The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
search of a buyer. Perhaps he drives his own cattle, or his own and some of his neighbours', or perhaps he purchases additional numbers and thus embarks in a still greater mercantile venture. In any case the chief problem of his venture is that of transportation. The herds are to cross a wild and unsettled region, unmapped lands, with floods to swallow them up, with deserts in which they may be lost irretrievably. There is continual risk and danger of great loss in such transportation, for everything depends upon the control a few human beings may be able to maintain over thousands of powerful and untamed animals.
These wild cattle are sold, let us say, upon the hoof as they run, uninspected, at so much per head. They of course do not reach the dignity of being weighed, but are only counted. The seller may very likely see to it that his men bring in many of the poorest specimens to be counted in such a transaction, but the etiquette of the trade prevents the buyer from taking any notice of such a fact. On the range a cow is a cow, and may be worth two or three dollars. A "beef" (any animal over four years of age) is a beef, and may be worth three to six dollars. A "dogy" or "dobe" yearling (a scrubby calf that has not wintered well) is such a yearling, and nothing less nor more, and may be worth one or two dollars. It is a day of large methods, and haggling is unknown. It is jubilee for the man of the depastured range who thus finds offered him a price for cattle which have been bringing scarce enough to pay for branding them.
The riders go out over the range and round up the cattle by tens and hundreds, holding them most of the time in the big corrals until the herd is made up and until the "road branding" is done. Then, after they are counted and sorted, the bill of sale gives the buyer his right and title and his permission to take these cattle off the range. Perhaps the great herd will number four, five, or even ten thousand head when it pulls out North bound over the trail. Another herd of this or another buyer may follow close behind it, and indeed in the height of the driving season there will be many herds strung out all along the trail.
To handle one of these great bodies of cattle the drover establishes his outfit well in advance of the start. His horses he may buy on the spot or at some horse ranch not far distant. His foreman, or "boss" for the drive he has secured, and been careful in his choice in doing so. The foreman's name may as well be Jim as any other, and it is certain that in his skill and judgment and faithfulness the owner has absolute confidence, for he is putting into his hands a great many thousand of dollars' worth of property. Besides the foreman there are a dozen other cowboys, most of them Americans, for Mexicans are not fancied for this work. In addition to these is the cook, who has nothing to do with the handling of the cattle. The cook may be a negro or a Spaniard or a "Portugee," but it is almost a certainty that he is hard-featured and unlovely, with a bad temper and perhaps a few notches on his knife handle. If he were not "hard up" he would not hire out to cook. The cowpunchers very likely call the cook the "old woman" or the "old lady," but really the language of a drive cook is something no lady would think of using. It is good times on the range, and the cook may receive fifty dollars a month and all of his own cookery he can eat. The cowpunchers will have wages of forty-five to sixty-five dollars per month, according to their age and skill. The "cavvieyard" or horse herd will have fifty to one hundred head of horses in it, and will be under the charge of the day herder and night herder (known as "horse wranglers" in the North). The cook has a wagon or cart, which carries himself, his supplies, the bedding, and a few of the scant necessaries of the men. The latter travel light as did ever any cavalry of the world. A tent is something unknown to these men. A scant blanket and the useful slicker, a flip of the roll, and the cow-puncher's bed is made. The saddle is his pillow. He may look freely at the stars. The wolf is not more wild, the broadhorn more hardy than he, nor either more truly a creature of the open air.
When the great herd of "coasters" moves out on its Northern journey its outset is attended with confusion. The cattle are unruly and attempt to break back to their native feeding grounds. The drive outfit is riding day and night, and even then its numbers and its efforts may not be sufficient. A second outfit perhaps assists the first, pushing the cattle as rapidly as possible over the first hundred miles of the trail, tiring them so that they will be willing to lie down and rest when nightfall comes. After these few days the second outfit returns to start out the next herd in a similar way. Ordinarily it may take a week or ten days to break in the herd to the trail, but when fairly started the cattle will travel ten to fifteen miles a day easily and without much urging, and in the second month of the drive will have so well learned what is required of them as to march with something like military regularity, following certain recognised leaders of tacit election. The order of march is in a loosely strung-out body, the herd in motion covering a strip of country perhaps only a few hundred yards in width, but a mile or two miles in length from front to rear of the herd. The stronger animals, or those least footsore, march in advance, the weaker falling to the rear. When it is seen that an animal can not stand the march, it is cut out from the herd and abandoned. There are no close figures in the cattle drive.
While the herd is on the march the cowpunchers ride at intervals along its flanks, keeping the stragglers up and in as much as possible, and controlling the cattle by that strange mastery the mounted man has always had over the horned creatures of the range. Why the cowboy should be called a "cowpuncher" is one of the mysteries. The whip of the States' drover is unknown to him. He guides the cattle simply by the presence of himself and horse, riding at them when he wishes them to turn, heading them back when he wishes them to stop. Each man on the drive knows what to do, and the duties are for the most part rather monotonous than urgent. The march each day is in much the same order, the dusty herd strung out ahead, the cook wagon and horse herd following on behind. For hours and days the herd may work along stolidly and quietly, with no sound but the monotonous crack! crack! of thousands of hoofs and ankle joints or the rattle of the long horns swung together now and then in the crowd of travel. Or there may arise even in daytime that thunderous unison of the clacking feet and the continuous, confused, and awful rattling of the horns which tells of the horrors of a stampede.
By nightfall the cattle are usually weary enough to be willing to stop, and need little instruction when they arrive on the bedding ground which has been selected by some forerunner. Water they have probably had more than once during the day.(1) In the evening they graze a little, and shortly after dusk begin to lie down, so that by eight or nine o'clock they may all be "bedded down" by the cowpuncher's art into a fairly compact body capable of being watched. After the cook has served his supper of bacon, beans, camp bread, and coffee, with perhaps a very few items of tinned vegetables and of course no fresh vegetables except the inevitable El Paso onion, the foreman arranges the hours for the night herding. Two to four men are put out at the same time, and these are out for two to four hours, all of these details depending on the condition of the cattle and the state of the weather.
(1) The cattle trail moved westward in Texas as the plains were cleared of the Indians and as the country settled up. The first trail ran to southeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri. The so-called Shawnee trail ran east from the Red River, thence north across the Arkansas and west along that stream. The "Chisholm trail" was farther to the west, over the Neutral Strip. The "Pecos trail" was still farther to the west, in New Mexico, following the Pecos River north into Colorado, and crossing the Arkansas River in that Territory. The latter trail was used only in the territorial or stock cattle drive. There was an attempt made at one time to set apart a strip of country north and south, near the sixth principal meridian, for the exclusive purposes of the cattle trail, though this was never done. The "Chisholm trail" was laid out by a half-breed Indian bearing the name of Jesse Chisholm, who drove horses and cattle to the western parts of the Nations as early as 1840, before any one else dared go in that country. He did a good business in horses, which he bought of the lower plains Indians, the latter being able to sell to him at low prices, since they stole all their horses themselves. He often had long trains of horses, cattle, and goods, which he brought up over the best country for grass and water. -E. H.
Before lying down for his share of sleep at night, the cowpuncher takes care of his horses. This is not the act of feeding and grooming, be sure, but has reference to that possession in hand which is the only concern the cowpuncher gives himself in the matter. He usually pickets the horse he intends to ride during the night, and hobbles out the one he has been using, the custom of hobbling being one brought down from the ancient plains days. His picket pin the cow-puncher carries with him, for