Life in any primitive, sparsely settled country is fraught with
adventure. It is the element which gives zest to everyday affairs and
which lifts existence above the commonplace, but since everything has
its price, the price of untrammelled living must often be paid in
discomfort and inconvenience.
To us, and to many others, abounding health and freedom were ample
compensations for a few annoying circumstances but with our guests it
was a more serious consideration. After a few experiences we began to
discourage the visits of those unfitted by nature and temperament for
“roughing it”.
We could not control the elements nor untoward events. Fate had such
an invariable custom of upsetting and rearranging all of our most
carefully laid plans that when friends, especially “tenderfeet”,
arrived, we had a premonition that before they departed something
would happen. It never failed.
In the house our guests were exempt from anxiety and discomfort, but
no one cared to stay indoors when a dazzling world of blue, green and
gold lay just outside, and the unexpected was no regarder of persons.
A cloud-burst was just as apt to descend upon the unsuspecting head of
a delicate, carefully nurtured old lady as was an indiscriminating
rattlesnake to frighten some timid soul into hysterics.
Everyone who came to the ranch wanted to ride, those knowing least
about horses being the most insistent, and not wishing to take any
chances, at first we gave them Billy, gentle, trustworthy Billy, who,
when running loose, could be caught by a man on foot and ridden into
the corral with a handkerchief around his neck instead of a bridle. We
would start out, the tenderfoot joyously “off for a horseback ride,”
and the next thing we knew he would be off the horse doubled up under
a fence or lying flat on the prairie, while Billy peacefully nibbled
grass. No one could explain it unless the uninitiated had lost a
stirrup and had unwittingly given the horse a dig in the ribs which
was immediately resented—so even Billy was disqualified.
The truth was, none of our horses was sufficiently well broken for the
inexperienced horseman to ride or drive. They behaved very decently
until something occurred, which was out of the ordinary, and then the
reaction was most sudden and disastrous.
With the stock on the ranch we had acquired about four hundred horses,
most of which had never been handled and were running loose on the
range. Before they were of any use or value they had to be broken and
Owen felt that it was one of the most important things to be done.
Consequently, many of the horses were broken to drive in the hay
field, the broncho hitched up with a gentle horse, and put onto the
rake or mowing machine—many were the runaways.
Charley was leisurely by nature. He never hurried either in speech or
movement. Owen and I were in the office one morning when he strolled
around the house and up to the door.
“Mis-ter Brook,” he drawled, “Ja-ne and Maud are running away with the
mow-ing machine down in the timber—they throw-ed Windy off the seat,”
but before he got the last word out, his listener was down the steps,
over the fence and on his way toward the creek where Maud and Jane
were tearing through the timber leaving parts of the mowing machine on
stumps and fallen logs, while Charley looked after him in mild
surprise. The horses were brought to an abrupt stop when one tried to
go on one side of a tree and the other on the opposite side.
There was a beautiful black horse, “Toledo”, that refused to allow
anyone to come near him but Owen or Bill, and there was also a new man
on the ranch who so constantly boasted of his ability to handle
bronchos the boys had dubbed him “Windy”.
Windy concluded one day that he would harness Toledo alone. There were
violent sounds in the stable, snorts, shouts, thumps, and Windy sailed
through the open door and landed on a conveniently placed pile of
manure, frightened to death but unhurt.
Bill was furious.
“What’d you do to him, anyhow?” he stormed after roping Toledo who had
broken his halter and was running loose in the corral.
“I didn’t do nothin’ to him,” protested Windy. “I just crope up and
retched over and tetched him and he begun to snort and cave ’round.”
“Course you didn’t do nothin’, you couldn’t do nothin’ if you tried.
You’d better go back to town where you belong, ’stead a stayin’ out
here spoilin’ good horses.” Bill’s choler was rising. “You don’t know
nothin’ neither, you’re jest a bone head, your spine’s jest growed up
and haired over.” And, leading the subdued Toledo, Bill disappeared
into the stable.
When the team that Owen reserved for his own use had passed the
kicking and lunging stage and I had become sufficiently confident to
look at the landscape instead of watching their ears, he usually
concluded they were “pretty well broken” and that he must try out a
new one. This trying out process went on indefinitely, for Owen’s New
England conscience gave him no peace apparently while an unbroken
horse remained in his possession. It was a form of duty.
When we had guests we used, what my husband was pleased to call, a
gentle team, one that started off decorously with all their feet on
the ground instead of in the air, but one day when we were expecting
some friends from Wyoming he could not resist driving a new pair of
beautiful bay horses when we went to meet them. I remained behind.
The dinner hour passed and no Owen; additional hours went by and late
at night he came in dusty, dirty and scratched.
In response to a perfect volley of questions he explained that he was
all right, but the Lawtons had telegraphed they had been detained, and
then he added, as quite an unimportant detail, that “the horses had
run away.” He had the expression of a fond and indulgent parent, and
as he did not rise to the defense of his pet team when I called them
“miserable brutes” I knew his pride, at least, had suffered.
“You see,” he resumed, “your new sewing machine and some other freight
was at the station, so when I found the Lawtons were not coming I
thought I’d bring it over. I had the crystal clock, too.” Owen looked
so sheepish I had to laugh, although the clock had been a wedding
present which we had sent up to the jeweler to be regulated.
“Is it smashed?”
“Oh, no,” he reassured me, “but I don’t know how well it will run. I
got out to close the gate beyond the railroad when a confounded
freight engine whistled and the horses started. I was holding the
reins in my hand, of course, and tried to climb in the back of the
wagon, but couldn’t make it on account of the load. I ran along the
side until the horses went so fast I fell down and when they began to
drag me I let go of the reins. They ran all over that inclosure, the
wagon upset and canned tomatoes, sewing machine and crystal clock were
strewn everywhere. I caught the horses finally, but the wagon was
smashed so I had to walk back to Becker’s, get his wagon and pick up
all the freight—that’s what delayed me. I’m dreadfully sorry about
the sewing machine and the clock, but I don’t believe they are much
hurt.”
He was very contrite, was my husband, but it didn’t last long, that
sense of duty was too insistent. A very short time after, he was
alone, driving another team, with a horse he had just bought, tied to
the tug. The new horse, frightened at a dead animal in the lane,
jumped, broke the tug, plunged forward, pulled the neck yoke off, the
buggy tongue stuck into the ground as the horses ran, the buggy heaved
up in the air and pitched Owen out. It landed so close to a fence post
his head was scratched, but he might have been killed. As long as he
had escaped, this runaway had its amusing side, too. He was bringing
home a quantity of china nest-eggs which followed when he was thrown
out, and he said for a minute it fairly snowed nest-eggs; the ground
was white with them.
Owen and his horses! I never could decide whether it was more
nerve-racking to go with him or stay behind, so I usually took the
chance and went. The experiences we had! I wonder we ever survived
that horse-breaking period, but only once did we face a fate from
which there seemed only one chance in a thousand of escaping with our
lives.
We were driving a buckskin horse Owen had just bought and a newly
broken mare, a handsome, high spirited creature called Beauty. She
danced and she pranced and forged ahead of the new horse which became
nervous and excited in trying to keep up with her.
We were going up a long hill. Beauty was pulling and tugging on the
bit when suddenly she gave a toss to her head and to our horror we saw
the bridle fall back around her neck. The bit had broken. Like a flash
she was off, the other horse running with her. Owen spoke to them. He
wound the reins about his arms and pulled on them with all his
strength.
At the top of the hill there was a fairly level space where Owen tried
to circle them, hoping to tire them out, but he had no control over
Beauty and she wheeled about starting back over the road we had come,
the buggy bouncing and swaying behind. There was a fence corner with
an old post standing about ten feet from it. The horses headed
straight for it. I closed my eyes, expecting that we would be wrecked,
but they turned and raced across a gulch, the buggy lurched, tipped,
struck one side and then the other, but by a miracle did not upset.
I saw that Owen was trying to head them into a fence and braced myself
for the shock, realizing that he hoped to entangle them in the barbed
wire and so throw them, but just as we reached it Beauty veered to one
side almost overturning the buggy. We were so close the skirt of
Owen’s fur coat caught on the barbs and was instantly torn to ribbons
and we heard the vibrating “ping” of the wire along its entire length
as the wheels struck the fence.
On and on the maddened horses raced, up hills, down long slopes,
through gulches in which it seemed we must be wrecked, until at length
we reached the crest of a hill at the bottom of which, angling with
the fence, ran a deep gulch with high cut banks. We knew that if the
frantic horses reached the edge of that bank at the rate we were going
there was no escape for us and we should plunge over the embankment
with the horses. To jump was impossible. I was in despair, realizing
that Owen, pulling on the horses with all his might, was nearly
exhausted.
“Owen, isn’t there something I can do?” It was the first time a word
had been spoken.
“Pull on the Buckskin,” he answered quickly.
I leaned forward and seized the rein with both hands as far down as I
could reach and threw myself back with all my weight. The Buckskin was
pulled back on his haunches, Beauty stopped. Owen handed me the reins,
another moment he was at their heads calling to me to jump. In that
instant before jumping I lived an eternity, for if the horses had
started again I should have gone to certain death alone.
[Illustration: THE “STAR” IS A FRIGHTENED, SNORTING “BRONCHO”]
I was so weak with fright and sudden relief when I felt the firm earth
under my feet I could scarcely stand but I had to get to the
Buckskin’s head and hold on to him, for Owen had his hands full with
Beauty, who began to rear and plunge. It was no time for nerves. The
horses were finally unhitched. Owen led Beauty and I, the Buckskin.
Leaving the buggy on the edge of that yawning gulch, we walked the
five miles back to the ranch.