OPEN RANGE DAYS
In the days of open range, everybody had great freedom. A cowboy could
change countries every spring if he wanted to and they were always
drifting from one range to another—not only to different ranges but to
different states. For instance, maybe he would be in New Mexico one year
and on the Canadian border the next.
Every cowboy had a private horse of his own, pack horse and his own bed,
which consisted of a tarpaulin and some blankets. And according to the
custom of them days he could stop at any cow camp or ranch and was not
under obligations to anyone, and if he wanted to stay a week and rest
his horses that was O.K. too. If there was no one home, he always found
grub and helped himself, so he was quite independent—and it did not take
much money to travel. Nature provided him with new scenery every day,
such as unclaimed land, rivers and creeks, and in my day plenty of wild
game of all kinds. I don’t believe the tourist of today with his
automobile has anything compared to what we had.
I am going to make a statement here that almost sounds fishy, but I can
prove it. I worked for a cow outfit that run twenty-five thousand cattle
and three or four hundred saddle horses to handle the cattle with, and
they didn’t own one foot of deeded land. The land was unsurveyed and
belonged to the government. They usually built a big log house, some
corrals and a kind of stable, and called it their ranch, and no one
disputed their title—even a sheepman must not get too close with his
woolies. They paid no taxes on this land and as it would be impossible
for the assessor to count the cattle in an area of two or three hundred
miles, I would say a good honest cattle man might give in one-third of
his number. An outfit the size I speak of, would hire about twenty-five
cowboys during the summer months and keep four or five during the
winter. That was the only expense they had, outside of buying saddle
horses to mount their cowboys—which was ten or twelve to the man.
I have been asked quite often what a “Rep” was by people that was
hatched at a later day. Well, for illustration, Tom Jones has a ranch at
San Francisco—Bill Smith has a ranch at Los Angeles. Both run several
thousand cattle. There are no fences between those two places, so,
naturally, in the course of a year quite a number of both men’s cattle
would drift out of their range where they worked their main range and it
wouldn’t pay to send a whole outfit so far for what cattle had
drifted—so they picked out a very reliable cowboy that knew their
brands. He cut out his string of horses, packed his bed and started for
one of those ranges to represent the outfit he was working for. There
might be six or seven reps with each different outfit.
Now, when one of those outfits started to work their range, they started
what they called a “Day Herd”—that was for the purpose of holding all
cattle that the reps, or the home outfit wanted to hold—sometimes beef
cattle, sometimes some outfit changing hands—those cattle were held by
home range men and driven from one roundup to another and each day, and
each roundup; anybody that found any cattle they wanted to hold or take
home, they were cut out and put in that day herd.
This herd sometimes got pretty big before the roundup was over and was
bunched up at night and held on what they called the bed-ground. Those
cattle were night herded by all cowboys that worked during the day, by
shifts of two or three hours each, the hours depending on the length of
the nights—spring or fall—sometimes two men on shift, or more, depending
on the size of the herd or how hard they were to hold.
The rep never done any day-herding as he was supposed to see all cattle
rounded up so as to pick out the cattle he represented, as other cowboys
didn’t know his irons as well as he did. There was also a little cowboy
etiquette extended to the rep—he didn’t have to stand night guard unless
it was absolutely necessary.
When this roundup was over and the range all worked, lasting from a
month to six weeks, the big herd was worked and every cowboy that had
any cattle in the herd cut them out in a bunch by themselves, or some
other fellow that had cattle going home the same direction as he was,
then they throwed in together. If a cowboy didn’t have help enough to
move his cattle to their home range, the outfit he gathered them with
sent some men to help him. This custom was practiced in all the outfits.
Another fine practice in the early days by honest cowmen was if a cow
was found in a roundup with a calf belonging to her and nobody claimed
her, the captain of that roundup branded the calf with the same iron
that was on the mother and turned her loose where she was. This was done
with what was known as a running iron, which was a small bar and a small
half circle—one can make any brand on an animal with those two irons.
Now if that was a steer calf and nobody claimed him until it was grown
and fit for beef, that same captain or any captain of any roundup had a
right to load and ship that steer to any market with his cattle, say
Chicago, Omaha or Kansas City, which were the principal shipping points
in those days. There the stock inspector got a record of what state the
steer came from and when he was sold. It was his duty to see that the
money was sent to the stock association of that state, they having a
record of the brand and the address of the owner. A check was
immediately forwarded to the party.
For instance, Charlie Russell and myself got a check for a steer I had
not seen for six years and had been loaded on the train four hundred
miles from where I turned him loose. He was shipped to Chicago, sold and
the money sent to Helena, Montana, where we had our brand recorded.