BRANDING THE 'SCRUBBER'
A rancher's life is not an easy one. The hardest work comes in
spring and autumn, when the cattle are 'rounded up,' or gathered
together from their feeding-grounds all over the place, and parcelled
out amongst the different owners. As the great pastures have no
fences to mark off one from another, of course the cattle stray, and
the Rosebud herd and the Snake River herd mix with one another, and
with individuals belonging to ranches even more distant than these.
At the great annual round-up a certain number of cowboys from each
ranche in the district meet, and proceed to drive the whole of the
neighbouring ranges, collecting a vast mass of cattle as they go.
Each cowboy has about a dozen ponies with him, and in the work of the
round-up even this large string is very often used up. For horse and
man the work is as severe as human muscle and horseflesh can stand.
During the day the men ride round by the banks of every crik,
investigate every quiet glen among the hills, sweep over the rolling
plains, and little by little gather up the waifs and strays into a
huge herd. At night this herd has to be watched, as well as the big
band of horses accompanying it.
From time to time along the route the occurrence of one of the big
home ranches causes a delay. Here a great corral or enclosure of
rough logs has been erected, and smaller pens of a like nature. The
whole party camp near the ranche, and the cattle are herded beside
it. In the morning comes the chief work of the year. Every cow with
a calf at her heel is the subject of careful scrutiny. If she bears
the Rosebud brand, the calf belongs to the Rosebud ranche, and has to
be caught there and then and branded. If not branded whilst still a
calf, the little beast will be lost to the owner, for, once grown up,
with no ever-present nurse to point out to whom she belongs, the
unmarked heifer belongs to anyone who can catch and brand her. There
are always a few scrub cattle on every range--beasts like some of
those whose capture has been described in the last two chapters--who
had succeeded so far in escaping the cowboy's hot iron.
The work of 'cutting out,' that is, separating, the beasts to be
branded from the rest of the herd, is to the cowboy what Rugby Union
is to the schoolboy. It is full of excitement, tries every muscle of
the horse, every quality, mental or physical, of the rider. This, on
a small scale, was the work awaiting Snap on the morrow of his
bear-hunt. Amongst the beasts driven in were a few which required to
be branded, and, though their capture was mere child's play to the
old hands, used to following a dodging heifer through a herd a
thousand strong, it was intensely exciting to Snap. How the ponies
twisted and turned amongst the crowding beasts, never for one moment
losing touch of the animal which they wanted to cut out, was a marvel
to him for many a day. Polo on a quick pony is trying to a man's
seat, but cattle-driving on a pony which twists like a snipe and
doubles like a hare, without any warning to the rider, is even more
so.
Having cut out, lassoed, and branded all that were unmarked save one,
Tony and Wharton held a consultation as to that one. The men had not
much to do; they had just had work enough in the crisp air to 'get
their monkey up,' and were ready for anything.
'Say, Dick,' said Tony, 'shall we brand that old bull? the old
varmint has had the laugh of us long, enough. Let's scar his rump
for him this time, anyway!'
The scrub bull alluded to by Tony was an old acquaintance of the men
at Rosebud ranche. More than once had he been thrown and tied,
always to break away and set the branders at defiance. Whilst the
men were talking he was gradually drawing away from the herd, a
strong, heavy-built beast, fierce and long-horned as a Texan bull,
strong and sturdy as an English shorthorn. A short, crisply curled
coat of a dull brown made him look, but for his more graceful build,
more like a buffalo than a domestic beast.
'All right, boys, let's have another go at him,' assented Wharton;
and Wharton, Tony, Snap, and another rode quietly out to surround and
drive in the veteran. The ponies certainly entered into the spirit
the thing. Anything more meek and more innocent than 'the Cradle' as
he wandered casually out with Snap on his back, now and then stopping
for a mouthful of grass, and again turning his back completely on the
bull, Snap thought he had never seen. And yet somehow the ponies
were all round the bull, and, unless he had the pluck to run the
gauntlet, he had only one way open to him, and that led into the
small corral. Little by little they drew in, pushing their victim so
slowly in front of them that he must still have believed that he was
choosing his own course, and only moving at all because he wished to.
By quiet, clever generalship old Wharton and his boys got the bull
within a short run of the corral. Then the bull began to hesitate.
He evidently 'smelt a rat,' and did not mean to go another yard.
This was the critical moment. Swinging their lariats round their
heads, the four riders dashed at the bull with a yell which would
have turned a party of Zulus white with envy. Snap, not to be
outdone, yelled in chorus what was really a relic of the old hunting
days at Fairbury, and clashed forward with the rest. For a moment
the grand old beast lowered his great shaggy front, and looked as if
he meant to stand the charge. If he had done so, the band of
horsemen must have split upon him as waves upon a rock. But the yell
and the swinging lassoes were too much for his nerves. Turning
slowly, he galloped into the corral, the horses dashed after him, the
huge bars of the fence were put back into their places, and the scrub
bull was fairly caged. So far, so good. But this same bull had
often been caged before, and was still unbranded.
'Will you rope him, Tony?' asked Wharton.
'You bet,' replied that worthy, divesting himself of pretty nearly
everything except his lasso, so as to be 'pretty handy over them
rails, if so be as it's necessary,' he explained.
In the corral was a post, firm-set in the ground, and stout as heart
of oak. Round this Tony coiled his lasso, leaving lots of loose line
and the fatal noose free. Meanwhile the bull kept his eye on Tony
just as Tony kept his eye on the bull. Snorting and pawing the
ground, the beast backed against the rails, and then, finding that
there was no escape, lowered his head and came with a perfect roar of
rage at his self-composed enemy. Tony stood his ground just long
enough to throw his lasso, and then darted away. The long loop flew
straight enough to its mark, but by some ill-luck failed to fix upon
the bull, who, free and savage, fairly coursed poor Tony round the
ring. But the cowboy 'didn't reckon to be wiped out by one of them
scrubbers, no-how,' and, seizing his opportunity, scrambled over the
rails of the corral like a monkey up a lamp-post, remarking, when he
reached the other side in safety:
'Jeehoshaphat! I did think he would have ventilated my pants for me
that time, anyways.'
At the next attempt Tony's lasso settled round the great beast's
horns, tightened as he plunged past the post, and as he reached the
end of his tether brought him with a stunning crash to the ground.
As Snap said afterwards, 'those cowboys hopped over the fence like
fleas, and had the old bull's leg tied up, and his head made fast to
the pole with the strongest green hide-rope on the ranche, before you
could say Jack Robinson.'
For a while the great beast stood trembling, and still dazed by his
fall, but the sight of Tony with the branding-iron roused him to
fresh fury. The huge quarters seemed to contract for a mighty
effort, the shaggy neck bent down with irresistible force, the thongs
of green hide creaked and then snapped, as snapped the withy bands
which bound the wrists of Samson.
There were four men and a bull in the corral when those ropes broke;
there was one man and a bull still left in thirty seconds after that
event. With a furious charge the monster scattered his tormentors,
who fled in every direction, two over the rails and a third just in
time to fling himself flat on his face and roll out underneath the
bottom bar, with those sharp horns, 'straight as levelled lances,'
only just behind him.
When they had time to turn they saw a sight which, if it had not been
so full of peril for a dear old comrade, must have elicited peals of
laughter. 'Bust me if you shall lick us,' said Tony, grinding his
teeth as he heard the straining thongs begin to give; and when the
bull charged the brave old fellow held on to his branding-iron and
waited. Of course the flying forms of Tony's companions drew the
bull's attention, and his great horned front plunged past the one foe
who disdained flight without observing him. With a shattering crash
the bull dashed against the corral-fence just too late to pound a man
to pieces with his horns, and as he reeled back himself, half stunned
by the tremendous collision with those unyielding oaken bars, the
bull was aware of a fresh indignity. Tony had him by the tail!!
Yes, it's all very well to plunge and roar with rage, to swing the
lithe, active foe clean off his feet, and dash him against the oak
rails of your prison, O gallant Texan bull; but that foe, half Yankee
as he is now, was bred in gallant Yorkshire, and, once he has his
grip, will let go when a bull-dog does, that is, when he is dead;
just then and no sooner.
[Illustration: TONY AND THE 'SCRUBBER']
And so the scrub-bull found. In vain he dashed about like a beast
possessed, tore up the earth, and rent the air with furious
bellowings. Tony had no idea of letting go; his life depended on his
holding on; his muscles were like iron, and his nerves were English,
hardened by a rough life in America. The absurd part of it was that
at every breathing-time Tony made a fresh effort to brand his victim,
for he had stuck to his iron with his one hand as tenaciously as to
the bull with the other. The story takes long in the telling, but in
the doing it did not take half as long. Before anyone could
intervene to help the foolhardy old man the end had come. In dashing
round the ring in a cloud of dust (no one quite saw how it happened)
the old man's head must have struck against the post or against a
railing. As the dust cleared, the horrified spectators saw Tony
standing in the ring, his head hanging, his eyes vacant, still
clinging instinctively to his iron. For a moment the bull paused,
almost crouching like a cat, then, with a roar of rage, hurled
himself forward. The old man didn't move, didn't seem to understand,
and it flashed through the minds of the helpless and horror-stricken
spectators that, though still standing, Tony was 'all abroad,' his
wits temporarily scattered by collision with the post.
There was a muffled shock: the man was flung, like foam from the
crest of a breaker, half across the corral. Three other men's forms
were in the ring, a couple of revolver shots rang out, and then, side
by side, Tony and the bull lay upon that sandy battlefield, reddened
with the life-blood streaming slowly from each. As his companions
closed round him Tony managed to struggle to his elbow, saying, with
a smile which spoke volumes for his pluck:
'Sorry you killed the scrubber, boys, he'd a been kinder like a
monument for me, 'cos you see he has got the Rosebud brand now; you
bet, he's got the Rosebud brand----'
Poor Tony! those were his last words, and as his comrades carried him
off his last battlefield they felt that the best rough-rider and the
gentlest, most kind-hearted giant amongst them had done his last
day's work.
A few days later, when the sun was setting on the prairie, making the
whole sky crimson, and flooding the world with its last rays of
light, they buried him by the river's edge, Nares reading the funeral
service over him, who, though perhaps he had said less of religion
than most men, had lived a life so close to Nature, and face to face
with God and His works, that he must have learnt the great secret and
loved the Creator, as he undoubtedly in his own rough way loved all
His beautiful creation. Over Tony's grave the men set up a rough
headstone, or cross, rather, of timber, and on it they nailed the
bleached skull and bones of his dead enemy; while underneath Snap
burned with a hot iron some words which he remembered from Bret
Harte:--
A roughish chap in his talk was he,
And an awkward man in a row;
But he never funked, and he never lied,
I guess he never knowed how.