The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
the heart of the dense thicket, where the blended cover stood higher than his head, matted and almost impenetrable. In spite of the fact that he knew the country perfectly, he got lost and wandered directly away from the ranch house, and spent three days in the chaparral, all the time, it seems, getting farther and farther away from home. He had water but once in that time, and was in a desperate plight. At last he met a bunch of horses, and noticed that one had a bit of rope about its neck, and which he therefore thought might prove gentle. His belief was correct, and he was able to go up to this horse and catch it. Mounting it bareback, he urged it on and gave it its head, and soon the horse took him to a road, which later led him to a town at the edge of the "pasture," thirty miles from the ranch house.
Perhaps on some of his daily rides about the range Jim spies one or more cows with calves which have escaped the round-up, and to which the attention of the branding iron should be given. If he does not have any branding iron with him, which is very likely the case, and if the calves are anywhere near the home ranch, he rounds them up and drives them in ahead of him, perhaps having four or five in his herd by the time he gets to the house. These he turns into the big ranch corral, and soon a miniature branding bee is going on. The fire is built near the mouth of the corral, and Jim rides into the corral to get the calves. He knows far too much to go in on foot, for a range cow will often charge a footman, not recognising man in that segregated form, and taking him to be some enemy less redoubtable. The cows and calves run around the limit of the corral, Jim leisurely following, his rope trailing out in the dust behind him. Jim has just eaten his dinner, and is in no hurry. Between his teeth still rests the toothpick which he has whittled for himself from the tough yellow wood of the Palo a Maria, and on this Jim chews meditatively as he lazily follows after the little calf which is with the big dun cow. Jim slowly takes up the slack of the trailing rope, coiling it in his left hand, and then he lets drop the great noose, bending back a few inches of the noose upon the rope, and grasping both together a little way from the eye of the rope. He then rides on a trifle faster, and with a swift whirl the rope now begins to move about his head, the wrist turning smoothly with it, and the noose of the rope waving in its line like the back of a snake, undulating up and down as well as circling about. The cow pony knows all about this, and Jim pays little attention to the horse. The pony takes him to just the right distance from the right calf, and Jim launches the rope with a swirling swoop which rarely fails in its aim. Enjoying this very much, the little cow horse sets back on its hind legs, and the poor calf comes over, to be dragged to the iron and treated as it would have been on the spring round-up if it had not in some way slipped through the lines. And as it staggers away free of the corral, the heartless cowpunchers say blithely, "Did you hear the ten dollars drop in the box?"
Some day, as the cowpuncher is riding his rounds about the range, his quick eye may note out on the horizon a faint cloud which has not the appearance of a dust trail. This he regards intently, stopping his pony and looking steadfastly toward the spot. The little cloud does not pass away or grow less, but widens and rises, and all at once fans out on the wind, taking on the unmistakable blue of smoke. There is fire! One might think there would be no harm in a simple little fire, but not so impressed seems the usually unperturbed cowpuncher. There is something in the sight of this little crawling fire which causes him to turn his horse and ride as hard as he can for the ranch house. He knows that the whole range may burn, that the stock may be utterly robbed of their only food, that the ranch is to be ruined and the cattle are to starve unless that little creeping line of blue can be quickly met and conquered. He does not pause to ask how it was started — perhaps by accident of some camp fire left uncovered, perhaps by the deliberate act of some malicious rustler, who would be shot like a dog if found in the act of firing the grass. There is no time to think of anything but the remedy, if any still be possible. On parts of the range, especially that where the ground is high and dry and the grass chiefly the short and scattered buffalo grass or gramma grass, the fire will not spread so rapidly, and can be more easily handled, though even there the food of the range can be entirely destroyed by the flames which eat slowly on. If the grass be full and high, as it is on some parts of the cattle country, more especially along the streams and valleys, and if the wind be strong and in the right direction, the prairie fire will soon be a terrible thing. A swift sea of flame will roll across the range, driving forward or destroying everything in its path. Fences and buildings, if there are any, corrals and stables, everything is in danger. If there has been a little hay put up for winter feed, even the ploughed fire guard may prove insufficient to protect the stacks. There is danger that the entire profit of the season will be destroyed, and all the possibilities for the ensuing season jeopardized. The cowpuncher swears sternly as he rides, and every man who rolls out of the house and into saddle swears also as he rides for the flames. There is excitement,, but there is no confusion, for each exigency of the calling is known by these men, and they are ready with the proper expedient to meet it. Some of the men look to the buildings carefully, back-burning a broad strip about them, so that the full sweep of the fire will not need to be met there. This is done by lighting fires, a little at a time, farther and farther back against the wind, not enough grass being allowed to burn at once to make a serious blaze, and the fire being under the control of the men, who stand ready to whip it out with wet blankets, green rawhides, or anything which comes handiest.
If the haystacks and the houses be considered safe, all the men unite in fighting the main fire, which is a more serious and difficult matter, a dangerous one if the grass be heavy and the wind high. Riding along the edge of the line of the flame, two cowpunchers drag at the ends of their ropes a wet, green hide, a pile of wet blankets, anything which will serve to drag down and beat out the flame which is eating on. The men "straddle the fire," one riding on each side the line of fire, so that the hide drags along the burning grass, the two riding along the edge of the burning in this way, back and forth, until they have dragged out and smothered down the flames, or found their attempt a hopeless one. Sometimes this work may go on for hours, and it may be either in the day or the night, as the case may happen. Though they be hot and tired and thirsty from the long hours of work in the withering heat, they do not pause, but keep on until the fire is checked or until it has burst away from them, beyond all human control, and so rolled on across the range in its course of desolation. It must be a bad fire if the cowboys do not check it, for they rush into the work with all that personal carelessness of fatigue or danger which marks them in all their work, and so labour as long as they can sit their saddles, sometimes coming out of the smoke with eyebrows singed off, hands blistered, and faces black and grimed, their eyes small and red from the glare and heat of the battle with this enemy of the range. When they are through the fight they sleep, eat, and vow revenge. Ill fares it with the man who fires the range if his offence be ever traced to him. This disastrous disturbance, which imperils the welfare of so many and so much, which sends the cattle in a frightened mass hurrying across the range, mingled with the antelope and deer and wolves, which must also move before the flames — this is something too serious for even the cowman to face with unconcern. He dreads nothing more than a fire. But his diligence and skill in fighting the fire usually confine it in such way that it will burn itself out without a general destruction of the range. If there is little wind, the fire may be caught and stopped at a roadway, or at a dry creek bed, or on high, hard ground, where the rocks and bare earth give the fighters a better chance to wipe out the flames. Behind the ultimate edge of the fire's progress, back to the point where the cowpuncher first saw the tiny line of smoke, there may lie a dozen miles of blackened, smoking prairie, where in the spring the wild plovers will whistle and the big curlews with bent bills will stalk about and utter their wild and shrilly mellow calls.
Such may be some of the incidents of a day on the ranch in one part or another of the cattle country, local conditions, of course, affecting the daily routine and the general features of the work. It may be seen that the cowboy is rather a watchman than a labourer, a guard rather than a workman. Hi a life at the ranch is rather one of alertness than of exertion. Yet his is no easy or idle task, as any one may find who, not bred to the work, undertakes to do it for the first time. What seems so easy is really difficult. It would take years of practice to rival the cowboy in some of the simplest features of his daily occupation. He is in a way a skilled labourer, competent only after long and hard years of apprenticeship. To measure the force of this assertion, let us suppose that the affairs of a single ranch district were left for a season in the hands of other than skilled cowboys, the place of the latter being taken by men who could