A BULL FIGHT
Jack was slow to respond to the call the next morning, but after a
minute or two he reluctantly rolled out of bed, and putting on his
shoes--and his coat, for the morning seemed cold--he rolled up and
roped his bed. When he reached his horse he could hear Joe not far off
drawing the latigo of his saddle and whistling softly to himself, and
in a few minutes the two were riding off toward the cattle. The night
was black and the stars sparkled in the clear air, but off to the
eastern horizon the light grew constantly stronger as they rode along.
"That can't be day coming, is it, Joe?" Jack remarked. "It seemed to me
that I got up as soon as I was called, and if I did it won't be getting
light for an hour yet."
"No," said Joe, "that's a little bit of the old moon left, and we'll
see it before long."
And just before they reached the herd, the small moon, now a crescent,
showed itself over the hill in the east, and for a moment the trees
that crowned the hill were outlined sharply against the light.
The boys whom Jack and Joe were relieving said that the cattle had been
quiet ever since they came on. The animals were tired from the drive
that they had had during the day, and the night was clear, calm and
still, so there was no reason for their being uneasy. Now followed a
couple of hours of monotonous riding around the herd, while one boy or
the other droned out a song, and occasionally spoke as they passed.
Presently the east showed gray, and then yellow, changing to orange;
and at length the sun, with a bound, as it seemed, cleared the hilltop
that hid it and began its journey across the sky. By this time the
cattle had risen to their feet and were beginning to feed, and the
herders, instead of trying to keep them in a bunch, rode out on either
side, merely to prevent their straying too far.
At length the boys who were to relieve them came out, and Jack and Joe
raced their horses back to camp, caught up fresh horses, unsaddled
those that they had been using, and presently sat down to breakfast.
All the outfit had started to work, and Frank had his wagon packed,
ready to roll as soon as these last two had finished breakfast.
"McIntyre told me to tell you," he said, "that you two had better go
along and help move the herd to the next camp. That's what you get for
going on night herd--an easy job for the rest of the day."
"That suits me well enough," laughed Joe. "We'll take it easy to-day,
Jack, and I'll bet McIntyre will make it up to us in the next few days,
and we'll have plenty of riding to do."
"I hope we will," replied Jack.
When they returned to the herd they found that the cattle had about
finished feeding, and had been driven down to a little stream to drink.
Now came the work of pushing them along over the ten or twelve miles
to the next camp. It was a slow and more or less wearisome task; but,
as Joe said, it was all in the day's work. The cattle were full and
lazy and unwilling to move. Each one would go on just as long as it was
being driven, but all the others stopped. It was constantly necessary
to ride up behind the little groups and urge them on, and the time of
two men was spent in riding backward and forward at the tail of the
herd pushing on the laggards. One man rode ahead of the herd, at a
slow walk; and there was one at either side, to keep the cattle from
scattering.
After the herd had been moving along for two or three hours, Bill
Duncan, the man in the lead, called back something to the others; but
they did not hear what he said, and, as he went on, paid no particular
attention to it. A few moments later there was quite an excitement
among the leading cattle. They were lowing and clustering together in a
thick bunch, and as the cow punchers pushed up toward them they could
see that they were pawing the ground and some of them were kneeling
and thrusting their horns into the soil, and there was much commotion.
Quietly, but very steadily the boys urged the cattle along and at
length broke up the gathering; but the animals were excited, and the
yearlings and young stock ran ahead, kicking their heels in the air and
striking at each other with their horns.
After they had passed the place, the explanation of the excitement was
seen. Some animal had recently been killed there, and its blood and
other remains smelled by the cattle had greatly excited them.
"That must have been what Bill was talking about when he called back
to us," Joe said to the others. "We ought to have sent some one up to
find out what he was saying."
"That's so," agreed Jack; "but, say, Joe, you know more about cattle
than I do, what is it that makes stock stampede? Of course, it's easy
enough to see why they might get frightened at the smell of blood,
but I understand that sometimes they start off without any reason
whatever--any reason we can see, at least."
"Well," Joe answered slowly, "you'll have to ask somebody who knows
more than I do. I've seen cattle start off without any cause at all
that I could see, and they 'most always start off without any reason.
On a stormy night I've seen them stampede at a flash of lightning, and
then again, one still night I saw a bunch start when one of the boys
lighted a match for his cigarette. One fall I was helping drive a bunch
of beef to the railroad; they went down into a little valley and when
they got close to the stream a big flock of blackbirds flew up in a
thick cloud, making, of course, some noise with their wings, and them
fat beef just turned and ran for half a day. Some of the cattle we
never did find, and those that we got I guess had lost fifty pounds to
the head."
"I suppose," said Jack, "that it is just panic, and, of course, in a
panic nothing ever stops to reason."
"I guess that's about the size of it. I've read in the papers stories
about people getting scared and stampeding, just exactly the way cattle
or horses do, and I reckon that all animals are a good deal alike in
this, whether they go on two legs or on four."
"Why, yes," said Jack; "some of the stories I've read told about people
getting scared in a theater when it took fire, and they all seemed
to lose their senses, and sometimes the firemen would find the bodies
all piled up in a corner or against the wall, the under ones dead from
suffocation, just the way scared sheep will pile up sometimes in the
corner of the shed, when you are catching them to dip them. The men are
just as bad as the women and children, and seem to try to fight with
them, trying to get out first."
"Down South I once saw a bunch of mules stampede. They didn't seem to
have any idea where they were going, and a part of the bunch ran right
slam into a freight-car, and, of course, killed themselves."
"Well, it surely is not easy to explain these things," declared Jack.
"I would like mighty well to have some of these professors who are
always studying about the way the mind works tell me how the mind of a
horse or a cow acts when it is stampeding."
Joe laughed.
"Hold on there," he said. "You want to get straight on that, I reckon.
I never heard, and I don't believe anybody else ever did, of a horse
or a cow stampeding. To have a stampede you've got to have a lot of
animals together, and they act on each other and make each other
more and more scared all the time. You can frighten a single horse,
or a single cow, and it will run away, but it won't run far; but you
stampede a bunch of stock and it will run and run and keep on running,
and for a while it keeps running harder and harder, all the time."
"I see what you mean; and I guess you're right about it," conceded Jack.
One of the other boys had come up while they were talking.
"Yes," he said, "Joe has got it straight, all right; and I never have
been able to find out anything more about it than he has. I've heard
old cow men talk about it, too, but I've never heard one of them say
that he could understand it. Joe's telling about seeing a bunch of
stock start when a boy lit a match, reminds me of a time when I saw a
bunch run just because a fellow threw down his cigarette. If a bunch of
cattle is ready to run, it seems as if 'most anything would start 'em.
You talk to any old cow man about this and you'll get a whole lot of
facts, but mighty few reasons."
All day long the cattle moved on over the rolling hills. Often the
wagons and _cávaya_ could be seen at no very great distance; and at
last, late in the afternoon, the camp was sighted and the boys took the
stock down below it on the creek, let them drink, and then feed slowly
back into the hills. They were kept pretty well together all the time,
but would not, of course, be bedded down until near sunset. Jack and
Joe stopped here with the herd, while the other boys went into camp
to get their supper. They would then come out again to bed down the
cattle, and be relieved a little later by the regular night herders.
The cattle were hungry, and were feeding greedily. They needed little
or no looking after; and the boys, riding to the top of a hill, got
off their horses and, throwing down their reins and holding the ends
of their ropes, let the saddle horses feed about them. As they sat
there talking about various things, Joe happened to speak of southern
California, and the way the Mexicans rode and handled cattle, and as
they talked he told Jack something of his past life.
"My father," he said, "came out with one of the early emigrant
trains with his brothers and sisters, his father and mother having
a nice little outfit of their own. Somehow or other, when they were
crossing through the mountains in the late fall, just before reaching
California, they got separated from the main train, and got off in a
little pocket by themselves, and didn't seem to be able to find their
way out of it. I never rightly understood how it was, for my father
died when I was a little fellow, but it seems that they got up there
and the snow was so deep that they could not get out. Their stock
was getting poor and they didn't have enough provisions to last them
through the winter. I've heard my grandmother tell how grandfather
worried about what he ought to do, and how at last he made up his mind
that he had to go down to the main trail and get help, or else they
would all starve to death. He made himself a pair of snowshoes, left
his rifle with his wife, took one day's grub, and started to try to
find the trail. My grandmother didn't want him to go a bit; she was
afraid that he would get lost, and then they'd be worse off than ever.
If they had to die, she wanted all of them to die together.
"He started off and did get lost, but, somehow or other, he managed to
get down near to the trail, and was found by a man who was hunting deer
for a little train that was coming along. That train was all right.
It went into camp and the men started out and broke a way up into the
little valley where my grandmother was, and brought down the whole
outfit and took them on to California. There my grandfather got work
and did pretty well, and when my father grew up he went down near Los
Angeles, and took up a ranch there, and we have always been comfortably
off. But I always wanted to ride a horse rather than go to school, and
as soon as I was big enough I got work with one of the cattle companies
down there, and I've been punching cows ever since. Of course I was a
big fool not to go to school and get a good education instead of just
being able to read and write, as I am now; but I've seen a lot of work
with cows, and, I tell you, some of those greasers down there can stay
with a horse and handle a rope better than any man you ever see in this
country."
"I expect they're mighty fine riders, Joe; and in the old times, when
there were cattle all over the country there, 'most all the men must
have been great cow hands, just as I suppose they are now in Mexico.
Every fellow was put on a horse as soon as he was able to toddle, and I
suppose he stayed with it until he was an old man."
"Yes, if he didn't get killed before he grew old. Hold on, Jack! Watch
those bulls down there!" Joe exclaimed. "I think we're going to have a
scrap!"
For some time Jack had heard low rumblings coming from the bunch of
cattle but had paid no attention to them; but now he saw that a couple
of big bulls seemed to be making preparations for a fight. One of them
was a white-faced red and white animal which might be a grade Durham
or Hereford, while the other, solid red in color, looked more like one
of the old-fashioned long-horned Texans, or at least what they used to
call out in that country a Cherokee.
Fifteen years earlier, as Jack had often been told, almost all the
cattle in the country were Texas cattle driven up from the south to
the plains, and there purchased by the northern cattlemen, taken out to
their ranches, fed for a year or two, and then shipped to market. The
excellent grazing and the cold winters seemed to make these cattle grow
larger and fatter than the Texas cattle were, and they brought good
prices in Chicago. Moreover, the calves raised on the northern range
were bigger and better than those brought up from the south, and it was
not long before the northern cattle owners got into the way of buying
herds of Texas cows and grading them up with more or less well-bred
bulls. This course made a very great change in the cattle. They grew
larger in body, shorter in limb, lost their long horns and became far
more like real beef steers than the old Texas long-horns ever were. It
was now getting to be almost unusual to see an animal that looked like
a Texas long-horn, or even like a Cherokee steer.
One of these bulls, however, was of the old type, while the other
seemed to represent the new. The two stood facing each other, not very
far apart, muttering, moaning, pawing up the dust and throwing it high
in the air to fall on their broad backs and roll back to the ground.
Presently the short-horned bull went down on his knees and thrust his
horns into the earth, and then rose and shook the dirt from his head.
The other bull did the same thing, his long horns tearing up a great
mass of soil, and when he rose to his feet his shaggy face and head
were covered with dirt and sticks picked up from the ground. Slowly the
bulls drew nearer to each other, and at length, when but a few feet
apart, the red bull sprang forward; the other bent down and lunged to
meet him, and their horns came together with a sharp clash. The shock
affected neither bull; neither gave back; and for some moments they
pushed and pushed against each other, their feet plowing up the soil
and the tense corded muscles standing out like ridges on their great
hams.
The remainder of the herd had drawn off a little to one side. Most of
the animals were still feeding or looking off over the prairie, heeding
the battle not at all, but a little fringe of cows and young stock on
the edge of the herd faced the fighting bulls and looked at them with
mild interest.
Jack and Joe watched the fight eagerly.
"The chances are all in favor of the big bull," declared Joe. "He's got
the weight and he'll win out."
"I don't know," said Jack. "It looks to me as if he were going to push
the red bull all over the prairie; but, on the other hand, the little
one is twice as quick and twice as active. What's more, I'll bet the
red fellow has twice the wind of the other, and if he can tire out that
big fat bull he'll make him run."
"Yes," agreed Joe, "there's no doubt that if he's got the wit to work
the fight right, he'll be able to drive the big bull; but if the big
bull is smart, he won't let himself be tired out."
"Well, let's see. Look at the way the big fellow is pushing back the
little fellow now!"
And certainly it seemed as if weight were beginning to tell, for,
little by little, the red bull moved backward, and appeared to be quite
unable to hold his opponent. In the meantime, the horns of both bulls
began to show red as if smeared with blood.
Farther and farther the red bull was pushed back. Presently he stopped
resisting; by a nimble bound he sprang off to one side and, quickly
circling, returned to the attack, as if trying to gore the big bull in
the neck or shoulders. The big one had turned, however, and received
the shock on his horns; and this time without much delay he pushed his
enemy back. The red bull again jumped and again made a circle, and the
big bull, seeing what was intended, faced to receive the charge on
his horns. The two came together hard, and the sound of the shock was
plainly heard. By this time both were weary and winded, and their long
tongues hung out of their mouths and almost reached to the ground.
It seemed now as if the red bull were trying to do precisely what
Jack had spoken of a little while before--to tire out his stronger
opponent--and it soon began to look as if he were succeeding. The big
bull turned more slowly to receive the charge; and, while he had not
as yet received any noticeable wound, he looked as if he would like to
stop fighting, and to call the battle a draw. He began to look from one
side to the other, and at last it was evident that he was trying to get
away.
"By gosh! the little fellow has got him whipped!" Joe cried.
A moment or two later the big bull, when he had the opportunity, turned
tail and trotted heavily off over the prairie away from the herd. The
little one followed him, of course, and butted him in the hips with
great force but his wide-spread horns did not cut the flesh. Each time
the red bull hit his opponent, the big bull roared with fear, and the
sight greatly amused the cowboys.
"Come on," Joe said at last; "we mustn't let those fellows go too far.
They've got to be brought back to the bunch."
Jumping on their horses they followed the two, first turning the red
bull, which was loath to leave the pursuit. Joe hurried him back to the
herd, while Jack rode on a little way, turned the big bull, and slowly
drove him to the bunch.
Soon after this, and long before they had finished talking over the
fight, the other men came back from camp, and Joe and Jack went in to
get their supper.