WITH THE HORSE ROUNDUP
When Hugh and Jack reached the house, after putting the young elk in
a calf-pen in the stable, they found a number of strangers there, and
all the corrals seemed to be overflowing with horses. In one some men
were still working, but when the supper horn sounded all hands came
to the house.
The supper table that night was longer than it had been since Jack
had been at the ranch. There were nine strange cowboys there, all
of whom, however, seemed to be well acquainted with Mr. Sturgis and
Hugh and Rube and Joe. Still, they were not very talkative at supper,
but after it was over and they were sitting about outside the house,
smoking, many stories were told of the daily happenings of the last
two or three weeks while they had been gathering the horses. Jack
would have enjoyed sitting about to listen to this talk, but when
Hugh suggested that they should go down to the corrals and walk
through the horses, he readily accompanied him. In the first pen
that they entered the horses stood crowded so close together that it
looked at first as if they could not push their way through them,
but as they went on, the animals crowded to one side and made a
narrow lane through which they could walk. Two months before, when
Jack had first come to the ranch, it would have made him nervous to
be so close to the heads and heels of these wild horses, but now he
scarcely thought of it. Hugh looked the horses over and talked about
them with the enthusiasm of a real horseman. He pointed out the
beauties of this one and that, and called attention to one colt after
another, telling which mare was its mother, and having some little
story about each one.
One of the corrals seemed to be occupied chiefly by mares and colts,
with some young horses, and of these a number of the mares seemed to
recognise Hugh, and pushed their way up to him, reaching out their
noses to be patted, and sometimes thrusting their heads over his
shoulder. He explained to Jack that these were old horses that had
been long on the place, and were accustomed to being brought up and
held in the corral, where they were gentled and petted a little, and
that they seemed not to forget this, and were always willing to make
friends whenever they were brought up. He said, too, that their foals
and yearlings and two and three-year olds, which often all followed
the mother, themselves grew gentle and liked to be noticed by the
men, and that, of course, animals that were tame were much more
easily handled and broken to saddle or to harness than the wild colts
that had been running on the range all their lives.
Two or three of the yearlings in this corral were cripples, with
twisted, misshapen limbs, and Jack asked Hugh whether these would
ever recover, and if not, what they were good for.
"No," said Hugh, "they won't never get well, and they ain't worth
nothing. It's a shame to use colts so that they break down like that.
That comes of running a little young colt hard for twenty-five or
thirty miles on the roundup. Of course these little fellows after
they get some strength can travel pretty nearly as well as an old
horse, but if you run them too far or too fast in bringing in the
horses, their soft, gristly little bones get bent and twisted, and
they don't ever get straight again. There's a heap of good foals
ruined every year, just because a lot of fool cow punchers want to
get a bunch of horses into the corral in an hour and a half, when by
rights they ought to take three hours to do it in. All them crippled
yearlings ought to be killed, they're no good now, and they'll never
be any better than they are. They just eat the grass that might
support a good horse."
After an hour or two in the corrals, as it began to grow dark, Hugh
and Jack went back toward the house. On the way Jack stopped in at
the hen-house to look at his setting hens and put the covers on the
barrels in which their nests were. As he was doing this he heard
from beneath one of the hens a faint, peeping sound, and lifting
up one wing he saw beneath it the tiniest little duckling that he
had ever seen. It was too dark to see much, and he had to leave the
hen-house without finding how many of his eggs had hatched, but he
made up his mind that the next morning, no matter what happened, he
must prepare a coop for this brood of ducks. When they reached the
house they found that a number of the tired cowboys were already
rolled up in their blankets, and sleeping. There were four in the
bunk-house, three on the floor of the dining-room, and the others
were just taking their blankets over to the barn, to sleep in the
soft, sweet-smelling hay. Hugh said to Jack, "You'd better turn in,
too, son; to-morrow will begin pretty early in the morning, and you
won't have any too much time to sleep if you go to bed now."
It was not yet light next morning when Jack heard the bustle which
announced that all hands were astir, and he at once got up and
dressed, to find himself only just in time for breakfast. It was
plain daylight by the time the meal was over, and most of the men at
once went down to the corrals. Jack hurried down to the hen-house,
but, on looking at his ducks' eggs, found that only a part of one
setting had hatched, and putting a little food near the hen's nest,
he left them, determining to postpone the building of his coop until
the following day. He went on down to the corral and found that the
men were busy turning out the horses on to the prairie, where they
were to be herded by two riders. Some of the men had brought wood to
the big round corral, and just outside it, and close to the fence,
some were kindling fires, while others were chopping poles and logs
into wood small enough to be used on these fires. A great lot of
iron bars, four or five feet long, stood against the corral fence,
and on looking closely at these, Jack saw that each had a handle on
one end and an iron letter on the other. These, he supposed, must be
the branding irons, and these fires were for heating them.
After a time most of the horses had been turned out, but a large
number, almost all of them old mares, with their colts, had been cut
out and confined in a series of pens that were connected by a gate
with the round corral, outside which the fires were burning. By the
time these were going well, and the various branding irons had been
put in them to heat, three or four of the men drove into the big
corral a bunch of thirty or forty mares, whose little colts stayed
close by their sides. Many of these mares seemed quite wild, and all
raced around the walls of the pen, as if very much frightened. It
seemed to Jack as if these little colts, some of which hardly looked
bigger than jack rabbits, must all be killed by being stepped on. Yet
each colt kept close to its own mother's side, and a little bit under
her, so that it was well protected from being harmed by any other
mare that crowded close upon it.
Two or three men with ropes now entered the corral and, as the horses
ran about them, each one threw his rope over a colt, and as soon as
the rope caught a colt's neck, a couple of men quickly dragged it out
into the middle of the corral, and taking hold of it, threw it down,
holding it so that it should not injure itself in its struggles; then
one of the men ran to the fence and called for a particular iron,
bearing the brand which showed on the mother of the colt. When this
was given him he ran back to where the colt lay and carefully pressed
it on its shoulder or neck or hip, and held it there. The hair and
skin hissed under the hot iron, a little smoke arose, the colt tried
to struggle, and then, after the brand had been properly placed,
it was allowed to spring to its feet and to run back to the bunch.
Meantime, its mother had been whinnying, calling, and sometimes
running out from the circle of the horses, almost up to the men who
were holding down her colt. When it was freed and ran back to her,
she nosed it all over and then contentedly took her place with the
other old mares.
The work of branding went on rapidly. Now and then some man would
catch a colt with too large a loop, the little animal's head and
forequarters would pass through it and it would be caught around the
body. When held in this way it was of course much harder to handle
than when caught by the neck, and before the men got their hands on
it, it would go through a series of extraordinary antics, rearing,
plunging, bucking and dancing; but at last it would be caught, thrown
down and treated like the others. A man who caught a colt in this
fashion was much laughed at by the other cowboys and advised to take
lessons in roping. As soon as all the colts in the corral had been
branded, the horses there were turned out and a fresh lot of mares
and colts brought in. All through the morning this went on. Jack,
though at first he sat on the top rail of the corral and watched, was
soon called down from his lofty perch and set to work. For some time
he passed the hot irons in to the men who were doing the branding,
then he was sent to get more wood, and afterwards for a bucket of
water. The cowboys were all good-natured and very friendly with him,
and chaffed him as he ran here and there, trying to carry out their
orders.
After dinner the work continued, and one thing happened that made
Jack feel badly. A little colt, frightened at something, had run
a few steps in front of its mother, as all the horses were racing
about the pen, and just as the rope caught its neck, it stopped. The
mother, lumbering along behind it, tripped over the tightened rope
and fell on the colt, and when it got up one of its fore-legs swung
loose.
"There's a dead colt," said one of the men, and in a minute they
caught it and threw it down.
Then one of the older men took the hurt leg and moved it backward and
forward, while he held his ear close to the animal's shoulder.
"Yes," he said, "its shoulder is smashed, I can hear the bones grate.
Hand me that hatchet, Jim."
The hatchet was passed to him, and he struck the little colt twice
with it in the head, and two of the men carried the carcass to the
fence and passed it through. Jack did not understand this, which had
happened so quickly, and asked Hugh, who happened to be standing near
him, why they killed the colt.
"Why," said Hugh, "when the mare fell on it she broke its shoulder,
and it couldn't never have got well, in fact, it couldn't even have
followed its mother around, it would just have had to suffer for a
few days and then die; so of course it was better to kill it now."
"What a pity!" said Jack, as he looked at the pretty little animal
lying at his feet, whose eyes were already glazing. "Wasn't there any
way to have cured it?"
"No," said Hugh, "I expect not, and it would have cost more to try to
cure it than it could ever have been worth; I expect it was better to
kill it off right now."
When supper time had come that night, all the colts had been branded,
and orders were given that after Mr. Sturgis's horses had been cut
out of the bunch, next morning, the roundup should move on.
After supper that night, Jack sat down near three or four of the
cowboys who were smoking their pipes and cigarettes by the corner
of the house, and listened to their talk. One of them seemed to be
telling a story.
"I tell you," he said, "it was about the funniest thing I ever saw.
You see, we'd run the bear may be a mile and a half, and two or
three of us had put our ropes on him, but he always managed to slip
out. It was a pretty hot day, and his tongue was hangin' out about a
yard, and toward the end he was pretty mad, and when we got close,
he'd turn round and charge back on us. One time when he did this he
passed pretty close to Mat, who was on a slow horse, and Mat managed
to catch him by the hind leg, and the rope stayed; but when Mat tried
to hold him, the bear turned round and charged, and Mat got kind o'
scared, and just turned the rope loose from his saddle and ran, and
the bear went on. Well, pretty quick, we came to a little pile of
rocks, with three or four cedars growing around them, and the bear
stopped at these rocks and wouldn't run no further. We run up pretty
close to him and tried to rope him, but he was sort o' half under the
rocks and we couldn't catch him. He had Mat's rope on his hind leg
yet, and it was lying out on the prairie, and we commenced to make
fun of Mat, and to tell him to ride in there and pick up his rope and
drag the bear out, but of course we didn't expect he'd try to do no
such fool thing as that, but we kept on making fun of him, and the
first thing we knew he started to ride by the bear and pick up his
rope. When he got right close, just as he was goin' to stoop for the
rope, there comes the bear sailing out after him, and lookin' mighty
savage, I tell ye. He turned his old horse and run, and the bear run,
and when he looked around and saw the bear not very far off, he rode
his horse under one of them cedar trees, and just reached up and
caught hold of a branch and curled up over it, and his horse ran on,
and he went climbing on toward the top of the tree. We just set there
on our horses and laughed at Mat, so long and so hard that the bear
ran on and went plumb out of the country, carrying Mat's rope, and we
never see him again."
Soon after the sun rose next morning Mr. Sturgis's horses were being
cut out of the bunch and turned into one of the big corrals, and by
ten o'clock the horse roundup had started on its way again, and all
the strangers with it.
That afternoon Hugh and Jack busied themselves making a pen for the
little ducks, all of which had now hatched out. Each of the old hens
was put in a coop, which stood at opposite corners of the pen, and
boards standing on their sides made a fence and prevented the newly
hatched birds from wandering away, yet gave them a little space of
grass, over which they could walk and feed. Jack had never seen such
little bits of ducklings as some of these were, and Hugh told him
that he thought they must be teal. After the pen was finished he
spent some little time catching small grasshoppers, which he threw to
the birds, and it was comical to see the excitement which they showed
and the way in which they fought over this food.
They also gave a lesson to the little calf elk. Up to this time it
had paid no attention to them, but had wandered about its pen with
slow steps, constantly looking for a place to get out. Now, however,
when Jack reached his hand over to pat it, it caught the sleeve of
his shirt in its mouth and chewed it a little, and when he put his
hand near to its nose, it tried to take the whole hand into its mouth.
"Oh," said Hugh, "that fellow's getting hungry; he's about ready to
drink now. Put your fingers in his mouth and I'll go and get some
milk and we'll teach him how to drink."
Hugh went up to the house, and soon returned with a small pail,
holding about a pint of warm milk. "Now," he said to Jack, "get
inside the pen and hold the can in your left hand, and then lower the
hand he's sucking until it's in the milk, so that he'll draw some
milk into his mouth when he sucks." Jack did so, and as soon as the
calf began to taste the milk it showed quite a little excitement,
shaking its body and pushing with its head against the can, and
pretty soon it pushed so hard that it almost knocked the can out of
Jack's hand, and spilt most of the milk. He kept up the work until
the calf had drunk all the milk in the pail, but it was not nearly
satisfied, and bawled after Jack as he went out of the barn.
"Now," said Hugh, "we must give it another drink before supper, and
then another just before dark. Just as soon as we can learn it to
drink it will be perfectly tame, and you can turn it out to wander
around the house. You'll have to watch it, though, for if it goes
off a little way from the house the coyotes are liable to catch it.
Fact is, I think we'd better make a little corral for it, out in
the brush, and leave it out there days where it can get plenty of
sunlight and learn how to pick grass a little, and then shut it up
here every night where it will be safe. It will be tame though, from
now on."
As they were going up to the house, Hugh said, "Well, I expect you'll
be ready to see Tony go at the broncs to-morrow morning. I heard your
uncle say we'd start in the first thing in the morning."
"Yes, indeed, Hugh," said Jack, "that's something I want very much to
see, and I expect to have a lot of fun. Do you suppose any of those
wild horses will throw Tony?"
"It's hard to say," replied Hugh; "he's an awful good rider, and I
don't expect he gets thrown very often, but every man that follows
bronco busting is liable to get thrown and killed every time he gets
on a wild horse. I've ridden plenty of wild horses in my time, but I
don't ride no more. It's boy's work, that's what it is."
"I am going up to take another look at the little ducks, Hugh," said
Jack; and he went on toward the pen. In a minute Hugh heard his name
called loudly, and went on up toward the duck pen.
"Oh, Hugh," said Jack, as he drew near, "something's killed three of
those littlest ducks already, and here is blood on the top of one of
the coops. What can it be?"
Hugh looked about and apparently saw no sign, but in a moment he
lifted his finger to call Jack's attention, and stood listening. Jack
heard faintly a bird's call, which sounded familiar, but at first he
could not think where he had heard it.
"That's what it is," said Hugh; "them durned magpies have found these
ducks, and now they'll kill them all, unless we kill them. You stop
here a minute or two while I go to the house and get your uncle's
shot-gun and your rifle, and we'll see if we can't ambush them
fellows."
Jack felt very badly as he stood there waiting; three of these dear
little ducks had gone in an hour; at this rate they would not last
very long. Presently Hugh came back with the gun, and, giving Jack
his rifle, he loaded the shot gun, and they sat down in the bushes
not far from the pen.
"Now," said Hugh, "them magpies will be back pretty quick, and we'll
have to lie here right quiet. If you get a chance at one sitting on a
branch, kill him, and I'll try to take any others that may be there,
as they fly away. There may be only one or two of them, and if we
kill them and hang them up around the pen, that'll likely scare off
any other, that may come."
They had not been waiting more than a few moments before they heard
the magpies calling not far off, and presently one, almost at once
followed by two others, appeared in the branches of one of the aspens
close to the ducks' pen. They peered down at it curiously, and Jack,
seizing a moment when one of them stood still, fired, and the bird
dropped. The other two rose in the air, but Hugh, standing up, shot
first one and then the other, and both fell into the bushes. Hugh
got three long sticks and, sharpening an end of each, stuck them
in the ground about the pen, and to each one tied one of the dead
magpies, which swung to and fro in the breeze, and would be likely to
act as scarecrows to any others that might come.