THE STAMPEDE
Along the banks of the Yellowstone, where it wended its snakelike course
to the Missouri, wandered the massive herds of the Star Circle, and
around them rode the cow waddies, the few outriders, keeping their
charges from straying, and ever watchful for the dreaded sheep, which
had of late sprung up like buffalo grass, and, as Buck Milton expressed
it, "in a country that God had made for cows."
And over the range in like peace grazed the enemy; white-fleeced, soft
and downy as doves, and as harmless and innocent. Of all weapons ever
used in warfare the strangest, these living emblems of innocence. It was
a warfare fought far from the public eye. The men who fought the cattle
were little like those bull-fighters of Spain who responded to the
applause of thousands. They acted in the dark, if they could, and for
hire, and yet they may have had hearts--but those who hired them surely
had none.
And all unconscious of coming danger the boys rode with the few
herders, or by themselves, near the wandering cattle. The storm had held
off while twilight faded, but now the sky was cloud-curtained, and the
night fell inky black and silent save for sounds from the herd. The soft
thudding of hoofs, the occasional low-voiced note, possibly of a cow to
its young, seemed to blend into a murmur, strange and fascinating to
Whitey, commonplace and tiresome to the men of the range.
Then the storm began to send signals of its approach from air and sky.
First the hushing of the wind, then the pale glares from the distant sky
where the earth's edge joined it, then the rumble of thunder, growing in
volume with the brighter, green flashes of the lightning--all familiar
enough to Whitey, but now giving him a thrill because felt in strange
surroundings. The nervous stirring of the mass of beasts near by added
to the boy's thrill, for a coming storm was never to be taken calmly by
the hulking, helpless brutes.
And when the rush of wind and the crashing of the coming tempest
sounded, and the herders were renewing their watchfulness, another storm
was breeding that they did not dream of. For over beyond, in a gully,
the sheepmen were gathered. And each man carried a white garment, like
those you may have seen pictured as worn by the old raiders of the
South--the Ku-Klux Klan. They were waiting only for the lightning to
become blinding, the thunder to become deafening.
And when the electrical storm was at its height, you will know what
happened when those white-clad figures went among the thousands of
range-bred beasts, guarded by a pitiful handful of men. For range cattle
are accustomed to a man only when he is mounted; then he is a part of
his horse. It is dangerous for him to go among them on foot; then he is
a strange animal. Many a cowboy has dismounted, rescued a steer from the
mire--and had to run for his life. Thus were those white-clad figures
doubly monstrous and terrifying to the herd.
You may have thought that the cowboy wears his revolver for protection
against his human enemies, but it is rather for a protection of the
cattle against themselves in that strange panic known as a "stampede."
Whitey and Injun, riding near the edge of the herd, and bowing against
the fury of the storm, did not need Buck Milton's hoarse shouts of
warning to make them swing aside. They were helpless to aid in diverting
the mass of maddened animals that swung toward them, and galloping their
horses to a point of safety, they turned in their saddles and viewed the
strange sight.
Lighted by the almost continuous flashes of the lightning, the
bellowing, thundering herd crashed by.... Far behind it, and in safety,
were the white figures of the men who had caused the panic, sneaking off
into the night. They had been seen by the Star Circle riders, but there
was no time to think of them now. At the head of the herd, Whitey could
see two men, their horses set at a mad run. Buck Milton was one, and the
other a dare-devil young fellow named Tom, who was Buck's closest
friend.
And as Buck and Tom rode, Whitey could see them firing their guns
almost in the faces of the foremost maddened steers. They were trying to
divert the leaders, and thus turn the herd until it would circle in its
course, and finally the entire mass of beasts would be running round and
round, in a course known as "milling." And there Whitey learned the real
use the cowboy has for his gun.
What was going on beyond, Whitey could not see, and he could hear
nothing above the uproar of the storm, and the clamor of the stampede,
except the faint cracking of the guns of Tom and Buck. As Whitey held
the almost fear-maddened Monty in check, the wild-eyed steers, with
lowered heads and panting sides, sped by. At their head Whitey saw Tom
swing nearer toward the leaders, then he saw Tom no more. There were two
dangers to be feared in that mad race; if a steer fell, the others would
trip over it, and many of them would die; if a man were caught in the
rushing mass, it meant sure death.
Morning came, with the sun graying the low clouds, from which fell a
cold drizzle; a setting drear enough for the scene the boys were to
witness. A handful of gaunt men, sad but determined, their spent,
drooping horses near by, stood facing a shallow grave scooped out of the
prairie. Near it lay a blanket-covered figure that the dreaded stampede
had crushed into a shape of which Whitey feared to think.
As the cowboys lowered the shape into the grave, Buck Milton turned his
head away for a moment. Then he said simply, "Tom was my pardner for
nine years." And again, after a pause, "And who's goin' t' tell his gal
over on the Little Divide?"
There seemed no need for words just then, for after their grief for
their friend the men's faces showed the turn of thought to his
murderers, the sheepmen. Whitey never had seen the intent to kill come
into men's faces before. It was grim, but not repulsive, for in a way
there was justice in it. And poor Tom, who yesterday had been less than
a name to Whitey, had now become the central figure in a tragedy.
But no one could have told what Injun thought. He, who came of a race
that held vengeance above most things, looked on, seemingly unmoved.
Followed busy days on the Star Circle, during which Walt Lampson
probably forgot the existence of Whitey and Injun. It was doubtful to
the boys that he even noticed them when they rode back to the ranch
house, after the funeral of Buck's friend Tom. Whatever thoughts of
revenge were cherished by Walt and Buck had to be held in check while
the stampeded herds were rounded up from the many-mile radius of prairie
over which they had strayed.
To do this the entire force of the Star Circle was needed. Divided into
parties the men rode north, east, south, and west for a distance of
about twenty miles. Then they trailed round and round, in a great,
narrowing circle that took in that wide radius, and as the cattle were
met, in bunches or small herds, they were gathered and driven into a
common center until they formed one great herd.
Whitey and Injun managed to go with Buck Milton's men, as Whitey liked
Buck better than any of the other punchers, but the death of Tom had
left Buck in a gloomy mood, and he spoke but little, either to the men
or to the boys. The others were loud in their oaths and threats of
vengeance; Buck was silent--and somehow, Whitey could not help feeling
that Buck was the most dangerous enemy the sheepmen would have to deal
with.
This round-up lasted a full week. During it Walt Lampson had found time
to consider his course of action against the stampeders of his herd. So
when Whitey and Injun returned, they found that the Star Circle was to
be involved in one of the scourges of the time--a range war.
If you had been there would you have wanted to stay and see the thing
out? The answer is so simple that you know what Whitey and Injun wanted
to do. But Whitey knew that hardened as Walt Lampson was, he would not
allow the boys to accompany the coming expedition against the sheepmen,
so Injun and Whitey did what you probably would have done, and what
Br'er Rabbit did--they lay low. And Walt either forgot to send them
home, or thought that they would stay at the Star Circle while the war
was on.
For two days after the round-up nothing was done at the ranch, beyond
the oiling of guns, and consultations among the men. Walt Lampson seemed
to be waiting for something. On the third night there was a meeting in
the ranch-house living-room. A meeting which Whitey and Injun attended
unseen, by the simple method of hiding. It may have been wrong to
listen, but it was worse to die, and Whitey felt that he surely would
expire if he didn't know what was going on. Injun had no scruples at
all.
A traveler might have thought that all trails led to the Star Circle
Ranch, that gloomy night, for from every point of the compass came
riders, alone, by twos, and by threes. Desperate, hard men, who had used
their bodily strength to conquer the elements and to build up their
herds, as mine-owners use machinery to crush the gold out of the ore.
For this war of the sheep against the cattle was a common war, and it
was to be fought to a finish in that country.
So that was what Walt was waiting for, thought Whitey as he looked into
the living-room from a crack in the office door, held slightly ajar. Had
Whitey been in a criminal court during the last appeal of opposing
counsel, he would have seen in the jury box no more thoughtful, set, and
determined faces than those assembled in that ranch-house room.
The decision this court reached was: to catch the culprits and hang
them; to drive their sheep over the hills into the deepest canyons to
die by thousands; to hunt out the hiding owners, and let Colt guns be
both judge and jury. Merciless and hard it seems, doesn't it? But those
were merciless and hard days, when "only the strong survived."
"There's just one man I ever knowed who could do this work right," Walt
Lampson said. "The greatest two-handed man with a gun that ever was
born, an' a fool jury sent him to the pen, five years ago, for brandin'
a few calves."
"You mean Mart Cooley," said another ranchman. "There was only one of
him. But he done two years at Deer Lodge, an' nobody's ever seen him
since."
"Guess again," Walt replied. "I heard o' him. He's been down in the
Chinook Country. An' what's more I've got word o' Mart, an' he's comin'
here t'night."
Walt's words caused a sensation, and while it is subsiding I may as well
explain that in those frontier days there was a vast stretch of mesa or
prairie known as the Chinook Country, because of the unseasonable, warm,
and soothing winds that blew there. You may have read Bill Jordan's tale
about these winds, in the first Injun and Whitey story. They would melt
the snow, and cause the cowmen to start out their feeding herds, only to
be caught by the northers, that brought the bitter, perishing cold, and
killed the stock by thousands. On account of this uncertain condition
the Chinook Country was avoided in the early days, save by those who
located there for _reasons_--which no one was ever known to question.
And in this desolate place Walt Lampson had heard of Mart Cooley, and
from there he had lured him to the Star Circle Ranch.
Whitey waited, almost breathless, for the thrill that was to come at
his first sight of the "bad man" of the West; the "two-gun man" who has
long since passed into history, but was then a factor of the troublous
times.
And you might like to hear a word or two about the ways he handled his
gun, for he had more than one way. But first, the way he didn't handle
it. Ordinarily, when you are shooting at a mark with a pistol, you cock
the weapon, close one eye, and gaze along the barrel with the other
until the sight is in line with the mark, and, holding the pistol
steady, pull the trigger. That was what the gunman didn't do.
He sighted his weapon much as you throw a stone--by judging with his
eye. He filed off the sight, so it wouldn't catch in the holster And he
didn't use the trigger at all. That, too, could be taken off. Let us say
that he was using both guns. He drew them from their holsters with
marvelous speed. As he did so, he flipped back the hammers with his
thumbs, and allowed them to fall on the cartridges, thus firing the
first shots. The remaining shots were fired by working the hammers in
the same way, and the actions caused an up-and-down movement of the
guns. Seems a funny way to fire a revolver, doesn't it? But it wasn't
funny for the man who was in front of the bad man.
He had another way of not leveling the gun at all, but firing from his
hip, the revolver being held there, and the hammer worked with the
thumb. Another and very expert way was to fire from the holster, not
taking the gun out at all. This was remarkably quick and deadly.
But the strangest way of all, that was sometimes used at close quarters,
was called "fanning." The gun was held at the hip, the first shot fired
with the thumb-hammer movement. The gunman spread out the thumb and
fingers of his other hand, and quickly drawing them across the hammer,
one after another, they fired the shots with lightning rapidity. You
would be surprised at the speed with which shots can be fired in this
way. Try it sometime--with an empty gun.
Whitey, waiting behind the living-room door, had heard in bunk-house
talk of these various ways in which the bad man proved himself an
artist with his gun--had to prove himself one, if he wanted to remain
alive. But when Mart Cooley, the most deadly man of that kind in the
West, entered the living-room and faced the ranchmen, Whitey did not get
his thrill--at first. For Mart was not a very large, nor a very
fierce-looking person, as he stood sidewise to Whitey, and talked to the
others.
Not often does crime fail to leave its mark on a man. The mouth, the
chin, the forehead; some feature usually shows traces of it. And when
Mart Cooley turned and Whitey saw his eyes, he got his thrill. They were
a hard, light, steely gray, and they looked out from lowered lids, oh,
so steadily. Months of brooding in the prison had helped to harden
Mart's eyes, that had needed no help in that way; brooding over
imaginary wrongs, for he thought his arrest an injustice. Other men had
stolen a few cows, and got away with them, but Mart was made to suffer,
and came to think himself a victim.
Out in the barren waste of the Chinook Country, lonely and gloomy, Mart
had planned vengeance. But against whom? No one man could fight the
Government. Failure was sure to come, and it meant death or
worse--further imprisonment. In time Mart had come to regard all
humanity as his enemy. Thus does crime and solitude twist the mind of
man. Mart was ripe for a killing. And these men were offering him a
chance.