The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
after hour across the wavering and superheated sands of the desert country, not complaining about water, and willing to make its living at night by picking at the short grass of the hard ground in the summer, sometimes living on browse in winter, and never, in the early days, even knowing a taste of grain. (The Texas herds that came up in the early days would at first nearly starve before they would eat corn or oats). This cow horse never had a grooming in all its life, and if touched by a currycomb would have kicked the groom to death in a moment and then broken down the corral. Its back was sure to be sore, and its temper accordingly a trifle uncertain, but it would go its journey and do its stint and take what Nature gave it. Its rough rider had small apparent love for it, but would occasionally slap its side with a rough gesture of half regard after some long ride when it stood, tucked up and steaming, panting with the fatigue of the work. No blanket ever covered it after the hardest ride, and in winter it had no shelter but what it could find for itself. Hardier than a steer, and with more intelligence, it would live where cattle would starve to death, pawing down through the snow and getting food while the horned herds were dropping of starvation all about it.
No cow horse ever attained to the dignity of a name of its own, though it might for purposes of identification be mentioned in some descriptive term, as the "wall-eyed cayuse," the "star-face sorrel," the "white-eyed claybank," the "O Bar horse from Texas," etc. Yet each cowpuncher of the ranch force would know almost every horse belonging to the outfit, and if one strayed could describe it to any one he met, and in such fashion as would enable the other, if he were a cowman himself, to identify it at once. This keen observation was matter of habit on the range, and its development was greatest among the old-time men of the open ranges.
Without the American cow pony there could have been no cattle industry, there could have been no cowboy. Thus the horse was the most essential and valuable property of the cowman — indeed, of any man who faced the great distances of the plains. The cow range was a horseback country. Men had few items of property, and could carry little with them. What they had they needed, and most of all they needed their means of transportation. The horse thief was the criminal most hated and despised in such a country, and his punishment was always summary and swift. The horse thief asked no mercy, for none was ever given. The justice of the plains was stern. The hunting parties who went out after a horse thief rarely came back with him. Commonly there would be a grave report made to the authorities that the prisoner had been taken, but had unfortunately escaped. Mexicans at times were enterprising horse thieves on the lower ranges. One ranch party pursued and shot four such thieves on one occasion, and threw their bodies up on top of the chaparral; yet the report at the settlement was that the prisoners had "escaped in the night from their guards." One other party came in empty-handed, and said their prisoner had "jumped over a bluff and received fatal injuries." So he had, though two bullet holes were found in his body by the coroner. A negro horse thief was pursued at another time, and it was declared that he had been "found drowned." This also appeared to be true, but he was later discovered to have stones tied about his neck and several bullet holes through his body. Nothing but extreme youth could serve as a defense for the man found guilty of stealing horses. It was of no avail for him to attempt to palliate or deny. It took the early cowmen a long time to become patient enough to wait for legal conviction of such a criminal, and the delays of the law seemed to them wasteful and wrong. An old-time cowpuncher, speaking of this feeling, voiced the general sentiment. "Why, h — !," said he, "a horse thief ain't folks!" In these summary trials of the plains it was very rare that mistakes were made. The same cowpuncher, for the time more confidential than his kind on such topics, where reticence was usually permanent, admitted that he was out on one round-up of a horse-thieving hand when fifteen men were hung. "An'," said he, with conscious virtue in his tone, "we never did make but one or two mistakes, an' them fellers ought to a-been hung anyhow."
There comes to mind one such hunt for a horse thief, though in this case the youth of the offender saved his life. The writer was riding alone over a part of the cattle range in the extreme West, some thirty miles from a settlement, when he saw the dust of an approaching vehicle. In those times and in that country any such coming traveller was regarded with interest, for it was never known what he might prove to be. In this case it turned out to be nothing more formidable than a fourteen-year-old boy, who was driving a jaded team hitched to a buckboard. The boy was anxious and alert-looking, and held between his knees as he drove a Winchester rifle, on which he kept one hand in a manner familiar enough for one so young. He drove steadily on, and of course was not suspected of being anything more than a chance traveller in a country where nothing that one did ever attracted much attention. Some miles farther along, however, at a point where the trail turned into the rough volcanic country known as the Mai Pais, there came galloping into view a band of eight dusty and determined-looking cowpunchers, who pulled up short and stopped the traveller, asking what had been seen back farther on the trail. The description of the outfit passed fitted their case exactly, and they said that the boy had stolen the team from a ranch fifty miles away. The men dismounted, loosened their saddle girths for a moment, and gave their animals chance to breathe, but soon were in the saddle again, and sweeping on over the hot flats on a long gallop. They caught the boy about twelve miles farther on, where he had stopped for food and water. He made a show of fight, but was disarmed. Some were for hanging him, but the majority thought it was wrong to hang a "kid," so he was set free. The cowpunchers brought back the buckboard and team, leaving the ambitious youth at last accounts on foot in the middle of the plains. His youth had been a blessing to him.
CHAPTER V
THE COWBOY'S HORSE
The earliest written records of mankind show that man was first a warrior and next a cattle man and most of his wars were over cows. We are told that the Aryans were cowmen by universal occupation, and it is pointed out to us that the Sanskrit word for king means nothing more than chief of wise foreman of the ranch. Our word directly derived from the Latin pecus, thus pointing back sharply to the time when the cow was the unit of all values. The ancient warrior of Europe paid so many cows for his wife, as the warrior of the red peoples of America pays so many ponies, or as the head men of the pale faces to-day pay so many dollars, by a slight modification of standards and customs. It needs but the most casual glance back over the history of the race to see how primitive, how strong and steadfast, have been the customs of the cattle men from the time of the Aryans to the time of the beef barons of a decade ago. Until within a very short time a cow was a cow on the cattle range, and one cow was as ,ood as another. Surely it was a radical and ominous change which broke down so old and strong a custom. It means that the days of our Sanskrit and Roman and Western heroes, men "who fought about cows" are gone forever, and that a new time has set on in history, wherein the money changer and the merchant shall take their place forever. Woe is that time in the history of any people.
In the ancient days of the cattle industry the same problems must have presented themselves which were offered to the earliest cattle men upon this continent. These cows, which constituted the wealth of the individual, were four-legged creatures, which could run far away from man, the two-legged creature. Man as Nature made him cut a sorry figure as a cowboy. But Nature had given to man another creature as strong as the cow, more fleet, and more courageous. This creature man took into his plans, and upon the back of the horse he at once became the physical superior of the cow. With the horse he is master of his herds. Without it he must ever have remained the hunter, and could never have been the cattle man. He could never have organized his means of increasing his own wealth or of commanding it. Most intimately blended, then, is the horse of the cowman with every movement of his calling.
It is impossible to tell beyond the stage of guesswork just at what time the first cowman rode into view upon the hot and desert plains of the vast Southwest — that lean and bronzed fighting Spaniard who had set his stubborn foot upon the virgin soil of a new continent sometime in the early and glorious day at the opening of American history. It is sure that as a military man the Spaniard knew the value of a beef herd with the marching column or at the base of his operations. He brought over cattle almost as soon as he did horses, and the one grew with the other. There is a tradition that the Spanish Government, toward the close of the sixteenth