TRAINS THAT RAN WITHOUT RAILS.
Before railroads were built in the country west of the Missouri River
there was, nevertheless, considerable doing in the transportation line.
And even after the Union Pacific was built from Omaha to Ogden to
connect with the Central Pacific, which carried the rails to the Golden
Gate, most of the transportation of the then great Wild West, in the
mountains, on the plains and the "Great American Desert," was done by
ox-teams. These were run in trains of from ten to fifty or sixty teams,
the teams consisting usually of from five to seven yokes of oxen and
lead and trail wagons built for the purpose.
These wagons were called prairie schooners, because they were supplied
with canvas coverings. The first of these, made in St. Louis, were
called "Murphys," and were provided with iron axles. Later many of them
were made in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Kenosha, Wis., the latter known
as the Bain. The Schuttler and the Bain wagons were almost as big and
substantial as a box car and were well painted and put together to stand
hard knocks on mountain "breaknecks" or in Bad Land sands.
The lead wagon would carry an average of 6,500 pounds, while the
trailer--fastened to the lead by a short tongue--had a capacity of
perhaps two tons. In a sandy place or on a mountain road, the
bullwhacker (teamster) would slacken his team, pull a coupling pin from
an iron half-circle arrangement on the axle of his lead wagon, drop his
trailer to one side of the road and proceed to the top of the hill, if
in the mountains, or to an "island" of hard ground in the desert, unhook
his wheelers and go back for the trailer. Sometimes a "bull outfit"
would spend a whole day doing this. Lead wagons were parked one at a
time and the trailers brought on later and hooked up. These parkings
were in the shape of an oval, called a corral, a narrow opening being
left only at each end.
Inside this corral, when it came time to yoke up, the cattle were driven
in by the herders, if the camp had been for over night or a long mid-day
stop. Then the bullwhackers, carrying the heavy piñon yokes over their
left shoulders, hickory bows in their right hands and iron or wooden
pins with leather strip fastened to them in their mouths, would seek out
their teams, yoking them together and leading them to their wagons.
When a "whacker" had his "wheelers," or pole oxen, in place, he would
bring on his "pointers," and the rest, including the leaders. The
wheelers were always the heavyweights, old and trained, and able to hold
back the load or their unruly teammates until the whackers could throw
on a brake or "rough lock," the last named a log chain fastened at one
end to the wagon, thrown through the wheel spokes in such a way as to be
between the ground and the wheel on the "near rear hind wheel" of the
lead wagon.
New cattle just being trained to yoke were always put in the center of
the team, where they were easily managed with the assistance of the
"leaders," which were always light weights and most always long-horns
from Texas--long horns, long legs and bodies, thin as a razorback hog.
These leaders were always the best broken oxen, and would respond to the
low-spoken word of "haw" or "gee," especially if the word were uttered
in the peculiar musical tone of the whacker which cannot be described in
print, not only because it is impossible to convey sound in that manner
but because the language that goes with the music--the request to gee or
haw--would not be pleasant reading. Alone, the leaders would trot like
horses.
The average person outside of Texas and the southwest and some of the
western states has a mental picture, perhaps, of the Texas steer of the
long-horn variety. Those who lived thirty or forty years ago, even in
the East, remember him as a member of the quadruped family consisting
largely of horn, for it was not an infrequent thing to see him in a
cattle car on a sidetrack. He was, as a matter of fact, also entitled to
a reputation for his legs, for they were unusually long. His body, too,
was slim, and he never was fat for the reason that while free to roam
the ranges at will he devoted most of his time to using his horns in
goring his mates and neglected to eat. He raced about from place to
place, whereas, if he had no horns he would have been a peaceful animal
and consequently much more valuable for the market.
The old-time Texas steer often was as fleet-footed as a Kentucky
racehorse of the thoroughbred variety, and it took a good horse to catch
him when he made up his mind to run.
Nevertheless, thousands of these Texas steers were broken to yoke, and
used in overland transportation; and once broken they were good workers,
even though their horns were always in the way, and the cause of a great
deal of trouble in a herd.
While I have no authority for the statement, I believe practical
dehorning began with the bullwhackers of the plains, for they frequently
bored holes in the horns which in a few weeks caused the horns to drop
off. Then it was noted that if the dehorned cattle were kept separate
from those with horns, the dehorned ones, even when working hard every
day, took on flesh and were better workers. Finally nearly all the
work-oxen were dehorned, and they were as meek and quiet as lambs.
The whacker always began his orders to his bulls in a low tone,
increasing it as the necessity for action presented itself, and ending
in a string of oaths that would make an old-time Mississippi steamboat
mate ashamed of his reputation. Frequently teams were stalled on a high
hill or in the sand, when it would be necessary to gee the team of seven
yokes at an almost right angle, with chains between each yoke slackened
and with "wheelers" filling their yokes. Then the whacker would walk out
half way to his leaders and soothingly coax them to come haw--toward
him--on a trot, until all the chains between the other yokes were
tightened. By this time, however, Mr. Whacker was back to his wheelers,
perhaps punching the near one in the ribs, and then throwing his
eighteen or twenty foot lash over the backs of any of the yokes that
were not clawing the sand properly. In this way the men often worked for
days at a time, making sometimes only a few rods by each repetition of
the operation. Then again, the wagon boss would order a doubling-up
process and two whackers and fourteen yokes of oxen would work on one
pair of wagons, taking them along perhaps a mile, and then returning,
repeat the process until the bad road was left behind.
This was transportation in the old days, and "trains" of this kind first
hauled the heavy traffic from Leavenworth and Nebraska City to the
Pacific and intermediate settlements in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
After the Union Pacific was built this bullwhacker transportation
increased, especially in the country between Utah and the Missouri
River, in both directions away from the railroad, for the government had
a line of forts on the North Platte River and Indian Agencies were
established in Western Nebraska, Wyoming and what is now South Dakota.
Two of these agencies, Red Cloud, on White River, and Spotted Tail,
forty miles to the north, were big traffic points. Train loads of bacon,
flour, sugar and other things were hauled to these agencies on
government contract, the provisions being in payment to the Sioux and
other tribes for the land they occupied near the North Platte River.
Along the Platte there were forts--two famous in their day--Fort Laramie
at the junction of the Platte and Laramie Rivers, and Fort Fetterman,
one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, on the Platte at Lapariel Creek.
Soldiers here depended upon the "bull outfits" for their provisions,
nearly all being hauled in over mountain range and plain by contractors.
Those were wild and woolly days, and the man who lived the life of
out-of-doors was a rugged, devil-may-care, hungry, healthy, happy
fellow. He knew how to face a freezing blizzard, or a baking sun without
flinching; he knew how to take care of himself with a minimum of
discomfort under the most adverse circumstances. He was afraid of
nothing. It wouldn't do otherwise. He was there, usually beyond the arm
of any law other than ordinances made and provided by himself and
companions and enforced by the same law-givers. Stealing was a worse
crime than life-taking. There never was an excuse for the first, but
nearly always one could be trumped up for the latter. To take a man's
horse was worse than cold-blooded murder; to rob him of his gun or his
blankets was equally as bad a crime. But if he had been cheated in a
game of "freeze out," or called a name that reflected upon his origin it
was not uncommon for him to become judge and executioner then and there.
So men who engaged in this early day transportation of food and fodder
for soldiers and their mounts and for the followers of Sitting Bull, Old
Red Cloud and other chiefs, were careful in their social intercourse,
and when the harsh word was passed, as frequently was the case, it was
no uncommon thing for men to settle their score with pistols; and the
winner in these duels seldom, if ever, was punished. But a cold-blooded
murder--a wanton killing--was never tolerated. In a fight with pistols
it was always considered that the man who did the killing was justified.
Unlike the present day fliers, bull trains did not run on schedules,
although there was a pretense of regularity about the day's routine, and
it was about as follows:
At break of day the night herder who had been out with the bulls all
night--it is always daybreak to him whether three o'clock or
five--drives his herd into the corral, usually singing some refrain of
his own composition, but always having for its motive the same that
animates the pestiferous alarm clock set by a master to disturb the
slumber of a tired servant. However, a half hour before the herder
appears the cook and his helper, both bullwhackers, doing their turn of
a week, have been on the job with the coffee and bacon, and as soon as
the herder sounds his first note, the cook takes up the song, which is
perhaps:
Bacon in the pan,
Coffee in the pot;
Get up and get it--
Get it while it's hot.
And then, and it is always so, some of the lively stock, as it
approaches the corral, takes the notion that there is some nice sweet
buffalo bunch grass to the rear that looks better than a day's work, and
there is a bolt often approaching a stampede. Curses? You never heard
the like, for the wagon boss and an assistant are already in their
saddles helping the herder. If you tried to sleep just a minute longer
it would be impossible, therefore you roll out from your bed on the
ground, fold up your blankets, tie them with a strap and throw them on
your trail wagon.
Coffee and bacon are swallowed in haste, and if you are like the
majority, you grab a piece of bacon and a chunk of bread, bang them
together into a huge sandwich and put them in the jockey box of your
wagon for a lunch at eight or nine o'clock.
Yoking and stringing out the oxen is the next operation, and a short
one in a well regulated outfit. Twenty minutes, usually, from the time
the bulls are driven in, the lead team is moving, and when the "outfit,"
as every train is called, is well under way, the lead wagon is perhaps a
half mile from the last one, which is the mess wagon, containing the
provisions, cooking utensils, levers for raising a load of four or five
tons, the iron jacks, extra tires, coils of rope, pulleys, wheels, extra
spokes, bars of iron, and almost always a small forge--a regular
wrecking outfit.
In hot summer weather on fair roads a bull train would make four or five
miles before the sun was high enough to burn--usually nine o'clock.
Then, if the camp was to be a "wet" one--at a creek, river or
spring--there would be a "layover" until four o'clock in the afternoon,
during which time the boys could sleep under a wagon, wash their
clothes, or if in a creek or river bottom, shoulder a gun and look for
moccasin, lodge pole or bear tracks.
All day long, however, the men who were on the cook trick would make
bread in Dutch ovens. And let me tell you, no bull outfit ever stopped
for a long mid-day rest without putting on a huge kettle of beans, for
the army or white bean was the staple food in those days; and there was
always, on these long mid-day stops, plenty of soup.
Perhaps one of the boys in his meanderings up or down the creek would
bag a deer. If he wandered out upon the plain he was sure of an
antelope, if he was a good shot. The deer kept to the trees along the
rivers and the hills, while the antelopes' territory was the open plain,
hard to get at unless the plain were rolling, and the hunter could be in
the right place as regards the wind.
Sometimes there were poker games, usually freeze-out, which the men
played with plug tobacco cut up into small cubes. Others would spend
their time braiding whips or mending clothing.
The bullwhacker's whip not only made a tenderfoot open his eyes with
wonder, but it usually shocked him. It was something he had never seen
before, and if he had been told that a man of ordinary strength would be
able to wield it he would have been decidedly incredulous.
Differing from a cowboy's or herder's whip, the bullwhip lash was
attached to a stalk of hickory or white ash three feet long upon which
the whacker could firmly plant both hands. The lash at the butt, which
was attached to the stick by a soft strip of buckskin, formed in a loop
or swivel, frequently was more than an inch thick. These lashes were
from eighteen to more than twenty feet long and were graduated in
thickness from this great bulk to the tip, which was the thickness of a
lead pencil. The number of strands in a bullwhip were also graduated. At
the butt there were as many strands as the maker--usually the
bullwhacker--could weave, often fourteen. At the tip, this number was
reduced to six. The top, and down to six or eight feet from the end, the
whip was made of leather, often old boot tops. The rest was of tough
buckskin or elkskin. But on the very tip of the whip--the business
end--was a "popper" of buckskin cut in the shape of a long V, the bottom
end of the V running into a strand which was braided into the tip.
The bullwhacker, when using this instrument, first threw it out before
him upon the ground; then by the use of all his strength he swung it in
over his head, to the right, often whirling it several times before he
let it go upon the back of the bull he wanted to reach.
To the man who never saw this operation before, there was a shock, for
as the whip landed on the bull the popper made a roar like the report of
a cannon.
As a matter of fact the bull was uninjured, unless the bullwhacker was
careless and allowed his popper to strike a tender spot, the nose, an
eye or the belly.
It was almost a crime for a bullwhacker to cut a bull and draw the
blood, and he seldom did it unless his popper had been wet and then
dried. The spot usually aimed for was the hip, and bulls that had been
in service any length of time had a spot on the rump that was hairless,
resembling the head of a drum. But the spot was tough. The noise of the
popper, however, was what startled the team and caused it to "dig in."
Frequently in the summer the afternoon drive lasted until ten or eleven
o'clock, especially if there was a moon. You cannot imagine a more
impressive, weird, wild sight. The shadows, the rattle of the wagons,
perhaps the scream of a night bird or a wild cat--maybe the zip of an
arrow from a redskin's bow, or the report of a gun, all calculated to
keep even the hardened bullwhacker on his mettle. And for this the
bullwhacker got $75 to $100 a month and "grub." He usually spent his
money at the end of his trip much after the habit of the sailor who
rounds the Horn.
In the cold weather the hardships were many. There were, remember, no
bridges and the roads crossed numerous streams, all of which had to be
forded; and there was but one way to cross, and that was to wade and
guide a team.
Usually the heavy freighting was done before December, but often it was
necessary to fight through blizzards and zero weather. It was this kind
of work that tried the soul of even the hardy bullwhacker, and not
infrequently his hands, feet, ears or face were frozen. It was hard on
the cattle, too, although it was almost always possible to find plenty
of good feeding ground of buffalo grass, which grew in heavy bunches and
was very sweet in its dry state, for the wind usually kept places bare.
If not, the bulls would nose it out from under several inches of snow
and manage to get something approaching a meal. Otherwise, they went
hungry, for no feed of any kind was ever carried for them.
Indians, usually, were too lazy to hunt the white man in winter, so
there was seldom any trouble from this source after the first snowfall.
But when the grass was green it was different, especially in the
mountains or foothills. Redskins seldom fought a real battle in the
open. To the bullwhacker he was nearly always an invisible foe, shooting
his arrows or his gun from behind a rock, or from the top of a bluff,
well out of range himself. When the Indians were known to be following
an outfit it was common practice to keep a couple of horsemen outriders
on each side of the train where possible. Frequently bull trains were
obliged to corral and put up a fight, and usually the Indian lost.