The History of the Old American West – 4 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
a little shade, and serve for a sort of fuel. In the old freighting days the teamster of the plains always carried an extra axle and a spare wheel or two against accident on his long journeys, but it is related of one improvident wagoner that he at one time found himself with a broken axletree and no timber near except some cottonwoods. He tried a half dozen times to make an axle of the ill-grained soft wood, but finally gave it up, and history states that he finally turned out his team there, and stopped and located a farm, because he could not get away from the country.
In times past these cottonwoods along our river served another purpose. Here, in a sheltered valley, where the willows make a wide thicket extending back over the bottoms for half a mile or more, there are cotton-woods which bear strange burdens, long and shapeless bundles, wrapped in hides or rags. It is the burial place of the red men, with whom the cowpuncher is at war. For these rude graveyards the irreverent cow-puncher has no respect. He tears down the bundles and kicks them apart, hunting, for beads and finger bones. Around the cow camp there is knocking about the skull of an Indian, a round hole in the temple. This came from the sandhills, where it had never been accorded even so rude a burial as the one described. Once the Cheyennes swooped down and the cowmen met them. Thirteen of the Cheyennes did not go back when the war party retreated to the villages to tell their people of the new fighting men who had come into the country.
The T Bar cattle roam over a million acres or so of land, of which the rancher perhaps owns one hundred and sixty acres. Of course, at this date, no attempt is made at fencing the range, though a few rough stops of logs or trees may keep the cattle back from some creek valleys or canons where it is not desired that they should go. It is still "free grass" on the range. The cattle are held on a certain part of the country, and prevented from drifting off to the range of another outfit by "outriding." Each day the cow-punchers "ride sign" around the edge of the agreed territory, turning back or looking up any cattle that seem to be wandering from their proper range. At points some miles away from the home ranch, perhaps fifteen or twenty miles or more, there are other and less pretentious quarters built for the outriders. For instance, Red, one of the hands, starts out in the morning and rides the eastern edge of the range to the Willow Spring cabin, where he meets Curly, who came down from above on the same side. They stop together over night at the cabin, if they are near it when dark comes, and in the morning separate and return the way they came. Or perhaps both may live at this camp most of the time. The range riders are continual sentinels and pickets, besides being courier, fighting force, and commander, each for himself.
Our ranch house stands upon a sightly spot, here in the bend of the blue river. This was a favourite camping place for hunters and trappers in the days before the beaver were gone. The old camps are gone now, and in their place stands the long and substantial cabin which makes the home ranch house. This is a building better than those seen on the southern range, for here the climate, though very hot in summer, is exceedingly cold in winter, and more care needs to be taken with the habitation. The house is built of logs, the logs perhaps hewn and squared. The roof is made of logs, boughs, hay, and dirt, or if very modern it may be covered with riven "shakes" or shingles, with perhaps an attempt made at a rude porch or veranda, this taking the place in some extent of the midway hall of other ranches we have seen. The doors and windows are well fitted, for the intense cold of winter will tap sharply every open joint. There is a huge fireplace, and moreover a big "cannon" stove. Rough bunks line the walls, as in the general scheme of the Western ranch house, and on these are beds of heavy blankets, underlaid with robes and skins. The matchless robe of the buffalo at one time played an important part in Northern ranch economy. Upon the floors are the skins of elk and deer, of the mountain lion, and of the bear. The ranchman is almost of necessity a hunter, and this range lies in the heart of one of the great game regions of the land. Upon the walls of the room there hang upon long wooden pegs some of the less used saddles, bridles, "chaps," ropes, and other gear of the men. The cow puncher may throw his hat upon the floor, but is very apt to hang up his spur. Or he may come in tired from a long ride, and rolling himself up in his blankets in the cocoon style of the "Westerner, fall asleep with his clothes on, boots, spurs, and all. His life is one of camps and marches.. Of a regular home life or settled habits he knows nothing. Civilization is still far off. He sees the railroad perhaps twice a year. Then he sleeps upon a mattress and has a "reg'lar goose-har piller," of which he tells his companions when he comes back to the ranch. He sleeps as well as he eats or rides. The fresh air of the mountains has blown every malaise from his system. He rises in the morning with his "fists full of strength," exulting in the sheer animal vigour of perfect health, the greatest blessing that can come to any man. The cowpuncher is a survival.
The harsh Northern country, stern as it is and unfriendly of aspect, is none the less in some of its phases kindly and beautiful. In the spring the wind blows soft, and many small flowers come out from under the snow. The willow buds swell and burst. The trout run, and the hordes of grouse in the willow thickets break up their packs and spread out over the country. The wild geese cross northward, bound still farther on toward the land of cold. Small birds twitter and flit about the ranch house, and little squirrels come, and the mountain rats appear from their nests. The wind blows steadily, but its bravado is understood and not dreaded. The spring floods of snow water boil down all the water ways, and presently the spring rains come and drench out all the frosts that lie in the ground. Then the prairies show a carpet of flowers dotting in their brief beauty the strips of green so soon to lose their colour. Deeper dashes of green spread out along the wet grounds bordering the smaller streams. The sagebrush blossoms and the trees of the little parks put out new buds and begin again the cycle of unfailing hope. Yet spring is not greeted here as a seedtime. No ploughs cut the soil of these iron plains. No wagon wheel marks the hard surface for the notice of the range rider going upon his long rounds. No figures of men setting forth to fields, of horses labouring at drill or harrow, meet his gaze fixed upon the far horizon. Just seen upon some distant ridge there may be the outline of a figure, but if so, it is that of another rider like himself, and bound upon a similar errand. Or it may be the shape of an Indian rider, perhaps several of them, off their reservation with or without permission, and hurrying under whip across the country on some forbidden hunt or distant visit. The Indian plies his whip and looks straight ahead, but he has seen the cowboy. The cowboy sees him too, and smiles contemptuously. He dreams not of the day when he, too, shall be a flitting figure disappearing across the range.
In the spring the cattle straggle out from the warmer and more sheltered portions of the range where they have been huddled during the more biting times of winter. They feed with eagerness and unceasing industry upon the fresh-growing grasses. The little calves begin to totter along awkwardly by the side of their gaunt mothers, whose hips and ribs project prominently in sign of the long season of cold and scarcity with which they have been at war. Coyotes sneak along the hillsides at the edges of the herds, in the morning at sunrise sometimes sitting upon the tops of the high ridges and joining in a keen tremulous chorus, one of the familiar sounds of the range. At times a circle of the great gray buffalo wolves—pests of the cattle range—close in about a mother and her calf, lying down, bounding about, playing and grinning. The feeble cow fights as she can, perhaps getting to the circle where others stand and fight. The snarling pack will in time pull down their prey. The rider of the T Bar range reports many calves and heifers killed by wolves. It is one of the factors of loss to be figured upon regularly. He notes also roughly as he makes his early trips over the range the numbers of cattle that "did not winter." At these red or tawny blotches which He about over the landscape the coyotes are feeding, then the foxes and swifts. Perhaps by some carcass the cowboy notes the long footmark of the grizzly bear, which has awakened from its sleep in the hills and begun a long series of marches in search, of food, always scarce for it in the early spring before the crickets and mice begin to move and before the berries ripen. The bear has torn apart with his rugged strength the ribs of the carcass and battened his fill upon the carrion. Ravens cross from side to side. Life and death are in evidence together upon the range in spring. These lean cattle, their rough hair blowing up in the wind, are the survivals. The range is no place for weaklings. The cowpuncher, who is no weakling, rides along over the range, guessing at the proportion of survival in the herd, estimating how many calves the outfit will brand at the round-up soon to begin, figuring on how many strange cattle have drifted in on this part of the range during the last storms of the winter. His eye catches with trained precision the brand of each animal he sees. He is observant