosed, 
 and not particularly fast, but stanch as Death 
 himself. He comes of the old Southern strain; 
 and, indeed, all the best blooded packs of Ameri- 
 can deer-hotmds or fox-hoimds come from what 
 was called the Southern Hound in early seven- 
 teenth century England. Thus he is kin to 
 the hounds of Bellemeade, wherewith General 
 Jackson follows the buck and the gray fox over 
 the beautiful fertile hills of middle Tennessee; 
 and some of the same blood runs in the veins of 
 Mr. Wadsworth's Geneseo hounds, behind which 
 I have ridden as they chased the red fox through 
 the wooded glens and across the open fields of 
 the farms, with their high rail fences. 
 
 I often take Rob out when still-hunting black- 
 tail, leading him along in a leash. He is per- 
 fectly quiet, not even whimpering; and he is 
 certain to overhaul any wounded deer. A doe or 
 
2i8 Ranch Life 
 
 a flying buck is borne to the ground with a single 
 wrench, and killed out of hand; but a buck at 
 bay is a formidable opponent, and no dog can 
 rush in full on the sharp prong points. If the 
 two dogs are together, Rob does most of the 
 killing; Brandy's only fimction is to distract the 
 attention of an angry buck and then allow Rob 
 to pin him. Once a slightly wounded and very 
 large black-tail buck, started just at nightfall, ran 
 down to the river and made a running bay of 
 nearly two hours, Rob steadily at him the whole 
 time ; it was too dark for us to shoot, but finally, 
 by a lucky throw, one of the men roped the 
 quarry. 
 
 Not only will a big black-tail buck beat off a 
 dog or a wolf coming at him in front, but he is 
 an awkward foe for a man. One of them nearly 
 killed a cowboy in my employ. The buck, mor- 
 tally wounded, had fallen to the shot, and the 
 man rushed up to stick him; then the buck 
 revived for a moment, struck down the man, and 
 endeavored to gore him, but could not, because 
 of the despairing grip with which the man held 
 on to his horns. Nevertheless the man, bruised 
 and cut by the sharp hoofs, was fast becoming too 
 weak to keep his hold, when in the struggle they 
 came to the edge of a washout, and fell into it 
 some twelve or fifteen feet. This separated them. 
 The dying buck was too weak to renew the attack, 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 219 
 
 and the man crawled off; but it was months 
 before he got over the effects of the encounter. 
 
 Sometimes we kill the white-tail also by fair 
 still-hunting, but more often we shoot them on 
 the dense river-bottoms by the help of the track- 
 hound. We put the dogs into the woods with 
 perhaps a single horseman to guide them and 
 help them rout out the deer, while the rest of us, 
 rifle in hand, ride from point to point outside, or 
 else watch the passes through which the himted 
 animals are likely to run. It is not a sport of 
 which I am very fond, but it is sometimes pleasant 
 as a variety. The last time that we tried it I 
 killed a buck in the bottom right below our ranch 
 house, not half a mile off. The river was low, 
 and my post was at its edge, with in front of me 
 the broad sandy flat sparsely covered with willow- 
 brush. Deer are not much afraid of an ordinary 
 noisy hound; they will play round in front of 
 him, head and flag in air; but with Rob it was 
 different. The gray, wolfish beast, swift and 
 silent, threw them into a panic of terror, and in 
 headlong flight they would seek safety from him 
 in the densest thicket. 
 
 On the evening in question one of my cowboys 
 went into the brush with the hounds. I had 
 hardly ridden to my place and dismounted when 
 I heard old Brandy give tongue, the bluffs echoing 
 back his long-drawn baying. Immediately after- 
 
220 Ranch Life 
 
 ward a young buck appeared, coming along the 
 sandy river-bed, trotting or cantering; and very 
 handsome he looked, stepping with a light, high 
 action, his glossy coat glistening, his head thrown 
 back, his white flag flaunting. My bullet struck 
 him too far back, and he went on, turning into 
 the woods. Then the dogs appeared, old Brandy 
 nmning the scent, while the eager gaze-hoimd 
 made wide half -circles round him as he ran ; while 
 the cowboy, riding a vicious yellow mustang, gal- 
 loped behind, cheering them on. As they struck 
 the bloody trail they broke into clamorous yelling, 
 and tore at full speed into the woods. A minute 
 or two later the sound ceased, and I knew that 
 they had run into the quarry. 
 
 Sometimes we use the hounds for other game 
 besides deer. A neighboring ranchman had a half- 
 breed fox-and-greyhound, who, single-handed, ran 
 into and throttled a coyote. I have been very 
 anxious to try my dogs on a big wolf, intending to 
 take along a collie and a half-breed mastiff we 
 have to assist at the bay. The mastiff is a good 
 fighter, and can kill a wildcat, taking the neces- 
 sary punishment well, as we found out when we 
 once trapped one of these small lynxes. Shep, 
 the collie, is an adept at killing badgers, grabbing 
 them from behind and whirling them round, 
 whereas Brandy always gets his great lop-ears 
 bitten. But how they would do with a wolf I 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 221 
 
 cannot say; for one of these long-toothed wan- 
 derers is usually able to outrun and outfight any 
 reasonable number of common hoimds, and will 
 kill even a big dog very quickly. 
 
 A friend of mine, Mr. Heber Bishop, once 
 coursed and killed a wolf with two Scotch deer- 
 hoimds. After a brisk nm the dogs overtook and 
 held the quarry, but could not kill it, and were 
 being very roughly handled when Mr. Bishop 
 came to their assistance. But a ranchman in 
 the Indian Territory has a large pack of these 
 same Scotch dogs trained especially to himt the 
 wolf ; and four or five of the fleet, high-couraged 
 animals can not only soon overhaul a wolf, but 
 can collar and throttle even the largest. Acci- 
 dents to the pack are, of course, frequent. They 
 say that the worry is enough to make one's hair 
 stand on end. 
 
 Before leaving the subject, it is worth noting 
 that we have with us the Canada lynx as well as 
 his smaller brother ; and, more singular still, that 
 a wolverine, usually foimd only in the northern 
 forests, was kihed two winters ago in a big woody 
 bottom on the Little Missouri, about forty miles 
 north of Medora. The skin and skull were immis- 
 takable; so there could be no doubt as to the 
 beast's identity. 
 
 I have had good sport on the rolling plains, 
 near Mandan, in following a scratch pack of four 
 
222 Ranch Life 
 
 fleet, long-legged dogs. One was a wire-haired 
 Scotch deer-hound; his mate was a superb grey- 
 hound, the speediest of the set. Both were pos- 
 sessed of the dauntless courage peculiar to high- 
 bred hunting dogs. The other two were mongrels, 
 but, nevertheless, game fighters and swift nmners : 
 one was a lurcher, and the other a cross between 
 a greyhound and a fox-hoimd — the only one of 
 the four that ever gave tongue. The two former 
 had been used together often, and had slain 
 five coyotes, two deer (white-tails), and an 
 antelope. 
 
 Both the antelope and the deer they had fairly 
 run down, having come up close on them, so that 
 they had good send-offs; but there is a wide 
 individual variation among game animals as 
 regards speed, and those that they caught — at 
 any rate the antelope — may not have been as 
 fleet as most of their kind. They were especially 
 fond of chasing coyotes, and these they easily 
 overtook. When at bay the coyotes fought des- 
 perately but imavailingly, the two hounds killing 
 their quarry very quickly, one seizing it by the 
 throat and the other by the flanks, and then 
 stretching it out in a trice. They occasionally 
 received trifling injuries in these contests. The 
 animal that gave them most trouble was a badger 
 which they once found and only killed after pro- 
 longed efforts, its squat, muscular form and tough 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 223 
 
 skin making it very difficult for them to get a 
 good hold. 
 
 We did not have time to go far from Mandan, 
 and so confined our coursing to jack rabbits, 
 swifts, and foxes. Of the latter, the great red 
 prairie fox, we saw but one, which got up so close 
 to the dogs that it had no chance at all, and after 
 a fine burst of a few hundred yards was over- 
 taken and torn to pieces. The swifts are properly 
 called swift foxes, being rather smaller than the 
 southern gray fox. Ever since the days of the 
 early explorers they have been reputed to possess 
 marvelous speed, and their common name of 
 "swift," by which they are universally known, 
 perpetuates the delusion; for a delusion it em- 
 phatically is, since they are, if anything, rather 
 slow than otherwise. Once, in a snow-storm, I 
 started one up imder my horse's feet while riding 
 across the prairie, overtook him in a few strides, 
 and killed him by a lucky shot with the revolver. 
 The speed of the coyote also has been laughably 
 exaggerated. Judging by the records of the 
 hounds, the antelope is the fastest plains' animal, 
 the white-tail deer and the jack rabbit coming 
 next; then follow, in order, the coyote, the fox, 
 and the swift, which is the slowest of all. Indi- 
 viduals vary greatly, however; thus a fast jack 
 rabbit might well outrun a slow deer, and of 
 course both coyote and fox will outlast the swifter 
 
224 Ranch Life 
 
 jack rabbits. Several dogs should run together, 
 as otherwise a jack or a swift, although over- 
 taken, may yet escape by its dexterity in dodging. 
 The cactus beds often befriend the hunted animals, 
 as the dogs rush heedlessly into them and are 
 promptly disabled, while a rabbit or a fox will 
 slip through without injury. 
 
 Two or three of us usually went out together. 
 Our method of procedure was simple. We scat- 
 tered out, dogs and men, and rode in an irregular 
 line across the country, beating with care the 
 most likely looking places, and following at top 
 speed any game that got up. Sometimes a jack 
 rabbit, starting well ahead, would run for two 
 miles or over, nearly in a straight line, before 
 being turned by the leading hoimd; and occa- 
 sionally one would even get away altogether. At 
 other times it would be overhauled at once and 
 killed instantly, or only prolong its life a few 
 seconds by its abrupt turns and twists. One 
 swift gave us several minutes' chase, although 
 never getting thirty rods from the place where it 
 started. The little fellow went off as merrily as 
 possible, his handsome brush streaming behind 
 him, and, though overtaken at once, dodged so 
 cleverly that dog after dog shot by him. I do 
 not think that a single dog could have killed 
 him. 
 
 Coursing is the sport of all sports for ranchmen, 
 
The Ranchman's Rifle 225 
 
 now that big animals are growing scarce; and 
 certainly there can be no healthier or more 
 exciting pastime than that of following game 
 with horse and hound over the great Western 
 plains. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE WAPITI, OR ROUND-HORNED ELK. 
 
 THIS stately and splendid deer, the lordliest 
 of its kind throughout the world, is now 
 fast vanishing. In our own neighborhood 
 it is already almost a thing of the past. But a 
 small band yet lingers round a great tract of 
 prairie and Bad Lands some thirty-five miles 
 from the ranch house. 
 
 One fall I killed a good bull out of the lot. I 
 was himting on horseback, and roused the elk 
 out of a deep, narrow coulee, heavily timbered, 
 where he was lying by himself. He went straight 
 up the steep side directly opposite to where I 
 stood, for I had leaped off my horse when I 
 heard the crash of the underbrush. When on a 
 level with me, he halted and turned half round 
 to gaze at me across the ravine, and then I shot 
 him. 
 
 The next season, when we were sorely in need 
 of meat for smoking and drying, we went 
 after these elk again. At the time most of the 
 ponies were off on one of the round-ups, which 
 indeed I had myself just left. However, my two 
 hunting-horses, Manitou and Sorrel Joe, were at 
 home. The former I rode myself, and on the 
 
 226 
 
The Wapiti 227 
 
 latter I mounted one of my men who was a par- 
 ticularly good hand at finding and following game. 
 With much difficulty we got together a scrub 
 wagon team of four as imkempt, dejected, and 
 vicious-looking broncos as ever stuck fast in a 
 quicksand or balked in pulling up a steep pitch. 
 Their driver was a crack whip, and their load 
 light, consisting of little but the tent and the 
 bedding; so we got out to the hunting-ground 
 and back in safety; but as the river was high 
 and the horses were weak, we came within an ace 
 of being swamped at one crossing, and the country 
 was so very rough that we were only able to get 
 the wagon up the worst pitch by hauling from the 
 saddle with the riding-animals. 
 
 We camped by an excellent spring of cold, clear 
 water — not a common luxury in the Bad Lands. 
 We pitched the tent beside it, getting enough 
 timber from a grove of ash to make a large fire, 
 which again is an appreciated blessing on the 
 plains of the West, where we often need to carry 
 along with us the wood for cooking our supper 
 and breakfast, and sometimes actually have to 
 dig up our fuel, making the fire of sage-brush 
 roots, eked out with buffalo chips. Though the 
 days were still warm, the nights were frosty. 
 Our camp was in a deep valley, bounded by steep 
 hills with sloping, grassy sides, one of them 
 marked by a peculiar shelf of rock. The country 
 
228 Ranch Life 
 
 for miles was of this same character, much broken, 
 but everywhere passable for horsemen, and with 
 the hills rounded and grassy, except now and 
 then for a chain of red scoria buttes or an isolated 
 sugar-loaf cone of gray and brown clay. The 
 first day we spent in trying to find the probable 
 locality of our game; and after beating pretty 
 thoroughly over the smoother coimtry, toward 
 nightfall we fotmd quite fresh elk tracks leading 
 into a stretch of very rough and broken land about 
 ten miles from camp. 
 
 We started next morning before the gray was 
 relieved by the first faint flush of pink, and 
 reached the broken coimtry soon after simrise. 
 Here we dismoiinted and picketed our horses, as 
 the ground we were to himt through was very 
 rough. Two or three hours passed before we 
 came upon fresh signs of elk. Then we found 
 the trails that two, from the size presumably 
 cows, had made the preceding night, and started 
 to follow them, carefully and noiselessly, my com- 
 panion taking one side of the valley in which 
 we were and I the other. The tracks led into 
 one of the wildest and most desolate parts of the 
 Bad Lands. It was now the heat of the day, the 
 brazen sun shining out of a cloudless sky, and not 
 the least breeze stirring. At the bottom of the 
 valley, in the deep, narrow bed of the winding 
 water-course, lay a few tepid little pools, almost 
 
The Wapiti 229 
 
 dried up. Thick groves of stunted cedars stood 
 here and there in the glen-Uke pockets of the high 
 buttes, the peaks and sides of which were bare, 
 and only their lower, terrace-like ledges thinly 
 clad with coarse, withered grass and sprawling 
 sage-brush; the parched hill-sides were riven by 
 deep, twisted gorges, with brushwood in the 
 bottoms; and the cliffs of coarse clay were cleft 
 and seamed by sheer-sided, canyon-like gullies. 
 In the narrow ravines, closed in by barren, sun- 
 baked walls, the hot air stood still and sultry; 
 the only living beings were the rattlesnakes, and 
 of these I have never elsewhere seen so many. 
 Some basked in the sim, stretched out at their 
 ugly length of mottled brown and yellow ; others 
 lay half under stones or twined in the roots of 
 the sage-brush, and looked straight at me with 
 that strange, sullen, evil gaze, never shifting or 
 moving, that is the property only of serpents and 
 of certain men; while one or two coiled and 
 rattled menacingly as I stepped near. 
 
 Yet, though we walked as quietly as we could, 
 the game must have heard or smelt us ; for after 
 a mile's painstaking search we came to a dense 
 thicket in which were two beds, evidently but 
 just left, for the twigs and bent grass-blades were 
 still slowly rising from the ground to which the 
 bodies of the elk had pressed them. The long, 
 clean hoof-prints told us that the quarry had 
 
230 Ranch Life 
 
 started off at a swinging trot. We followed at 
 once, and it was wonderful to see how such large, 
 heavy beasts had gone up the steepest hill-sides 
 without altering their swift and easy gait, and had 
 plunged unhesitatingly over nearly sheer cliffs 
 down which we had to clamber with careful 
 slowness. 
 
 They left the strip of rugged Bad Lands and 
 went on into the smoother coimtry beyond, luckily 
 passing quite close to where our horses were 
 picketed. We thought it likely that they would 
 halt in some heavily timbered coulees six or seven 
 miles off ; and as there was no need of hurry, we 
 took lunch and then began following them up — 
 an easy feat, as their hoofs had sunk deep into 
 the soft soil, the prints of the dew-claws showing ; 
 now and then. At first we rode, but soon dis- 
 mounted, and led our horses. 
 
 We foimd the elk almost as soon as we struck 
 the border of the ground we had marked as their 
 probable halting-place. Our horses were unshod, 
 and made but little noise ; and coming to a wide, 
 long coulee filled with tall trees and brushwood, 
 we as usual separated, I going down one side and 
 my companion the other. When nearly half-way 
 down he suddenly whistled sharply, and I of 
 course at once stood still, with my rifle at the 
 ready. Nothing moved, and I glanced at him. 
 He had squatted down and was gazing earnestly 
 
The Wapiti 231 
 
 over into the dense laurel on my side of the 
 coulee. In a minute he shouted that he saw a 
 red patch in the brush which he thought must be 
 the elk, and that it was right between him and 
 myself. Elk will sometimes lie as closely as 
 rabbits, even when not in very good cover; still 
 I was a little surprised at these not breaking out 
 when they heard human voices. However, there 
 they stayed ; and I waited several minutes in vain 
 for them to move. From where I stood it was 
 impossible to see them, and I was fearful that 
 they might go off down the valley and so offer 
 me a very poor shot. Meanwhile, Manitou, who 
 is not an emotional horse, and is moreover blessed 
 with a large appetite, was feeding greedily, rattling 
 his bridle-chains at every mouthful ; and I thought 
 that he would act as a guard to keep the elk where 
 they were until I shifted my position. So I slipped 
 back, and ran swiftly round the head of the coulee 
 to where my companion was still sitting. He 
 pointed me out the patch of red in the bushes, not 
 sixty yards distant, and I fired into it without 
 delay, by good luck breaking the neck of a cow 
 elk, when immediately another one rose up from 
 beside it and made off. I had five shots at her 
 as she ascended the hill-side and the gentle slope 
 beyond; and two of my bullets struck her close 
 together in the flank, ranging forward — a very 
 fatal shot. She was evidently mortally hit, and 
 
232 Ranch Life 
 
 just as she reached the top of the divide she 
 stopped, reeled, and fell over, dead. 
 
 We were much pleased with our luck, as it 
 secured us an ample stock of needed fresh meat ; 
 and the two elk lay very handily, so that on the 
 following day we were able to stop for them with 
 the wagon on our way homeward, putting them 
 in bodily, and leaving only the entrails for the 
 vultures that were already soaring in great circles 
 over the carcasses,' 
 
 Much the finest elk antlers I ever got, as a 
 trophy of my own rifle, were from a mighty bull 
 that I killed far to the west of my ranch, in the 
 eastern chains of the Rockies. I shot him early 
 one morning, while still-hunting through the open 
 glades of a great pine forest, where the frosty 
 dew was still heavy on the grass. We had lis- 
 tened to him and his fellows challenging each 
 other all night long. Near by the call of the bulls 
 
 ^No naturalist ever described the way vultures gather with 
 more scientific accuracy than Longfellow: 
 
 "Never stoops the soaring vultiire 
 
 On his quarry in the desert, 
 
 On the sick or wounded bison, 
 
 But another vvdture, watching 
 
 From his high aerial lookout, 
 
 Sees the downward plunge, and follows; 
 
 And a third pursues the second. 
 
 Coming from the invisible ether, 
 
 First a speck, and then a vulture, 
 
 Till the air is dark with pinions." 
 
The Wapiti 233 
 
 in the rutting season — their "whistHng," as the 
 
 I frontiersmen term it — sounds harsh and grating; 
 
 ' but heard in the depths of their own mountain 
 
 j fastnesses, ringing through the frosty night, and 
 
 \ echoing across the ravines and under the silent 
 
 archways of the pines, it has a grand, musical 
 
 beauty of its own that makes it, to me, one of 
 
 the most attractive soimds in nature. 
 
 At this season the bulls fight most desperately, 
 and their combats are far more often attended 
 with fatal results than is the case with deer. In 
 the grove back of my ranch house, when we first 
 took possession, we found the skulls of two elk 
 with interlocked antlers ; one was a royal, the 
 other had fourteen points. Theirs had been a 
 duel to the death. 
 
 In himting, whether on the prairie or in the 
 deep woods, a man ought to pay great heed to 
 his surroundings, so as not to get lost. To an old 
 hand, getting lost is not so very serious ; because, 
 if he has his rifle and some matches, and does not 
 lose his head, the worst that can happen to him 
 is having to suffer some temporary discomfort. 
 But a novice is in imminent danger of losing his 
 wits, and therefore his life. To a man totally 
 unaccustomed to it the sense of utter loneliness is 
 absolutely appalling: the feeling of being lost in 
 the wilderness seems to drive him into a state of 
 panic terror that is frightful to behold, and that 
 
234 Ranch Life 
 
 in the end renders him bereft of reason. When ^, 
 he reaHzes that he is lost he often will begin to | 
 travel very fast, and finally run until he falls 
 exhausted — only to rise again and repeat the 
 process when he has recovered his strength. If 
 not found in three or four days, he is very apt to 
 become crazy ; he will then flee from the rescuers, 
 and must be pursued and captured as if he were a 
 wild animal. 
 
 Since 1884, when I went to the Big Horn 
 Mountains, I have killed no grizzlies. There are 
 some still left in our neighborhood, but they are 
 very shy, and live in such inaccessible places, 
 that, though I have twice devoted several days 
 solely to himting them, I was imsuccessful each 
 tim^e. A year ago, however, two cowboys found 
 a bear in the open, and after the expenditure 
 of a great number of cartridges killed it with 
 their revolvers, the bear charging gamely to the 
 last. 
 
 But this feat sinks into insignificance when 
 compared with the deed of General W. H. Jack- 
 son, of Bellemeade, Tennessee, who is probably 
 the only man living who ever, single-handed, 
 killed a grizzly bear with a cavalry saber. It 
 was many years ago, when he was a young officer 
 in the United States service. He was with a 
 column of eight companies of moimted infantry 
 under the command of Colonel Andrew Porter, 
 
The Wapiti 235 
 
 when by accident a bear was roused and lum- 
 bered off in front of them. Putting spurs to his 
 thoroughbred, he followed the bear, and killed it 
 with the saber, in sight of the whole command. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE BIG-HORN SHEEP, 
 
 IT has happened that I have generally hunted 
 big-horn during weather of arctic severity; 
 so that in my mind this great sheep is 
 inseparably associated with snow-clad, desolate 
 wastes, ice-coated crags, and the bitter cold of a 
 northern winter; whereas the sight of a prong- 
 buck, the game that we usually hunt early in the 
 season, always recalls to me the endless green of 
 the midsummer prairies as they shimmer in the 
 sunlight. 
 
 Yet in reality the big-horn is by no means 
 confined to any one climatic zone. Along the 
 interminable mountain chains of the Great Divide 
 it ranges south to the hot, dry table-lands of 
 middle Mexico, as well as far to the northward 
 of the Canadian boundary, among the towering 
 and tremendous peaks where the glaciers are fed 
 from fields of everlasting snow. There exists no 
 animal more handy, nor any better fitted to 
 grapple with the extremes of heat and cold. 
 Droughts, scanty pasturage, or deep snows make 
 it shift its ground, but never mere variation of 
 temperature. The lofty moim tains form its favo- 
 rite abode, but it is almost equally at home in 
 
 236 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 237 
 
 any large tract of very rough and broken ground. 
 It is by no means an exclusively alpine animal, 
 like the white goat. It is not only found through- 
 out the main chains of the Rockies, as well as on 
 the Sierras of the south and the coast ranges of 
 western Oregon, Washington, and British Colum- 
 bia, but it also exists to the east among the 
 clusters of high hills and the stretches of barren 
 Bad Lands that break the monotonous level of 
 the great plains. 
 
 Throughout most of its range the big-horn Is a 
 partly migratory beast. In the summer it seeks 
 the highest mountains, often, passing above 
 timber-line; and when the fall snows deepen it 
 comes down to the lower spurs or foot-hills, or 
 may even travel some distance southward. If 
 there is a large tract of Bad Lands near the 
 moimtains, sheep may be plentiful in them 
 throughout the severe weather, while in the 
 summer not a single individual will be found in 
 its winter haimts, all having then retired to the 
 high peaks. 
 
 Sometimes big-horn wander widely for reasons 
 imconnected with the weather: all of those in a 
 district may suddenly leave it and perhaps not 
 return for several years. Such is often the result 
 of a district being settled, or being exposed to 
 incessant hunting. After a certain number of 
 sheep have been killed the remainder may all 
 
238 Ranch Life 
 
 disappear, possibly one or two small bands only- 
 staying behind ; but it is quite likely that two or 
 three years later the bulk of the vanished host 
 will come back again. 
 
 But where the region that they inhabit is cut 
 off from the moimtains by settled districts, or 
 by great stretches of plain and prairie, then the 
 sheep that dwell therein can make no such 
 migrations. Thus they live all the year round in 
 the Little Missouri Bad Lands; and though the 
 different bands wander away and to and fro for 
 scores of miles, especially in the fall, — for big-horn 
 are far more restless than deer, — yet they do not 
 shift their positions much on accoimt of the 
 season, and are often found in precisely the same 
 places both summer and winter. They thus bear 
 with indifference exposure to the extremes of heat 
 and cold in a climate where the yearly variation 
 reaches the utmost possible limit, the thermom- 
 eter sometimes covering a range of a hundred and 
 seventy degrees in the course of twelve months. 
 There are few spots on earth much hotter than 
 these Bad Lands during a spell of fierce summer 
 weather, and, imlike the deer, the sheep cannot 
 seek the shade of the dense thickets. In the 
 glare of midday the naked angular hills yield no 
 shelter whatever; the barren ravines between 
 them turn into ovens beneath the brazen sun. 
 The still, lifeless, burning air stifles those who 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 239 
 
 breathe it, while the parched and heat-cracked 
 canyon walls are intolerable to the touch. 
 
 But though the mountain sheep can stand this, 
 and in fact do so with even less protection than 
 the deer, yet they certainly dislike it more than 
 do the latter. If mountains are near, they go up 
 them far sooner and far higher than the deer. 
 On the other hand, they bear the winter blizzards 
 much better, caring less for shelter, and keeping 
 their strength pretty well. Ordinarily when in 
 the Bad Lands they do not shift their groimd 
 save to get on the lee side of the cliffs, though the 
 deep snows of course drive them from the moun- 
 tains. A very heavy fall of snow, if they are high 
 up on the hills, occasionally forces a band to enter 
 the evergreen woods and make a regular yard, as 
 deer do, beneath the overhanging cover-giving 
 branches ; then they subsist on the scanty browse 
 until they can get back to pasture lands. But 
 this is rare. Generally they stay in the open, and 
 bid defiance to the elements ; yet, like other game, 
 they often seem to have the knack of foretelling 
 any storm or cold spell of tmusual severity and 
 length. On the eve of such a storm they fre- 
 quently retreat to some secure haven of refuge. 
 This may be a nook or cranny in the rocks, or 
 merely a slight hollow to leeward of a little grove 
 of stimted pines; and there the band may have 
 to stay without food for several days, tmtil the 
 
240 Ranch Life 
 
 storm is over. Occasionally they succumb to the 
 deep snow; but if they have any kind of chance 
 for their lives, this happens less often than with 
 either deer or antelope. 
 
 The big-horn, or cimarron sheep, as the Mexi- 
 cans call it, is the sole American representative of 
 the different kinds of mountain sheep that are 
 found in the Old World. It is fourfold the weight 
 of the Mediterranean moufflon. Its nearest rela- 
 tive, from which it is with difficulty distinguished, 
 is the huge argali, three or four varieties — some 
 say species — of which are to be foimd in the high 
 lands of central Asia. The American and Asiatic 
 animals seem to grade into one another as regards 
 size; the north Asiatic argali is said to be no 
 larger than the big-horn, but the giant Himalayan 
 sheep, or nyan, averages heavier, both in body 
 and horns, and especially in length of legs. The 
 horns of the argali have more outward twist. 
 The largest big-horn of which I have ever been 
 able to get authentic record was one killed in 
 Montana by a ranch friend of mine, and carefully 
 weighed and measured at the time. At the 
 shoulder he stood just three feet eight inches ; he 
 weighed very nearly four himdred pounds; and 
 his single unbroken horn was in girth nineteen 
 inches, and in length along the curve forty-two. 
 But such a ram is a giant. The largest I have 
 myself shot I had no means of weighing: it was 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 241 
 
 just after the rutting season, and he was as gaunt 
 as a greyhound. At the shoulder he stood three 
 feet five inches; and his horns, which were thick 
 for their length, were in girth sixteen and a half 
 inches, and in length thirty. The nyan of Thibet, 
 on the other hand, stands four feet high; and 
 exceptional rams have horns twenty-three inches 
 round the base and upward of fifty in length, 
 while the average full-grown one will perhaps 
 have them seventeen inches by thirty-eight. The 
 nyan thus certainly stands before the big-horn, 
 although even among full-grown animals many 
 heads of the latter would be above the average of 
 the former. The difference in the habits of the 
 two animals is very marked, for according to 
 English sportsmen the nyan keeps exclusively to 
 the high, open plains, or barren, gently sloping 
 hills; whereas the big-horn, like the Old World 
 ibex, is a beast of the crags and precipices, and 
 though sometimes venturing into the level coim- 
 try, yet at the first alarm it invariably dashes for 
 the broken ground. 
 
 Our American moimtain sheep usually go in 
 bands of from fifteen to thirty individuals, occa- 
 sionally of many more ; while often small parties 
 of two or three will stay by themselves. In the 
 winter, or sometimes not until the early spring, 
 the old rams separate. The oldest and finest are 
 often foimd entirely alone, retiring to the most 
 16 
 
242 Ranch Life 
 
 inaccessible solitudes; the younger ones keep in 
 little flocks of perhaps half a dozen or so. The 
 main band then consists only of the ev/es, the 
 yearlings, and now and then a two-year-old ; and 
 this also is soon broken up, leaving merely the 
 yearlings and the barren ewes, for about the 
 middle of May the ewes that are heavy with 
 yoimg leave the rest, each by herself. Like the 
 old rams, they now seek the most inaccessible 
 and far-off places — high up the mountains, if 
 possible; otherwise, in the barren and imfre- 
 quented portions of the Bad Lands, where the 
 steep hills and abrupt valleys are twisted into a 
 mere tangle of precipitous crests and canyons. 
 Here the ewe makes her lying-in bed — oval in 
 shape, like that of a prong-horn or black-tail doe, 
 but made by pawing out, or perhaps merely 
 wearing out, a slight hollow in the bare soil; 
 whereas the doe crushes down with her weight 
 the long grass of the prairie or thicket. This bed 
 is usually made on the ledge of a cliff, on the side 
 where there is most shelter from the prevailing 
 winds ; perhaps it is beneath a great rock or clay 
 boulder, with not so much as a blade of grass 
 aroimd, or it may be partly screened by a few 
 wind-beaten sage-bushes. Generally only one, 
 but sometimes two, young are brought forth at 
 a birth. The yoimg lamb matches his surroimd- 
 ings wonderfully in color, and the ewe is very 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 243 
 
 careful in going to him to be sure that she is 
 unobserved. For the first day or two the lamb 
 trusts for his safety solely to not being seen by 
 the beasts and birds of prey. He crouches flat 
 down, like an antelope fawn, and it is next to 
 impossible for human eyes to discover him save 
 by accident. Once only I stumbled across a 
 newly bom lamb. It was about the first of June, 
 and I found him lying by the bed of the mother 
 as I was going along a ledge, scantily covered with 
 sage-brush, in the heart of some high, wild hills, 
 about fifteen miles from my ranch. The little 
 fellow was too yoimg to show much alarm when 
 I handled and petted him and with much diffi- 
 culty persuaded him to stand up on his helplessly 
 weak and awkward little legs. The mother was 
 about two hundred yards distant, and was greatly 
 frightened when I drew near her offspring; she 
 himg about in the distance for a short time and 
 then dashed off. However, she must have re- 
 turned when I left; for two or three days later, 
 when from curiosity I came back, the little fellow 
 was gone. 
 
 When the yoimg are able to clamber about for 
 short distances almost as well as the old, then 
 the nursing ewes and their lambs rejoin the band, 
 some time in July. The band now keeps in the 
 neighborhood of water and where the feed is 
 good — comparatively good, at least, for the scanty 
 
tl 
 
 244 Ranch Life 
 
 pasturage that grows on the moiintains and barren 
 hills haunted by the sheep would hardly please 
 more luxury -loving animals. The flocks of ewes 
 and lambs are at this time quite easily discovered, 
 but of course no man but a game butcher would 
 dream of molesting them. In September the 
 yoimg rams begin to join them, and soon after- 
 ward the old patriarchs likewise come down from 
 their remote fastnesses. 
 
 The rams now fight desperately among them- 
 selves for the possession of the ewes, rushing 
 together with a shock that would shatter their 
 skulls were they less strong; while the battered 
 horns, with splintered ends, bear witness to the 
 violence of the contests. These contests are free 
 from one danger, however; the horns do not get 
 interlocked, and thus cause the death of both 
 combatants. This is not only a common accident 
 among deer and elk, but it even happens to 
 antelope; I knew of one instance where two 
 prong-horn bucks, who had evidently been 
 battling for a doe, were found dead, side by 
 side, partly eaten by the coyotes. The right 
 horn of one and the left horn of the other had 
 become locked together so firmly, thanks to the 
 prong and the hook at the end, that they could 
 not be drawn apart, and the two beasts had died 
 miserably in consequence. Each herd has some 
 acknowledged master ram, but he may tolerate 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 245 
 
 the presence of three or four others of lesser 
 degree, together with the ewes, lambs, and year- 
 lings that go to make up the rest of the flock; 
 or else, if a cross old fellow, the master ram may- 
 turn out all the others, or may content himself 
 with a little bunch of merely three or four ewes. 
 So that even at this season several young rams 
 may be found by themselves; or a morose old 
 veteran, time-worn and battle-scarred, may keep 
 entirely alone. As soon as the rutting season is 
 over many of these exiles rejoin the band; and 
 at this time, when the rams are of course in very 
 poor condition, they are all apt to come down on 
 the levels more boldly than at any other season, 
 to get at the good grass, although even now 
 rarely venturing very far from the hills. While 
 thus on the edges of the plains, their natural 
 wariness seems to increase tenfold. 
 
 But at all times their habits are very variable ; 
 for they are restless, wandering beasts, with some- 
 thing whimsical in their tempers, and given at 
 times to queer freaks. If the fit seize them, and 
 especially if they have been alarmed or annoyed, 
 they may at any time leave their accustomed 
 dwelling-places, or act in a manner absolutely 
 contrary to their usual conduct. About noon one 
 hot midsummer day, three great rams crossed the 
 river just below our ranch, stopping to drink, and 
 spending some time on the sand-bars, occasionally 
 
246 Ranch Life 
 
 playfully butting at each other. They trotted off 
 before they could be stalked. To get down to 
 the river they had to pass over a level plain half 
 a mile wide ; and once across, they went through 
 a dense wood choked with underbrush for nearly 
 half a mile more before agaia comiag to the steep 
 bluffs. On another occasion, in the rutting 
 season, one of my cowboys encountered a moun- 
 tain-ram crossing a broad, level river-bottom at 
 midday. Occasionally a ram will join a flock of 
 ewes, or a ewe and a yearling, in the spring. 
 Two or three times I have known them to come 
 boldly up to the bluffs that overlook and skirt a 
 little frontier town, and there to stay grazing or 
 resting for several hours ; but they always made 
 off in plenty of time to avoid the hunters who 
 finally went after them. Once I shot one within 
 a few hiindred yards of my ranch house. I was 
 returning home, weary and unsuccessful, after a 
 long day's tramp over hills where black-tail 
 usually were common. When nearly home I 
 struck into a well-beaten cattle-trail, leading 
 down a deep, narrow ravine which cleft in two 
 a knot of jagged hills ; it was a favorite range for 
 our horses, and so was frequently ridden over by 
 the cowboys. On turning round a comer of the 
 ravine, a sudden snort to one side and above me 
 made me hastily look up, shifting my rifle from 
 my shoulder. On my right the sheer wall of clay 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 247 
 
 rose up without a break for perhaps two hundred 
 feet or so, its thin, notched crest showing against 
 the sky-hne as sharply as if cut with a knife; 
 and on a Httle jutting pinnacle was perched a 
 mountain sheep, its four hoofs all together on a 
 space no larger than the palms of a man's hands. 
 It was facing me and staring down at me, so that 
 the bullet went right into its chest, splitting its 
 heart fairly open. Yet it did not fall forward 
 over the cliff, but wheeled on its haunches and 
 went along the crest at a mad, plimging gallop, 
 finally crossing out of sight. Almost as soon as 
 it disappeared a column of dust rose from the 
 other side of the ridge, making me think that it 
 had fallen some distance, striking hard on the 
 dry clay. The guess was a good one, and when, 
 after a long circle and some climbing, I reached 
 the spot, I foimd a fine yoimg barren ewe lying 
 dead at the foot of a high cut bank. 
 
 But all such instances as these are wholly excep- 
 tional, and are chiefly interesting as showing that 
 mountain sheep act more erratically and less 
 according to rule than do most other kinds of 
 game. They seem to have fits of restless way- 
 wardness, or even of panic curiosity; and so at 
 times wander into unlooked-for places, or betray 
 a sudden heedlessness of dangers against which 
 they on ordinary occasions carefully guard. This 
 last freak, however, is generally shown only in 
 
248 Ranch Life 
 
 very wild localities or among young animals. 
 Where hunters are scarce or almost unknown, all 
 wild animals are very bold. I have seen deer in 
 remote forests, and even in little-hunted localities 
 near my ranch, so tame that they would stand 
 looking at the hunter within fifty yards for 
 several minutes before taking flight. Moimtain 
 sheep under similar circumstances show a lordly 
 disregard for the human intruder, leaving his 
 presence at a leisurely gait, in strong contrast to 
 the mad gallop of their more sophisticated 
 brethren when alarmed. 
 
 In fact, much of the wariness among beasts of 
 chase, as well as much of the courage shown by 
 the more ferocious, depends upon the degree in 
 which they have been harried by himters, al- 
 though much also depends upon the character of 
 the species. European game is thus generally 
 wilder than American; but no animal could be 
 more difficult to approach than a Maine moose. 
 The deer of the Adirondacks and Alleghanies are 
 almost as wary, and in those parts of the Rockies 
 where they have been much molested, big-horn 
 are as shy as the chamois of the Alps, or the ibex 
 of the Pyrenees. So the sloth bear and leopard 
 of India are now much more vicious and dangerous 
 to man than are the black bear and cougar of the 
 United States, simply because of the different race 
 of human beings by whom they are surrounded. 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 249 
 
 No animal seems to have been more changed 
 by domestication than the sheep. The timid, 
 helpless, fleecy idiot of the folds, the most foolish 
 of all tame animals, has hardly a trait in common 
 with his self-reliant wild relative who combines 
 the horns of a sheep with the hide of a deer, 
 whose home is in the rocks and the mountains, 
 and who is so abundantly able to take care of 
 himself. Wild sheep are as good moimtaineers 
 as wild goats, or as mountain antelopes, and are 
 to the full as wary and intelligent. 
 
 A very short experience with the rifle-bearing 
 portion of mankind changes the big-horn into a 
 quarry whose successful chase taxes to the utmost 
 the skill alike of still-hunter and of mountaineer. 
 A solitary old ram seems to be ever on the watch. 
 His favorite resting-place is a shelf or terrace-end 
 high up on some cliff, from whence he can see far 
 and wide over the country roimd about. The 
 least soiind — the rattle of a loose stone, a cough, 
 even a heavy footfall on hard earth — attracts his 
 attention, making him at once clamber up on 
 some peak to try for a glimpse of the danger. 
 His eyes catch the slightest movement. His nose 
 is as keen as an elk's, and gives him surer warning 
 than any other sense; the slightest taint in the 
 air produces immediate flight in the direction 
 away from the danger. But there is one com- 
 pensation, from the hunter's standpoint, for his 
 
.'1 
 
 250 Ranch Life 
 
 wonderfully developed smelling powers; he lives 
 in such very broken country that the currents of 
 air often go over his head, so that it is at times 
 possible to hunt him almost down wind. 
 
 A band of sheep is, if anything, even more 
 difficult to approach than is a single ram; but, 
 on the other hand, it is far easier to get on the 
 track of and to find out, as there are always some 
 young members guilty of indiscretions. All of 
 the flock are ever on the lookout. While the 
 others are grazing there is always at least one 
 with its head up; and occasionally a particu- 
 larly watchful ewe will jump up on some boulder, 
 or at least stand with her fore-legs against its 
 side, so as to get a wider view. Any unexplained 
 sight or soimd is announced to the rest of the 
 herd by a kind of hissing snort, or sometimes by 
 a stamp of the forefoot on the ground. If the 
 intruder is either smelt or seen, the whole herd 
 instantly break into the strong but not particu- 
 larly swift gallop which distinguishes the species, 
 and go straight away from the danger toward the 
 roughest ground that they can reach. If, how- 
 ever, only alarmed by a sound, or if the suspicious 
 object is some distance off, the animals often run 
 together into a bunch and stand gazing in its 
 direction for a few seconds prior to making off. 
 Among cliffs and precipices the echoes are so con- 
 fusing that if the hunter keeps out of sight the 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 251 
 
 herd occasionally become utterly bewildered by 
 the firing, and, as a result, spend several fatal 
 minutes in a futile running to and fro, uncertain 
 what course will take them out of danger. One 
 day my cousin. West Roosevelt, after a long and 
 careful stalk, got close up to three sheep in a very 
 deep and narrow ravine ; and although, owing to 
 their being almost underneath him, he at first 
 overshot, yet all three of the startled and panic- 
 struck animals were killed before they recovered 
 their wits sufficiently to run out of range. 
 
 But a chance like this may not happen once 
 in a hunter's lifetime. Of all American game, 
 this is the one in whose pursuit the successful 
 hunter needs to show most skill, hardihood, and 
 resolution. On ordinary occasions a big-horn, 
 when menaced by danger, flees beyond its reach 
 with instant decision and headlong speed, dis- 
 appearing with incredible rapidity over ground 
 where it needs an expert cragsman to so much as 
 follow at a walk. Its wonderful feats of climbing 
 have, as with the chamois and ibex of the Old 
 World, given rise to many fables, the most wide- 
 spread being the belief that the rams, in plunging 
 down precipices, alight on their horns. So the 
 chamois was said to hang over ledges by means 
 of its short, hooked horns, and when cornered on 
 the edge of a sheer precipice, where there was no 
 escape from the hunter, of its own accord to 
 
252 
 
 Ranch Life 
 
 thrust its body against his outstretched knife — as 
 we read and see pictured in the German hunting- 
 books of two or three centuries ago, such as the 
 quaint old "AdeHche Weidwerke." 
 
 The mountain sheep of America, when the 
 choice is open to them, actually seem to prefer 
 regions as wild and rugged as they are sterile. 
 The tufts of grass between the rocks, the scanty 
 blades that grow on the clay buttes, suffice for 
 their wants, and the amount of climbing neces- 
 sary to get at them is literally a matter of indif- 
 ference to beasts whose muscles are like whipcord 
 and whose tendons are like steel. A big-horn is 
 a marvelous leaper, perhaps even better when the 
 jump is perpendicular than when it is horizontal. 
 His poise is perfect; his eye and foot work 
 together with unerring accuracy. One will im- 
 hesitatingly bound or drop a dozen feet on to a 
 little rock pinnacle where there is scarce a hand's 
 breadth on which to stand. The presence of the 
 tiniest cracks in the otherwise smooth surface of 
 a sheer rock wall enables a mountain sheep to go 
 up it with ease. The proud, lordly bearing of an 
 old ram makes him look exactly what he is, one 
 of the noblest of game animals; his port is the 
 same whether at rest or in motion. Except when 
 very badly frightened, his movements are all made 
 with a certain self-confident absence of hurry, as 
 if he were conscious of a vast reserve power of 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 253 
 
 strength and activity on which to draw at need. 
 As a mountaineer he is the embodiment of elastic, 
 sinewy strength and self-command, rather than 
 of mere nervous agility. He hardly ever makes 
 a mistake, even when rushing at speed over the 
 slippery, ice-coated crags in winter. 
 
 The most difficult of all climbing is to go over 
 rocks when the ice has filled up all the chinks and 
 crannies, and the flat slabs are glassy in their 
 hard smoothness. A black-tail buck is no mean 
 climber; yet imder such circumstances I have 
 seen one lose his footing and tumble head over 
 heels, scraping great handfuls of hair off his hide ; 
 but I have never known a big-horn to make a 
 misstep. This is imdoubtedly largely owing to 
 the difference between the two animals in the 
 structure of their feet. A sheep's hoof is an 
 elastic pad, only the rims and the toe-points being 
 hard, and it thus gets a good grip on the slightest 
 projection, or on any little roughness in the rock. 
 The tracks are very different from deer tracks, 
 being nearly square in form, instead of heart- 
 shaped, the prints of the toes rather deep and 
 wide apart, even when the animal has been 
 walking. 
 
 A band of sheep will often seem to court certain 
 death by pltmging off the brink of what looks like 
 a perpendicular cliff, where there is not a ledge or 
 a crack yielding foothold. In such cases, if the 
 
254 Ranch Life 
 
 cliff is high, it will be foiind on examination that 
 it is not quite perpendicular, and that the sheep, 
 in making the fearful descent, from time to time 
 touch or strike the cliff with their hoofs, thus 
 going down in long bounds, keeping their poise 
 all the time. The final bound is often made 
 almost head first, as if they were diving. 
 
 Narrow ledges, overlooking an abyss the fathom- 
 less depths of which would make even a trained 
 cragsman giddy, are very favorite resorts. So are 
 the crests of the ridges themselves. If in any patch 
 of Bad Lands there is an unusually high chain of 
 steep, bare clay buttes, mountain sheep are sure 
 to select their tops as a regular parade-ground. 
 After a rain the clay takes their hoof -prints as 
 clearly as if it were sealing-wax, and all along the 
 top of the crest they beat out a regular walk from 
 one end to the other, with occasional little side- 
 paths leading out to some overhanging shoulder 
 or jutting spur, from whence there is a good view 
 of the surrounding country. 
 
 Generally the band is led by a ewe; but in a 
 case of immediate and pressing danger the ram 
 assumes the head-ship. Aside from man, motin- 
 tain sheep have fewer foes than most other game. 
 Bears are too clumsy to catch them; and lynx 
 and fox, inveterate enemies of fawns, rarely get 
 up to the high, breezy nurseries of the yotmg 
 lambs. Wolves and cougars, however, harass 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 255 
 
 them greatly. A wolf will not attack an old ram 
 if he can help it, but sneaks after the ewes and 
 lambs, waiting imtil they get on somewhat level 
 ground, and then running one down by sheer 
 speed before it can take refuge among the secure 
 fastnesses of the precipices. 
 
 The cougar relies on stealth, not on speed, and 
 gets his game either by fair stalking or else by 
 lying in wait. Sometimes he can creep up to a 
 band while they are taking their siesta ; but gen- 
 erally they keep too sharp a lookout, and he has 
 to approach them while they are feeding, or when 
 they have come down to drink. Some fifteen 
 miles from my ranch is a tract of very rough 
 country, the sides of the hills falling off into 
 precipices or into dark, cedar-clad gorges. This 
 was a favorite resort of mountain sheep ; but one 
 spring a couple of cougars took up their abode in 
 the neighborhood, and soon killed several of the 
 sheep and drove the others away. Judging by 
 the tracks and by the position of the carcasses, 
 they must have, done the killing in the morning 
 and evening, creeping up to the doomed animals 
 as they fed on the lower slopes, or lurking round 
 the spring-holes and little alkali pools where they 
 drank. The great war eagle is one of the worst 
 enemies of the young lambs. 
 
 In the rutting season a ram will make a good 
 fight if he has any chance at all, and at that time 
 
256 Ranch Life 
 
 is very bold and pugnacious. If followed by a 
 dog he will frequently decline to run, turning to 
 bay at once. One hunter whom I knew killed 
 several in this way by the aid of a collie. Of 
 course it cannot be done when once the sheep 
 have begun to realize that the dog is merely an 
 ally of the man, for they then look out for the 
 latter. 
 
 Sheep are easily tamed, if taken young, and 
 make amusing pets. A friend in Helena, Mon- 
 tana, once owned a tame ram. When young he 
 was a great favorite. He was an inquisitive, mis- 
 chievous creature, of marvelous activity. It was 
 impossible to keep him out of the garden. A 
 single hop would carry him over the high fence; 
 if an inmate of the house came to the rescue, 
 another hop carried the intruder once more into 
 outside safety, and a third took him back again 
 the second the rescuer had turned around. When- 
 ever he got the chance he would pull down the 
 clothes that had been hung up to diy. When he 
 could get inside the house he was fond of walking 
 on the mantelpiece. He was the terror of the 
 Chinese cook, whom he soon discovered to be 
 afraid of him, and would lie in wait outside the 
 kitchen door so as to butt him when he appeared. 
 This was at first done in mere playfulness; but 
 as he grew older he became morose and quarrel- 
 some, and had to be disposed of. 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 257 
 
 It is impossible to hiint big-horn successfully 
 without some knowledge of their habits. They 
 go down to drink in the very late evening, or 
 sometimes in the gray of the morning; when the 
 moon is full they may not go to the water until 
 long after nightfall. Generally they drink later 
 than any other game; but all game vary their 
 habits now and then in this regard. The prong- 
 buck, though diurnal, sometimes comes to a 
 watering-hole during the night ; and I have once 
 or twice seen both deer and sheep drinking at 
 midday. 
 
 In ordinary weather they begin to feed early 
 in the morning, and when the sun has risen some 
 little distance above the horizon they start to 
 graze their way slowly up to the high spur or 
 ridge crest where they intend to lie during the 
 day. Here they stay until well on in the after- 
 noon, and then again descend to their feeding- 
 grounds on the lower slopes. In very cold 
 weather, however, they are apt to be foimd 
 grazing at midday. A raging snow blizzard may 
 keep them lying close imder cover for three days 
 at a time : they naturally get ravenous, and when 
 there is a lull, or especially if it is succeeded by 
 a short spell of good weather, they come hastily 
 out to feed, no matter what the time of day 
 may be. 
 
 As with almost all game except antelope, they 
 
 17 
 
258 Ranch Life 
 
 can be best hunted in the morning and even- 
 ing; but, iinHke deer, they can also be followed 
 throughout the day, for whereas elk, black-tail, 
 and white-tail have then all alike retired to the 
 thickets, the big-horn take their noontide rest 
 lying out in plain view. If the hunter means to 
 catch them feeding he should make a very early 
 start. A good pair of field-glasses is of great ser- 
 vice, for the two essential requisites to success are 
 the capacity to take long walks over rough ground 
 and painstaking care in scanning the coimtry far 
 and wide, so as to see the game before it sees the 
 hunter. There is then a chance to stalk up close, 
 the broken groimd frequently yielding good cover. 
 Often it may be necessary to lie for hours care- 
 fully concealed, watching a flock that is in an 
 imfavorable position, and waiting until it shifts 
 its groimd. This is not very comfortable on a 
 cold day in November or December, the months 
 in which I have usually hunted big-horn, devoting 
 the early fall to the chase of elk and deer. But it 
 is often the only way to secure success : patience 
 and perseverance are two of the still-hunter's 
 cardinal virtues. Personally I have always owed 
 whatever success I have had to dogged perse- 
 verance and patient persistence, and on a lament- 
 ably large number of occasions have had to draw 
 heavily on these qualities to make good a lack of 
 skill, sometimes with the rifle, sometimes in moiin- 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 259 
 
 taineering. Among many himting trips I can 
 recall not a few where willingness to lie still two or 
 three hours under trying circumstances in the end 
 got me the game; and one such instance may 
 serve as a sample of the rest. 
 
 I was staying at the line camp of two of my 
 cowboys, a small dug-out in the side of a butte 
 that marked the edge of the Bad Lands, the roll- 
 ing prairie coming up to its base. The quarters 
 were cramped for three men, an entire side of the 
 little hut being filled by the two bunks in which 
 we slept, — I in the upper, my two companions in 
 the lower, — while the fireplace occupied one end, 
 the mess-box served as a table, and the earth- 
 covered roof of logs was so low that we could 
 hardly stand upright. Window there was none; 
 but it was snug, and, for a line camp, clean. 
 There was plenty of firewood, and, for a wonder, 
 the chimney did not smoke ; so we were comfort- 
 able enough. The butte itself served for three 
 out of the four walls. No other building is so 
 warm as a dug-out, and in the terrible winter 
 weather of Dakota and Montana warmth is the 
 one thing for which all else must be sacrificed.' 
 
 In such high latitudes the December sun rises 
 late. Long before daybreak we had finished our 
 
 *I have camped out when the thermometer showed 65 
 degrees of frost; not — 65°, as I see I once put it by a mis- 
 take in copying my rough field-notes. 
 
26o Ranch Life 
 
 breakfast of bread, beans, and coffee. The two 
 cowboys had saddled their shaggy ponies — which 
 had spent the night in the rough log stable — and 
 had ridden off in opposite directions along their 
 lonely beat, muffled in their wolf-skin overcoats 
 and heavy shaps ; while I strode off on foot toward 
 the high hills that lay riverward, my rifle on my 
 shoulder and my fur cap pulled down well over 
 my ears. 
 
 The cold was biting, for even at noon the sun 
 had not power to thaw the frozen groimd. But 
 there was very little snow ; just enough to powder 
 the hills and to lie in patches in the hollows. I 
 walked rapidly up a long coulee, then climbed up 
 a steep roimded hill and followed the divide back 
 into the heart of the Bad Lands. By the time I 
 was on my chosen hunting-grounds the sun had 
 topped the horizon behind me, and his level rays 
 lit up the peaks and crests. 
 
 The next hour was spent in hard climbing and 
 incessant watchfulness. The hills lay in isolated 
 masses. I clambered painfully up their slippery 
 sides, creeping along the narrow icy ledges that 
 ran across the faces of the cliffs, and cautiously 
 working my way over the smooth shoulders. 
 From behind every ridge and spur I carefully 
 examined the opposite hillsides, using the field- 
 glasses if there was scope for them. Sheep, stand- 
 ing still or lying down, are often very hard to see, 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 261 
 
 their coats assimilating curiously with the neutral- 
 tinted cliffs and boulders ; but against snow they 
 of course stand out much more distinctly. 
 
 At last, as I lay peeping over the ragged crest 
 of a clay butte, I made out a small dark object 
 half way up a steep slope some six hundred yards 
 down the valley; and another look showed me 
 that it was a ram feeding leisurely up the hill- 
 side. The wind was good for a direct approach. 
 I got off the butte by carefully letting myself down 
 from one little ledge or niche to another, and 
 started along the valley toward the ram, only to 
 find my way barred by a deep chasm whose 
 straight, ice-coated sides yawned too far apart to 
 permit of any attempt at crossing. There was no 
 help for it but laboriously to retrace my steps and 
 make my way round its head with what speed I 
 could. This I did, the work making me thor- 
 oughly warm for the first time that morning. 
 Once across the walking was better, and I went 
 down the valley-side at a good pace, until I came 
 to a shoulder some two hiindred yards from where 
 I had seen the sheep. I was a good deal higher 
 than where he had stood ; but in the time I had 
 been out of sight of him he must have gone up 
 the hill quite a distance, for when I looked ro\md 
 the shoulder I saw him about as far off as I ex- 
 pected, but above instead of below me. Slow 
 though my movements had been when I cau- 
 
262 Ranch Life 
 
 tiously looked round the edge, they had not 
 escaped his quick eye ; for when I made him out 
 he was standing motionless, gazing in my direc- 
 tion. Before I could raise my rifle he gave a 
 great jump sideways and galloped off, disappear- 
 ing instantly behind a huge mass of detached 
 sandstone, and I never saw him again, 
 
 A little chagrined at my fruitless stalk I plodded 
 on, doing much hard climbing, but seeing no signs 
 of game imtil nearly midday. Then in the snow 
 at the head of a coulee I came across the tracks 
 of a band evidently made that morning while 
 returning from the feeding-grotmds. I followed 
 them until I became convinced that the animals 
 had gone to a great table-land or plateau that I 
 could see a good way ahead; then, as the wind 
 was behind me, I struck off to one side, made a 
 circle through some very rough country, and 
 clambered out along the knife-like crests of a line 
 of high hills separated from the plateau by a broad 
 valley. Every hundred paces or so I would stop 
 and examine the cotmtry far and near with the 
 glasses ; often I had to crawl on all-fours to avoid 
 appearing against the sky-line on the ridge. 
 
 At last I caught sight of the band. There were 
 some fifteen or twenty of them, and they were 
 lying at the point of a spur that was thrust out 
 from the plateau, nearly opposite to me and half 
 a mile off. They were in a position which it was 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 263 
 
 impossible to approach within six hundred yards 
 without being observed, for they could see over 
 the level plateau behind them, and from the brink 
 of the lofty cliff on which they lay they looked 
 up, down, and across the wild, deep valley beneath. 
 
 With the glasses I could make out that there 
 was no good head among them ; but I was out for 
 meat rather than for sport. They were very 
 watchful, ever on the lookout; and as the after- 
 noon wore on one of the more restless would now 
 and then get up, walk off a few steps, or stand 
 gazing intently into the far distance. There was 
 nothing for me to do except to wait until they 
 grew hungry and shifted their position to some 
 place which there was a chance of my approach- 
 ing imseen. So for three hours I lay on the iron 
 groimd, imder the lee of a boulder that but partly 
 shielded me from the wind, munching the strip of 
 jerked venison I had carried in my pocket, and 
 peeping at the sheep through a tuft of tall, coarse 
 grass that grew on top of the ridge. 
 
 At last, when it wanted but little more than an 
 hour of simset, the sheep all got on their legs, one 
 after another, and, led by an old ewe, began to 
 descend into the valley. They went down the 
 cliff by a sort of break or slide, hopping dexter- 
 ously from rock to rock. On coming to the steep 
 slope at its foot they struck into a trot, which 
 merged into a fast gallop as they got nearly down. 
 
264 Ranch Life 
 
 I feared that they would stop before coming to 
 the canyon at the bottom of the valley ; but they 
 did not, crossing it without hesitation, for all its 
 sheer-sided and slippery depth, and continuing 
 their course toward the end of the chain of hills 
 on which I was, where they halted to graze, after 
 going up nearly to the top. It was excellent 
 groimd for a stalk. The ridge went down to the 
 left in the steep, grassy slopes on which they were 
 feeding, while on the right it broke abruptly off 
 into a precipice, with a narrow ledge high up along 
 its face. 
 
 This ledge made the approach an easy one. 
 The only difficult places were those where the 
 ledge was interrupted, and I had either cautiously 
 to make my way along the face of the cliff, — a 
 very impleasant task, as the slight hollows or 
 knobs which served me as footholds were slippery 
 with ice, the risk of a fall being thus enormously 
 increased, — or else was forced to go to the top, 
 and, sprawling flat on the smooth slope, drag 
 myself along just to one side of the ridge. I had 
 marked the position of the game by a dwarfed 
 cedar that grew in a crevice on the very crest. It 
 gave excellent cover, and on reaching it and peer- 
 ing out through the branches, I saw the sheep 
 scattered out only some sixty yards below me, 
 and, choosing out a fine young ram, I fired, break- 
 ing both shoulders. They all rushed together, and 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 265 
 
 then without an instant's pause raced madly down 
 the hillside, neither of the two bullets that I sent 
 after them taking effect. I had no time to lose; 
 so I dressed the ram hastily, tilted him up so that 
 the blood would run out, and left him to be called 
 for with the pony next day. Then I made the 
 best use of the waning light to get to a long divide, 
 furrowed by many buffalo trails, which I knew I 
 could follow even when it grew dark, and which 
 came out on the prairie not very far to one side 
 of the line camp. 
 
 The day on which I was lucky enough to shoot 
 my largest and finest ram was memorable in more 
 ways than one. The shot was one of the best I 
 ever made, — albeit the element of chance doubt- 
 less entered into it far more largely than the 
 element of skill, — and in coming home from the 
 hunt I got quite badly frozen. 
 
 The day before we had come back from a week's 
 trip after deer; for we were laying in the winter 
 stock of meat. We had been camped far down 
 the river, and had intended to take two days on 
 the return trip, as the wagon was rather heavily 
 loaded, for we had killed eight deer. The morn- 
 ing we broke camp was so mild that I did not put 
 on my heaviest winter clothing, starting off in the 
 same that I had worn during the past few days' 
 still -him ting among the hills. Before we had been 
 gone an hour, however, the sky grew overcast and 
 
266 Ranch Life 
 
 the wind began to blow from the north with con- 
 stantly increasing vigor. The sky grew steadily 
 more gloomy and lowering, the gusts came ever 
 harder and harder, and by noon the winter day 
 had darkened and a furious gale was driving 
 against us. The blasts almost swept me from 
 my saddle and the teamster from his seat, while 
 we were glad to wrap ourselves in our huge fur 
 coats to keep out the growing cold. Soon after 
 midday the wagon suddenly broke down while 
 we were yet in mid-prairie. It was evident that 
 we were on the eve of a furious snow-blizzard, 
 which might last a few hours, or else, perhaps, 
 as many days. We were miles from any shelter 
 that would permit us to light a fire in the face of 
 such a storm; so we left the wagon as it was, 
 hastily imhamessed the team horses, and, with 
 the driver riding one and leading the other, struck 
 off homeward at a steady gallop. Once fairly 
 caught by the blizzard in a country that we only 
 partly knew, it would have been hopeless to do 
 more than to try for some ravine in which to 
 cower till it was over; so we pushed our horses 
 to their utmost pace. Our object was to reach 
 the head coulees of a creek leading down to the 
 river but a few miles from the ranch. Could we 
 get into these before the snow struck us we felt 
 we would be all right, for we could then find our 
 way home, even in pitch-darkness, with the wind 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 267 
 
 in the quarter from which it was coming. So, 
 with the storm on our backs, we rode at full speed 
 through the gathering gloom, across the desolate 
 reaches of prairie. The tough little horses, in- 
 stead of faltering, went stronger mile by mile. 
 At last the weird rows of hills loomed vaguely up 
 in our front, and we plunged into the deep ravines 
 for which we had been heading just as the whirling 
 white wreaths struck us — not the soft, feathery 
 flakes of a seaboard snow-storm, but fine ice- 
 dust, driven level by the wind, choking us, blind- 
 ing our eyes, and cutting our faces if we turned 
 toward it. The roar of the blizzard drowned our 
 voices when we were but six feet apart: had it 
 not been on our backs we could not have gone a 
 hundred yards, for we could no more face it than 
 we could face a frozen sand-blast. In an instant 
 the strange, wild outlines of the high buttes 
 between which we were riding were shrouded 
 from our sight. We had to grope our way through 
 a kind of shimmering dusk; and when once or 
 twice we were obliged by some impassable cliff 
 or canyon to retrace our steps, it was all that 
 we could do to urge the horses even a few paces 
 against the wind-blown snow-grains which stimg 
 like steel filings. But this extreme violence only 
 lasted about four hours. The moon was full, and 
 its beams struggled through scudding clouds and 
 snow-drift, so that we reached the ranch without 
 
268 Ranch Life 
 
 difficulty, and when we got there the wind had 
 already begun to lull. The snow still fell thick 
 and fast; but before we went to bed this also 
 showed signs of stopping. Accordingly we deter- 
 mined that we would leave the wagon where it 
 was for a day or two, and start early next morning 
 for a range of high hills some ten miles off, much 
 haunted by sheep ; for we did not wish to let pass 
 the chance of tracking the game offered by the 
 first good snow of the season. 
 
 Next morning we started by starlight. The 
 snow lay several inches deep on the ground; the 
 whole land was a dazzling white. It was very 
 cold. Within the ranch everything was frozen 
 solid in spite of the thick log walls; but the air 
 was so still and clear that we did not realize how 
 low the temperature was. Accordingly, as the 
 fresh horse I had to take was young and wild, I 
 did not attempt to wear my fur coat. I soon felt 
 my mistake. The windless cold ate into my mar- 
 row ; and when, shortly after the cloudless winter 
 sunrise, we reached our hunting-grounds and 
 picketed out the horses, I was already slightly 
 frostbitten. But the toil of himting over the 
 snow-covered crags soon made me warm. 
 
 All day we walked and climbed through a white 
 wonderland. On every side the snowy hills, piled 
 one on another, stretched away, chain after chain, 
 as far as sight could reach. The stem and iron- 
 
The Big-Horn Sheep 269 
 
 bound land had been changed to a frozen sea of 
 billowy, glittering peaks and ridges. At last, late 
 in the afternoon, three great big-horn suddenly 
 sprang up to our right and crossed the table-land 
 in front of and below us at a strong, stretching 
 gallop. The lengthening sunbeams glinted on 
 their mighty horns; their great supple brown 
 bodies were thrown out in bold relief against the 
 white landscape ; as they plowed with long strides 
 through the powdery snow, their hoofs tossed it 
 up in masses of white spray. On the left of the 
 plateau was a ridge, and as they went up this I 
 twice fired at the leading ram, my bullets striking 
 tinder him. On the summit he stopped and stood 
 for a moment looking back three hundred and fifty 
 yards off,^ and my third shot went fairly through 
 his limgs. He ran over the hill as if imharmed, 
 but lay down a couple of hundred yards on, and 
 was dead when we reached him. 
 
 It was after nightfall when we got back to the 
 horses, and we rode home by moonlight. To 
 gallop in such weather insures freezing; so the 
 ponies shambled along at a single-foot trot, their 
 dark bodies white with hoar-frost, and the long 
 icicles hanging from their lips. The cold had 
 increased steadily ; the spirit thermometer at the 
 ranch showed 26° Fahrenheit below zero. We 
 had worked all day without food or rest, and were 
 
 ^Actual pacing, not guesswork. 
 
270 Ranch Life 
 
 very tired. On the ride home I got benumbed 
 before I knew it and froze my face, one foot, and 
 both knees. Even my companion, who had a 
 great-coat, froze his nose and cheeks. Never was 
 a sight more welcome than the gleam of the fire- 
 lit ranch windows to us that night. But the great 
 ram's head was a trophy that paid for all. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE GAME OF THE HIGH PEAKS : THE WHITE GOAT, 
 
 IN the fall of 1886 I went far west to the 
 Rockies and took a fortnight's hunting trip 
 among the northern spurs of the Coeur 
 d'Alene, between the towns of Heron and Horse- 
 plains in Montana. There are many kinds of 
 game to be found in the least known or still 
 imtrodden parts of this wooded moimtain wilder- 
 ness — caribou, elk, ungainly moose with great 
 shovel horns, cougars, and bears. But I did not 
 have time to go deeply into the heart of the 
 forest-clad ranges, and devoted my entire energies 
 to the chase of but one animal, the white antelope- 
 goat, then the least known and rarest of all Ameri- 
 can game. 
 
 We started from one of those most dismal and 
 forlorn of all places, a dead mining town, on the 
 line of the Northern Pacific Railroad. My fore- 
 man, Merrifield, was with me, and for guide I 
 took a tall, lithe, happy-go-lucky moimtaineer, 
 who, like so many of the restless frontier race, 
 was bom in Missouri. Our outfit was simple, as 
 we carried only blankets, a light wagon sheet, the 
 ever-present camera, flour, bacon, salt, sugar, and 
 coffee: canned goods are very imhandy to pack 
 
 271 
 
272 Ranch Life 
 
 about on horseback. Our rifles and ammunition, 
 with the few cooking-utensils and a book or two, 
 completed the list. Four solemn ponies and a 
 ridiculous little mule named Walla Walla bore us 
 and our belongings. The Missourian was an 
 expert packer, versed in the mysteries of the 
 "diamond hitch," the only arrangement of the 
 ropes that will insure a load staying in its place. 
 Driving a pack train through the wooded paths 
 and up the mountain passes that we had to 
 traverse is hard work anyhow, as there are sure 
 to be accidents happening to the animals all the 
 time, while their packs receive rough treatment 
 from jutting rocks and overhanging branches, or 
 from the half -fallen tree-trunks under which the 
 animals wriggle; and if the loads are continually 
 coming loose, or slipping so as to gall the horses' 
 backs and make them sore, the labor and anxiety 
 are increased tenfold. 
 
 In a day or two we were in the heart of the 
 vast wooded wilderness. A broad, lonely river 
 ran through its midst, cleaving asimder the 
 mountain chains. Range after range, peak upon 
 peak, the mountains towered on every side, the 
 lower timbered to the top, the higher with bare 
 crests of gray crags, or else hooded with fields of 
 shining snow. The deep valleys lay half in 
 darkness, hemmed in by steep, timbered slopes 
 and straight rock walls. The torrents, broken 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 273 
 
 into glittering foam masses, sprang down through 
 the chasms that they had rent in the sides of the 
 high hills, lingered in black pools under the 
 shadows of the scarred cliffs, and reaching the 
 rank, tree-choked valleys, gathered into rapid 
 streams of clear brown water, that drenched the 
 drooping limbs of the tangled alders. Over the 
 whole land lay like a shroud the mighty growth 
 of the unbroken evergreen forest — spruce and 
 hemlock, fir, balsam, tamarack, and lofty pine. 
 
 Yet even these vast wastes of shadowy wood- 
 land were once penetrated by members of that 
 adventurous and now fast vanishing folk, the 
 American frontiersmen. Once or twice, while 
 walking silently over the spongy moss beneath 
 the somber archways of the pines, we saw on a 
 tree-tnmk a dim, faint ax-scar, the bark almost 
 grown over it, showing where, many years before, 
 some fur-trapper had chopped a deeper blaze than 
 usual in making out a " spotted line" — man's first 
 highway in the primeval forest ; or on some hill- 
 side we would come to the more recent, but 
 already half -obliterated, traces of a miner's handi- 
 work. The trapper and the miner were the 
 pioneers of the moimtains, as the himter and 
 the cowboy have been the pioneers of the plains ; 
 they are all of the same type, these sinewy men of 
 the border, fearless and self-reliant, who are ever 
 driven restlessly onward through the wilderness 
 18 
 
274 Ranch Life 
 
 by the half-formed desires that make their 
 eyes haggard and eager. There is no plain so 
 lonely that their feet have not trodden it; no 
 moimtain so far off that their eyes have not 
 scanned its grandeur. 
 
 We took nearly a week in going to our himting- 
 groimds and out from them again. This was 
 tedious work, for the pace was slow, and it was 
 accompanied with some real labor. In places the 
 mountain paths were very steep and the ponies 
 could with difficulty scramble along them; and 
 once or twice they got falls that no animals less 
 tough could have survived, Walla Walla being 
 the imfortunate that suffered most. Often, more- 
 over, we would come to a windfall, where the 
 fallen trees lay heaped crosswise on one another 
 in the wildest confusion, and a road had to be 
 cleared by ax work. It was marvelous to see the 
 philosophy with which the wise little beasts 
 behaved, picking their way gingerly through 
 these rough spots, hopping over fallen tree- 
 tnmks, or stepping between them in places where 
 an Eastern horse would have snapped a leg short 
 off, and walking composedly along narrow ledges 
 with steep precipices below. They were tame and 
 friendly, being turned loose at night, and not only 
 staying near by, but also allowing themselves to 
 be caught without difficulty in the morning; 
 industriously gleaning the scant food to be foiind 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 275 
 
 in the burnt places or along the edges of the 
 brooks, and often in the evening standing in a 
 patient, solemn semicircle round the camp fire, 
 just beyond where we were seated. Walla Walla, 
 the little mule, was always in scrapes. Once we 
 spent a morning of awkward industry in washing 
 our clothes ; having finished, we spread the half- 
 cleansed array upon the bushes and departed on 
 a hunt. On returning, to our horror we spied the 
 miserable Walla Walla shamefacedly shambling 
 off from the neighborhood of the wash, having 
 partly chewed up every individual garment and 
 completely vindone all our morning's labor. 
 
 At first we did not have good weather. The 
 Indians, of whom we met a small band, — said to be 
 Flatheads or their kin, on a visit from the coast 
 region, — had set fire to the woods not far away, 
 and the smoke became so dense as to hurt our 
 eyes, to hide the sun at midday, and to veil all 
 objects from our sight as completely as if there 
 had been a heavy fog. Then we had two days of 
 incessant rain, which rendered our camp none too 
 comfortable ; but when this cleared we found that 
 it had put out the fire and settled all the smoke, 
 leaving a brilliant sky overhead. 
 
 We first camped in a narrow valley, surrotmded 
 by mountains so tall that except at noonday it 
 lay in the shadow; and it was only when we 
 were out late on the higher foot-hills that we saw 
 
276 Ranch Life 
 
 the sun sink in a flame behind the distant ranges. 
 The trees grew tall and thick, the underbrush 
 choking the ground between their trunks, and 
 their branches interlacing so that the sun's rays 
 hardly came through them. There were very few 
 open glades, and these were not more than a dozen 
 rods or so across. Even on the moim tains it was 
 only when we got up very high indeed, or when 
 we struck an occasional bare spur, or shoulder, 
 that we could get a glimpse into the open. Else- 
 where we could never see a htmdred yards ahead 
 of us, and like all plainsmen or moimtaineers we 
 at times felt smothered under the trees, and longed 
 to be where we could look out far and wide on 
 every side ; we felt as if our heads were in hoods. 
 A broad brook whirled and eddied past our camp, 
 and a little below us was caught in a deep, narrow 
 gorge, where the strangling rocks churned its swift 
 current into spray and foam, and changed its mur- 
 murous humming and splashing into an angry 
 roar. Strange little water wrens — the water- 
 ousel of the books — made this brook their home. 
 They were shaped like thrushes, and sometimes 
 warbled sweetly, yet they lived right in the tor- 
 rent, not only flitting along the banks and wading 
 in the edges, but plunging boldly into midstream, 
 and half walking, half flying along the bottom, 
 deep under water, and perching on the slippery, 
 spray-covered rocks of the waterfall or skimming 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 277 
 
 over and through the rapids even more often than 
 they ran along the margins of the deep, black 
 pools. 
 
 White-tail deer were plentiful, and we kept our 
 camp abimdantly supplied with venison, varying 
 it with all the grouse that we wanted, and with 
 quantities of fresh trout. But I myself spent 
 most of my time after the quarry I had come to 
 get — the white goat. 
 
 White goats have been known to himters ever 
 since Lewis and Clarke crossed the continent, but 
 they have always ranked as the very rarest and 
 most difficult to get of all American game. This 
 reputation they owe to the nature of their haunts, 
 rather than to their own wariness, for they have 
 been so little disturbed that they are less shy than 
 either deer or sheep. They are foimd here and 
 there on the highest, most inaccessible motmtain 
 peaks down even to Arizona and New Mexico ; but 
 being fitted for cold climates, they are extremely 
 scarce everywhere south of Montana and northern 
 Idaho, and the great majority even of the most 
 experienced hunters have hardly so much as heard 
 of their existence. In Washington Territory, 
 northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana they 
 are not uncommon, and are plentiful in parts of 
 the mountain ranges of British America and 
 Alaska. Their preference for the highest peaks 
 is due mainly to their dislike of warmth, and in 
 
278 Ranch Life 
 
 the north — even south of the Canadian line — they 
 are found much lower down the mountains than 
 is the case farther south. They are very con- 
 spicuous animals, with their snow-white coats and 
 polished black horns, but their pursuit necessi- 
 tates so much toil and hardship that not one in 
 ten of the professional himters has ever killed one ; 
 and I know of but one or two Eastern sportsmen 
 who can boast a goat's head as a trophy. But 
 this will soon cease to be the case ; for the Cana- 
 dian Pacific Railway has opened the haimts where 
 the goats are most plentiful, and any moderately 
 adventurous and hardy rifleman can be sure of 
 getting one by taking a little time, and that, too, 
 whether he is a skilled hunter or not, since at 
 present the game is not difhcult to approach. The 
 white goat will be common long after the elk has 
 vanished, and it has already outlasted the buffalo. 
 Few sportsmen henceforth — indeed, hardly any — 
 will ever boast a buffalo head of their own killing ; 
 but the number of riflemen who can place to their 
 credit the prized white fleeces and jet-black horns 
 will steadily increase. 
 
 The Missourian, during his career as a Rocky 
 Mountain himter, had killed five white goats. 
 The first he had shot near Canyon City, Colorado, 
 and never having heard of any such animal before 
 had concluded afterward that it was one of a flock 
 of recently imported Angora goats, and accord- 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 279 
 
 ingly, to avoid trouble, buried it where it lay ; and 
 it was not until fourteen years later, when he came 
 up to the Coeur d'Alene and shot another, that he 
 became aware of what he had killed. He described 
 them as being bold, pugnacious animals, not easily 
 startled, and extremely tenacious of life. Once 
 he had set a large hound at one which he came 
 across while descending an ice-swollen river in 
 early spring. The goat made no attempt to flee 
 or to avoid the hound, but coolly awaited its ap- 
 proach and killed it with one wicked thrust of the 
 horns ; for the latter are as sharp as needles, and 
 are used for stabbing, not butting. Another time 
 he caught a goat in a bear trap set on a game 
 trail. Its leg was broken, and he had to pack it 
 out on pony-back, a two-days' journey, to the 
 settlement; yet in spite of such rough treatment 
 it lived a week after it got there, when, unfortu- 
 nately, the woimded leg mortified. It fought 
 most determinedly, but soon became reconciled 
 to captivity, eating with avidity all the grass it 
 was given, recognizing its keeper, and grunting 
 whenever he brought it food or started to walk 
 away before it had had all it wished. The goats 
 he had shot lived in groimd where the walking 
 was tiresome to the last degree, and where it was 
 almost impossible not to make a good deal of 
 noise; and nothing but their boldness and curi- 
 osity enabled him ever to kill any. One he shot 
 
28o Ranch Life 
 
 while waiting at a pass for deer. The goat, an 
 old male, came up, and fairly refused to leave the 
 spot, walking round in the imderbrush and finally 
 motmting a great fallen log, where he stayed snort- 
 ing and stamping angrily until the Missourian lost 
 patience and killed him. 
 
 For three or four days I htinted steadily and 
 without success, and it was as hard work as any 
 that I had ever undertaken. Both Merrifield and 
 I were accustomed to a life in the saddle, and 
 although we had varied it with an occasional long 
 walk after deer or sheep, yet we were utterly im- 
 able to cope with the Missourian when it came to 
 mountaineering. When we had previously hunted, 
 in the Big Horn Moimtains, we had found stout 
 moccasins most comfortable, and extremely useful 
 for still-hunting through the great woods and 
 among the open glades; but the multitudinous 
 sharp rocks and sheer, cliff-like slopes of the Coeur 
 d'Alene rendered our moccasins absolutely useless, 
 for the first day's tramp bruised our feet till they 
 were sore and slit our foot-gear into ribbons, 
 besides tearing our clothes. Merrifield was then 
 crippled, having nothing else but his cowboy boots ; 
 fortunately, I had taken in addition a pair of shoes 
 with soles thickly studded with nails. 
 
 We would start immediately after breakfast 
 each morning, carrying a light liinch in our 
 pockets, and go straight up the moimtain sides 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 281 
 
 for hours at a time, varying it by skirting the 
 broad, terrace-Hke ledges, or by clambering along 
 the cliff crests. The climbing was very hard. 
 The slope was so steep that it was like going 
 upstairs; now through loose earth, then through 
 a shingle of pebbles or sand, then over rough 
 rocks, and again over a layer of pine needles as 
 smooth and slippery as glass, while brittle, dry 
 sticks that snapped at a touch, and loose stones 
 that rattled down if so much as brushed, strewed 
 the ground everywhere, the climber stumbling 
 and falling over them and finding it almost abso- 
 lutely impossible to proceed without noise, unless 
 at a rate of progress too slow to admit of getting 
 anywhere. Often, too, we would encounter dense 
 imderbrush, perhaps a thicket of little burnt 
 balsams, as prickly and brittle as so much coral; 
 or else a heavy growth of laurel, all the branches 
 pointing downward, and to be gotten through 
 only by main force. Over all grew the vast ever- 
 green forest, except where an occasional cliff 
 jutted out, or where there were great land-slides, 
 each perhaps half a mile long and a couple of 
 htmdred yards across, covered with loose slates 
 or granite boulders. 
 
 We always went above the domain of the deer, 
 and indeed saw few evidences of life. Once or 
 twice we came to the roimd foot-prints of cougars, 
 which are said to be great enemies of the goats, 
 
282 Ranch Life 
 
 but we never caught a glimpse of the sly beasts 
 themselves. Another time I shot a sable from 
 a spruce, up which the little fox-headed animal 
 had rushed with the agility of a squirrel. There 
 were plenty of old tracks of bear and elk, but no 
 new ones; and occasionally we saw the foot- 
 marks of the great timber wolf. 
 
 But the trails at which we looked with the most 
 absorbed interest were those that showed the 
 large, round hoof -marks of the white goats. They 
 had worn deep paths to certain clay licks in the 
 slides, which they must have visited often in the 
 early spring, for the trails were little traveled 
 when we were in the mountains during September. 
 These clay licks were mere holes in the banks, 
 and were in spring-time visited by other animals 
 besides goats ; there were old deer trails to them. 
 The clay seemed to contain something that both 
 birds and beasts were fond of, for I frequently 
 saw flocks of cross-bills light in the licks and stay 
 there for many minutes at a time, scratching the 
 smooth surface with their little claws and bills. 
 The goat trails led away in every direction from 
 the licks, but usually went up-hill, zigzagging or 
 in a straight line, and continually growing fainter 
 as they went farther off, where the animals scat- 
 tered to their feeding-grounds. In the spring- 
 • time the goats are clad with a dense coat of long 
 white wool, and there were shreds and tufts of 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 283 
 
 this on all the twigs of the bushes under which 
 the paths passed; in the early fall the coat is 
 shorter and less handsome. 
 
 Although these game paths were so deeply 
 worn, they yet showed very little fresh goat sign ; 
 in fact, we came across the recent trails of but 
 two of the animals we were after. One of these 
 we came quite close to, but never saw it, for we 
 must have frightened it by the noise we made; 
 it certainly, to judge by its tracks, which we 
 followed for a long time, took itself straight out 
 of the country. The other I finally got, after 
 some heart-breaking work and a complicated 
 series of faults committed and misfortimes en- 
 dured. 
 
 I had been, as usual, walking and clambering 
 over the moimtains all day long, and in mid- 
 afternoon reached a great slide, with half-way 
 across it a tree. Under this I sat down to rest, 
 my back to the trunk, and had been there but a 
 few minutes, when my companion, the Mis- 
 sourian, suddenly whispered to me that a goat 
 was coming down the slide at its edge, near the 
 woods. I was in a most uncomfortable position 
 for a shot. Twisting my head round, I could see 
 the goat waddling down-hill, looking just like a 
 handsome tame billy, especially when at times he 
 stood upon a stone to glance aroimd, with all 
 four feet close together. I cautiously tried to 
 
284 Ranch Life 
 
 shift my position, and at once dislodged some 
 pebbles, at the sound of which the goat sprang 
 promptly up on the bank, his whole mien changing 
 into one of alert, alarmed curiosity. He was less 
 than a hundred yards off, so I risked a shot, all 
 cramped and twisted though I was. But my 
 bullet went low; I only broke his left fore-leg, 
 and he disappeared over the bank like a flash. 
 We raced and scrambled after him, and the Mis- 
 sourian, an excellent tracker, took up the bloody 
 trail. It went along the hill-side for nearly a 
 mile, and then turned straight up the mountain, 
 the Missourian leading with his long, free gait, 
 while I toiled after him at a dogged trot. The 
 trail went up the sharpest and steepest places, 
 skirting the cliffs and precipices. At one spot I 
 nearly came to grief for good and all, for in 
 running along a shelving ledge, covered with 
 loose slates, one of these slipped as I stepped on 
 it, throwing me clear over the brink. However, 
 I caught in a pine top, boimced down through it, 
 and brought up in a balsam with my rifle all right, 
 and myself imhurt except for the shaking. I 
 scrambled up at once and raced on after my 
 companion, whose limbs and wind seemed alike 
 incapable of giving out. This work lasted for a 
 couple of hours. 
 
 The trail came into a regular game path and 
 grew fresher, the goat having stopped to roll 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 285 
 
 and wallow in the dust now and then. Suddenly, 
 on the top of the mountain, we came upon him 
 close up to us. He had just risen from rolling 
 and stood behind a huge fallen log, his back 
 barely showing above it as he turned his head to 
 look at us. I was completely winded, and had 
 lost my strength as well as my breath, while great 
 bead-like drops of sweat stood in my eyes; but 
 I steadied myself as well as I could and aimed to 
 break the backbone, the only shot open to me, 
 and not a difficult one at such a short distance. 
 However, my bullet went just too high, cutting 
 the skin above the long spinal bones over the 
 shoulders; and the speed with which that three- 
 legged goat went down the precipitous side of the 
 mountain would have done credit to an antelope 
 on the level. 
 
 Weary and disgusted, we again took up the 
 trail. It led straight down-hill, and we followed 
 it at a smart pace. Down and down it went, into 
 the valley and straight to the edge of the stream, 
 but half a mile above camp. The goat had 
 crossed the water on a fallen tree-tnmk, and we 
 took the same path. Once across, it had again 
 gone right up the mountain. We followed it as 
 fast as we could, although pretty nearly done out, 
 imtil it was too dark to see the blood-stains any 
 longer, and then returned to camp, dispirited and 
 so tired that we could hardly drag ourselves along, 
 
286 Ranch Life 
 
 for we had been going at speed for five hours, up 
 and down the roughest and steepest ground. 
 
 But we were confident that the goat would not 
 travel far with such a wound after he had been 
 chased as we had chased him. Next morning 
 at daybreak we again climbed the mountain and 
 took up the trail. Soon it led into others and 
 we lost it, but we kept up the himt nevertheless 
 for hour after hour, making continually wider and 
 wider circles. At last, about midday, our perse- 
 verance was rewarded, for coming silently out on 
 a great bare cliff shoulder, I spied the goat lying 
 on a ledge below me and some seventy yards off. 
 This time I shot true, and he rose only to fall 
 back dead; and a minute afterward we were 
 standing over him, handling the glossy black 
 horns and admiring the snow-white coat. 
 
 After this we struck our tent and shifted camp 
 some thirty miles to a wide valley through whose 
 pine-clad bottom flowed a river, hurrying on to 
 the Pacific between unending forests. On one 
 hand the valley was hemmed in by an unbroken 
 line of frowning cliffs, and on the other by chains 
 of lofty mountains in whose sides the ravines cut 
 deep gashes. 
 
 The clear weather had grown colder. At night 
 the frost skimmed with thin ice the edges of the 
 ponds and small lakes that at long intervals 
 dotted the vast reaches of woodland. But we 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 287 
 
 were very comfortable, and hardly needed our 
 furs, for as evening fell we kindled huge fires, to 
 give us both light and warmth ; and even in very 
 cold weather a man can sleep out comfortably 
 enough with no bedding if he lights two fires and 
 gets in between them, or finds a sheltered nook 
 or comer across the front of which a single great 
 blaze can be made. The long walks and our 
 work as cragsmen hardened our thews, and made 
 us eat and sleep as even our life on the ranch 
 could hardly do: the mountaineer must always 
 be more sinewy than the horseman. The clear, 
 cold water of the swift streams too was a welcome 
 change from the tepid and muddy currents of the 
 rivers of the plains; and we heartily enjoyed 
 the baths, a plimge into one of the icy pools 
 making us gasp for breath and causing the blood 
 to tingle in our veins with the shock. 
 
 Our tent was pitched in a little glade, which 
 was but a few yards across, and carpeted thickly 
 with the red kinnikinic berries, in their season 
 beloved of bears, and from the leaves of which 
 bush the Indians make a substitute for tobacco. 
 Little three-toed woodpeckers with yellow crests 
 scrambled about over the trees near by, while the 
 great log-cocks hammered and rattled on the tall 
 dead trunks. Jays that were dark blue all over 
 came familiarly round camp in company with the 
 ever-present moose-birds or whisky jacks. There 
 
288 Ranch Life 
 
 were many grouse in the woods, of three kinds, — 
 blue, spruce, and ruffed, — and these varied our 
 diet and also furnished us with some sport with 
 our rifles, as we always shot them in rivalry. 
 That is, each would take a shot in turn, aiming 
 at the head of the bird, as it perched motionless 
 on the limb of a tree or stopped for a second while 
 running along the groimd; then if he missed or 
 hit the bird anywhere but in the head, the other 
 scored one and took the shot. The resulting tally 
 was a good test of comparative skill ; and rivalry 
 always tends to keep a man's shooting up to the 
 mark. 
 
 Once or twice, when we had slain deer, we 
 watched by the carcasses, hoping that they would 
 attract a bear, or perhaps one of the huge timber 
 wolves whose mournful, sinister howling we heard 
 each night. But there were no bears in the 
 valley ; and the wolves, those cruel, crafty beasts, 
 were far too cunning to come to the bait while 
 we were there. We saw nothing but crowds of 
 ravens, whose hoarse barking and croaking filled 
 the air as they circled around overhead, lighted 
 in the trees, or quarreled over the carcass. Yet 
 although we saw no game it was very pleasant 
 to sit out, on the still evenings, among the tall 
 pines or on the edge of a great gorge, until the 
 afterglow of the simset was dispelled by the 
 beams of the frosty moon. Now and again 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 289 
 
 the hush would be suddenly broken by the long 
 howling of a wolf, that echoed and rang under 
 the hollow woods and through the deep chasms 
 until they resounded again, while it made our 
 hearts bound and the blood leap in our veins. 
 Then there would be silence once more, broken 
 only by the rush of the river and the low moaning 
 and creaking of the pines ; or the strange calling 
 of the owls might be answered by the far-off, 
 imearthly laughter of a loon, its voice carried 
 through the stillness a marvelous distance from 
 the little lake on which it was swimming. 
 
 One day, after much toilsome and in places 
 almost dangerous work, we climbed to the very 
 top of the nearest mountain chain, and from it 
 looked out over a limitless, billowy field of snow- 
 capped ranges. Up above the timber line were 
 snow-grouse and huge, hoary-white woodchucks, 
 but no trace of the game we were after; for, 
 rather to our surprise, the few goat signs that we 
 saw were in the timber. I did not catch another 
 glimpse of the animals themselves until my 
 holiday was almost over and we were preparing 
 to break camp. Then I saw two. I had spent 
 a most laborious day on the mountain as usual, 
 following the goat paths, which were well-trodden 
 trails leading up the most inaccessible places; 
 certainly the white goats are marvelous climbers, 
 doing it all by main strength and perfect 
 
 19 
 
290 Ranch Life 
 
 command over their muscles, for they are heavy, 
 clumsy seeming animals, the reverse of graceful, 
 and utterly without any look of Hght agility. 
 As usual, toward evening I was pretty well tired 
 out, for it would be difficult to imagine harder 
 work than to clamber imendingly up and down 
 the huge cliffs. I came down along a great 
 jutting spur, broken by a series of precipices, 
 with fiat terraces at their feet, the terraces being 
 covered with trees and bushes, and running, with 
 many breaks and interruptions, parallel to each 
 other across the face of the moim tains. On one 
 of these terraces was a space of hard clay groimd 
 beaten perfectly bare of vegetation by the hoofs 
 of the goats, and, in the middle, a hole, two or 
 three feet in width, that was evidently in the 
 spring used as a lick. Most of the tracks were 
 old, but there was one trail coming diagonally 
 down the side of the mountain on which there 
 were two or three that were very fresh. It was 
 getting late, so I did not stay long, but continued 
 the descent. The terrace on which the lick was 
 situated lay but a few himdred yards above the 
 valley, and then came a level, marshy plain a 
 quarter of a mile broad, between the base of the 
 mountain and the woods. Leading down to this 
 plain was another old goat-trail, which went to a 
 small, boggy pool, which the goats must certainly 
 have often visited in the spring; but it was then 
 
The Game of the His^h Peaks 291 
 
 unused. When I reached the farther side of the 
 plain and was about entering the woods, I turned 
 to look over the mountain once more, and my eye 
 was immediately caught by two white objects 
 which were moving along the terrace, about half 
 a mile to one side of the lick. That they were 
 goats was evident at a glance, their white bodies 
 contrasting sharply with the green vegetation. 
 They came along very rapidly, giving me no time 
 to get back over the plain, and stopped for a 
 short time at the lick, right in sight from where 
 I was, although too far off for me to tell anything 
 about their size. I think they smelt my foot- 
 prints in the soil; at any rate they were very 
 watchful, one of them always jumping up on a 
 rock or fallen log to moimt guard when the other 
 halted to browse. The sxm had just set; it was 
 impossible to advance across the open plain, 
 which they scanned at every glance ; and to skirt 
 it and climb up any other place than the pass 
 down which I had come — itself a goat-trail — 
 would have taken till long after nightfall. All 
 that I could do was to stay where I was and 
 watch them, until in the dark I slipped off un- 
 observed and made the best of my way to camp, 
 resolved to hunt them up on the morrow. 
 
 Shortly after noon next day we were at the 
 terrace, having approached with the greatest 
 caution, and only after a minute examination, 
 
292 Ranch Life 
 
 with the field-glasses, of all the neighboring 
 moiintain. I wore moccasins, so as to make no 
 noise. We soon fotind that one of the trails was 
 evidently regularly traveled, probably every 
 evening, and we determined to lie in wait by it, 
 so as either to catch the animals as they came 
 down to feed, or else to mark them if they got 
 out on some open spot on the terraces where they 
 could be stalked. As an ambush we chose a ledge 
 in the cliff below a terrace, with, in front, a breast- 
 work of the natural rock some five feet high. It 
 was perhaps fifty yards from the trail. I hid 
 myself on this ledge, having arranged on the rock 
 breastwork a few pine branches through which to 
 fire, and waited, hour after hour, continually 
 scanning the moimtain carefully with the glasses. 
 There was very little life. Occasionally a chick- 
 aree or chipmimk scurried out from among the 
 tnmks of the great pines to pick up the cones 
 which he had previously bitten off from the upper 
 branches; a noisy Clarke's crow clung for some 
 time in the top of a hemlock; and occasionally 
 flocks of cross-bill went by, with swift undulating 
 flight and low calls. From time to time I peeped 
 cautiously over the pine branches on the breast- 
 work ; and the last time I did this I suddenly saw 
 two goats, that had come noiselessly down, 
 standing motionless directly opposite to me, their 
 suspicions evidently aroused by something. I 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 293 
 
 gently shoved the rifle over one of the boughs; 
 the largest goat turned its head sharply roiind to 
 look, as it stood quartering to me, and the bullet 
 went fairly through the lungs. Both animals 
 promptly ran off along the terrace, and I raced 
 after them in my moccasins, skirting the edge of 
 the cliff, where there were no trees or bushes. 
 As I made no noise and could nm very swiftly on 
 the bare cliff edge, I succeeded in coming out into 
 the first little glade, or break, in the terrace at 
 the same time that the goats did. The first to 
 come out of the bushes was the big one I had 
 shot at, an old she, as it turned out; while the 
 other, a yearling ram, followed. The big one 
 turned to look at me as she moimted a fallen tree 
 that lay across a chasm-like rent in the terrace; 
 the light red frothy blood covered her muzzle, 
 and I paid no further heed to her as she slowly 
 walked along the log, but bent my attention 
 toward the yearling, which was galloping and 
 scrambling up an almost perpendicular path that 
 led across the face of the cliff above. Holdmg 
 my rifle just over it, I fired, breaking the neck of 
 the goat, and it rolled down some fifty or sixty 
 yards, almost to where I stood. I then went 
 after the old goat, which had lain down; as I 
 approached she feebly tried to rise and show 
 fight, but her strength was spent, her blood had 
 ebbed away, and she fell back lifeless in the effort. 
 
294 Ranch Life 
 
 They were both good specimens, the old one being 
 iinusually large, with fine horns. White goats are 
 squat, heavy beasts ; not so tall as black-tail deer, 
 but weighing more. 
 
 Early next morning I came back with my two 
 men to where the goats were lying, taking along 
 the camera. Having taken their photographs and 
 skinned them we went back to camp, himted up 
 the ponies and mules, who had been shifting for 
 themselves during the past few days, packed up 
 our tent, trophies, and other belongings, and set 
 off for the settlements, well pleased with our trip. 
 
 All mountain game yields noble sport, because 
 of the nerve, daring, and physical hardihood 
 implied in its successful pursuit. The chase of 
 the white goat involves extraordinary toil and 
 some slight danger on account of the extreme 
 roughness and inaccessibility of its haunts; but 
 the beast itself is less shy than the moimtain 
 sheep. How the chase of either compares in 
 difficulty with that of the various Old World 
 mountain game it would be hard to say. Men 
 who have tried both say that, though there is not 
 in Europe the chance to try the adventurous, 
 wandering life of the wilderness so beloved by the 
 American hunter, yet when it comes to com- 
 paring the actual chase of the game of the two 
 worlds, it needs greater skill, both as cragsman 
 and still-hunter, to kill ibex and chamois in the 
 
The Game of the High Peaks 295 
 
 Alps or Pyrenees — by fair stalking I mean; for 
 if they are driven to the guns, as is sometimes 
 done, the sport is of a very inferior kind, not 
 rising above the methods of killing white-tail in 
 the Eastern States, or of driving deer in Scotland. 
 I myself have had no experience of Old World 
 motmtaineering, beyond two perfectly conven- 
 tional trips up the Matterhom and Jungfrau — on 
 the latter, by the way, I saw three chamois a long 
 way off. 
 
 My brother has done a good deal of ibex, moun- 
 tain sheep, and markhoor shooting in Cashmere 
 and Thibet, and I suppose the sport to be had 
 among the tremendous mountain masses of the 
 Himalayas must stand above all other kinds of 
 hill shooting; yet, after all, it is hard to believe 
 that it can yield much more pleasure than that 
 felt by the American hunter when he follows the 
 lordly elk and the grizzly among the timbered 
 slopes of the Rockies, or the big-horn and the 
 white-fleeced, jet-homed antelope-goat over their 
 towering and barren peaks. 
 
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