THE ROUND-UP
It is an old saying that there is no combination or percentage known
that can beat bull luck. Bowles was lucky; but he didn't know how lucky
he was, never having seen a real bronk pitch. After Wa-ha-lote had had
his run he changed his mind again and decided to be good, and when
Bowles galloped him back to the ranch he was as gentle as a dog, and the
top horse in the remuda. Even when Bowles started to rise to the trot
the Water-dog was no more than badly puzzled.
By this time the outfit was pouring out the gate on their way to the
belated round-up, and all except the principals had decided to take it
as a joke. To be sure, they had lost an hour's daylight, and broken a
few throw-ropes; but the time was not absolutely lost. Bowles would soon
draw a bronk that _would_ pitch, and then--oh, you English dude! They
greeted him kindly, then, with the rough good-nature you read so much
about, and as Bowles loosened up they saw he was an easy mark.
"Say, pardner," said one, "you sure can jump the fences! Where'd you
learn that--back at Coney Island?"
"Coney Island nothin'!" retorted another. "W'y, Joe, you show your
ignorance! This gentleman is from England--can't you see him ride?"
"Well, I knowed all along he was goin' to ride Wa-ha-lote," observed a
third, oracularly. "I could tell by the way he walked up to him. How's
he goin', stranger--make a pretty good buggy-horse, wouldn't he?"
"Yes, indeed!" beamed Bowles. "That is, I presume he would. He is one of
the best gaited animals I ever rode. A perfect riding horse! Really, I
can't remember when I've enjoyed such a glorious gallop!"
They crowded around him then, in an anxious, attentive cluster, still
jabbing their horses with the spurs to keep up with Henry Lee but
salting away his naive remarks for future reference.
Henry Lee was just making some little gathers near the home ranch while
he waited for his neighbors to send in their stray men for the big
round-up, and as the conversation rattled on in the rear he headed
straight for a range of hills to the south. An hour of hard riding
followed, and then, as they began to encounter cattle, he told off men
by ones and twos to drive them in to the cutting ground. Hardy Atkins
took another bunch of men and rode for a distant point, and soon the
whole outfit was strung out in a great circle that closed in slowly upon
a lonely windmill that stood at the base of the hills.
As no one gave him orders, Bowles tagged along for a while and then
threw in with Brigham, hoping to imbibe some much-needed information
about the cow business from him; but a slow, brooding silence had come
over that son of the desert and he confined his remarks to few words.
"Don't crowd the cattle," he said; "and don't chase 'em. They's nothin'
to it--jest watch the other hands."
He mogged along glumly then, spitting tobacco and looking wise whenever
Bowles made effusive remarks; and soon the spirit of the wide places
took hold of the impressionable Easterner and taught him to be still.
The sun was shining gloriously now, and the air was like new wine; he
had conquered Wa-ha-lote, and won a job on the ranch; yet, even as the
hot blood coursed in his veins and his heart leaped for joy, the solemn
silence of burly Brigham exhorted him to peace. Nay, more than that, it
set up uneasy questionings in his mind and made him ponder upon what he
had said. Perhaps he had spoken foolishly in the first flush of his
victory; he might even have laid himself open to future gibes and jests,
branding himself for a tenderfoot with every word he said.
Yes, indeed; perhaps he had. At any rate, the first words he heard as
they neared the cutting-grounds were indicative of the fact.
"Hey, Bill!" roared Buck Buchanan, wafting his bull voice across the
herd. "Release that Bar X cow!"
"Beg pahdon?" replied Bill, holding his hand behind his ear; and then
there was a rumble of Homeric laughter that left Bowles hot with shame.
"Hey, Buck!" echoed Happy Jack, reining his horse out to turn back an
ambling steer; and while all hands watched him eagerly he struck into a
rough trot across the plain. Then, holding out his elbows in a manner
that he supposed to be English, he bobbed higher and higher at every
jump until he fell face forward on his horse's neck, and the cowboys
whooped for joy. Bowles was able to laugh at this joke, and he tried to
do it graciously; but the sudden wave of good manners and faultless
grammar which swept over the crowd left him heated and mad clear
through. Any dreams he might have cherished of becoming the little tin
hero of the cow country were shattered beyond repair, and he saw the
American cowboy as he really is--a very frail and human creature, who
scorns all things new and foreign, and particularly objects to Eastern
tenderfeet who try to beat him at his own game.
If Bowles had been piled in the dirt by his first mount and come limping
forth with a grin, he would have won a corralful of friends by his grit;
as it was, he had ridden Wa-ha-lote, a horse supposed to be a rank
outlaw, and the cowboys were quick to resent it. Even the loyal Brigham
had turned against him, looking on with a cynical smile as he saw him
mocked; and as for Henry Lee, he could not even get near him. Scorn and
anger and a patrician aloofness swept over Bowles' countenance by turns,
and then he took Brigham's unspoken counsel and let the heathen rage. It
was hard on his pride, but he schooled himself to endure it; and as cant
phrase after cant phrase came back at him and he realized how loosely he
had talked he decided in the future to keep his mouth shut. So far, at
least, he had caught the great spirit of the West.
But now for the first time there was spread out before his eyes the
shifting drama of the cow country, and he could not resist its appeal.
On the edge of a great plain and within sight of jagged rock-ribbed
mountains he beheld the herd of lowing cattle, the remuda of spare
horses, the dashing cowboys, the fire with its heating irons, and all
the changing scenes that go to make up a Western branding. For a spell
the herd stood still while mothers sought out their calves and restless
bulls plowed in and out; then when the clamor and blatting had lulled,
and all hands had got a drink and made a change of horses, a pair of
ropers rode into the herd, marking down each cow and calf and making
sure they were mother and offspring. At last, when Henry Lee and his
neighbors' stray men were satisfied, the ropers shook out their loops,
crowded in on some unbranded calf and flipped the noose over its head.
Like automatons, the quick-stepping little cutting ponies whirled and
started for the fire, dragging the calves behind them by neck or legs or
feet. Any way the rope fell was good enough for the cowboys, and the
ponies came in on the lope.
Behind the calf pranced its frantic mother, head down and smelling its
hide, and a pair of cowboys stationed for that purpose rode in and
turned her back. Then the flankers rushed out and caught the rope, and
the strong member seized the calf by its neck and flank and with an
upward boost of the knees raised its feet from the ground and threw it
flat on its side. One held up its head, the other the hind legs, and in
a flash the ear-markers and hot-iron men were upon it, to give it a
brand for life.
"Bat Wing!" called the dragger-up, giving the mother's brand. There was
a blat, a puff of white smoke, and the calf was turned back to his
"Mammy." That was the process, very simple to the cowboy and entirely
devoid of any suggestion of pain; but to Bowles it seemed rather brutal,
and he went back to help hold the herd.
As one roper after the other pursued his calf through the throng, or
chased it over the plain while he made wild and ineffectual throws, the
great herd milled and moved and shifted like a thing of life. At a
distance of a hundred feet or more apart a circle of careless punchers
sat their mounts, nominally engaged in holding the herd but mostly
loafing on the job or talking it over in pairs. To Bowles it seemed that
they were very negligent indeed, letting cows walk out which could have
been turned back by the flip of a rope, and then spurring furiously
after them as they made a break for the hills. If a calf which the
ropers had failed to catch came dashing by, one guard, or even two,
might leave his place to join in a mad pursuit, meanwhile leaving Bowles
and Wa-ha-lote to patrol the entire flank of the herd. To be sure, he
liked to do it; but their system seemed very poor to him, though he did
not venture to say so.
Meanwhile, with futile pursuits and monotonous waits, the branding
dragged slowly along, and suddenly Bowles realized he was hungry. He
looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly noon, but he could
perceive no symptoms of dinner. He regretted now the insufficient
breakfast which he had eaten, remembering with a shade of envy the
primitive appetite which had enabled the others to bolt beefsteaks like
ravening wolves; also, he resolved to put a biscuit in his pocket the
next time he rode out on the circle. But this availed him nothing in his
extremity, and as the others sought to assuage their pangs with
brown-paper cigarettes he almost regretted the freak of nicety which had
kept him from learning to smoke. It was noon now--seven hours since
breakfast--and just as he was about to make some guarded inquiries of
Brigham the work of branding ceased. The branders, their faces grimed
and sweaty and their hands caked with blood, pulled on their heavy shaps
and came riding up to the herd; but not to cry: "Release them!"
Odious as these words had become to Bowles, they would have sounded good
under the circumstances; but there was more work yet to come. Driving a
bunch of old cows to one side for a "hold-up," Henry Lee and his
strenuous assistants began cutting out dogie calves. Everything over a
year old was fated to become a feeder and, while mothers bellowed and
their offspring protested, Hardy Atkins and the best of the cowhands
hazed the calves into the hold-up herd. It was a long and tedious
operation, involving numerous wearisome chases after calves that wanted
their mothers; and when at last it was done and the main herd was
released, behold, a lot of cows and undesirables had to be cut back from
the hold-up herd. Then the dogies had to be separated into yearlings and
"twos"; and when Bowles was about ready to drop off his horse from
weakness Henry Lee detailed a bunch of unfortunates to drive up the
calves, and turned his pony toward home. To him it was just a little
gather while the neighbors were sending in their men; but to Bowles it
combined the extreme hardships of a round-up with the rigors of a forty
days' fast.
In a way it was all Bowles' fault, too, for he had kept the whole outfit
waiting while he made a bluff at riding Dunbar. His resolution to keep
his mouth shut stood him in good stead now, for a hungry man is a wolf
and will fight if you say a word. There were no gay quips and gags now,
no English riding and classic quotations; every man threw the spurs into
his horse and started on a run for camp. Wa-ha-lote pulled at the bit a
time or two at this, and Bowles did not try to restrain him; he broke
into a gallop, free and sweeping as the wind, and the tired cutting
horses fell behind; then as the ranch showed up in the distance he
settled down to a tireless lope, eating up the hurrying miles until
Bowles could have hugged him for joy.
Here was a horse of a thousand--this black, named in an alien tongue
Wa-ha-lote--and he longed as he rode into the ranch to give him some
token of friendship--a lump of sugar, or whatever these desert horses
liked best to eat--in order to hold his regard. So he trotted over to
the cook's wagon, being extremely careful not to bob, and asked Gloomy
Gus for a lump of sugar. Now Gus, as it happened, was in another bad
humor, due to the boys' being an hour or so late, and to a second matter
of which Bowles knew nothing; and he did not even so much as vouchsafe
an answer to his request.
"I beg your pardon," began Bowles again, when it was evident he was not
going to get the sugar. "Perhaps you will give me a biscuit, then. You
see," he explained rather shamefacedly, "I am riding this horse for the
first time, and he has been so gentle I wanted to give him something.
Any little thing, you know, and I shall be glad to pay for it----"
"I am not cookin' fer hawses!" observed Gloomy Gus; but at the same time
he glanced apprehensively toward a long pile of cord-wood which flanked
his fire to the south; and as if to verify his suspicions a summer hat
appeared from behind the tiers of crooked juniper and a lady stepped
into view. She was a very beautiful lady, middle-aged and with haunting
brown eyes; and the moment she turned them upon Bowles he knew she was
Dixie Lee's mother. Not that she looked so much like the elusive Dixie
May, but she had the same way with her eyes--and, besides that, she was
very contained and quiet, and looked as if she came from the East. She
gazed at him for a moment with a kind, motherly air--as if she had heard
all he said--and addressed herself to the cook.
"Well, really, Gus," she began, speaking in the low-pitched tones of the
drawing-room, "I can't imagine what happens to those eggs. I have over
forty hens, and surely they lay more than seven eggs a day. There's one
nest, away in there, but----"
"Well, _I_ ain't took none," grumbled Gus, turning sulkily to his pots
and kettles; "that's all I got to say."
"Pardon me," broke in Bowles, swinging lightly down from his horse and
standing hat in hand, "perhaps I could creep in and----" He smiled as he
had smiled at the ladies who attended the Wordsworth Society, and Mrs.
Lee glanced at him approvingly.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself," she said politely. "If it were humanly
possible to reach them, I am sure they would be gone by now. I didn't
mean to blame you at all, Mr. Mosby,"--this to the cook--"but, really, I
was trying to save enough eggs to make the boys a cake."
A wave of indignation swept over Bowles. He remembered those graceless
"boys" roasting eggs by the fire at night, and he thought how little
they deserved her kindness; but all he did was to murmur his
appreciation. At this the lady looked at him again, like one who knows
her own kind, and her voice was very pleasant as she said:
"Oh, you are the young man that rode Wa-ha-lote this morning, aren't
you? Ah, he is such a beautiful horse!" She came over and stroked his
neck thoughtfully while Bowles stood by his head and smiled. "Don't you
know," she said, "I have always claimed that a horse could be conquered
by kindness. And I'm so glad!" she murmured, with a confidential touch
of the hand. "Won't you come up to the house, and I'll give you that
lump of sugar."