DRIFTING
The next night Jack, Vicente and Tulare Joe went out on night herd for
the second relief. It was very dark, the sky was pitchy black and the
wind blew now and then in swift gusts.
"It's a mean night," Joe said as they rode along, "and I wouldn't be
surprised if we had trouble with the cattle."
"It sure looks as if it were going to storm," Jack agreed; "and nobody
can tell just what that will mean."
When they reached the herd, the men whom they were to relieve declared
that so far the cattle were all right, but feared that the threatening
storm would start them moving. Some of them decided that they would
stay with the cattle until the storm broke, or passed over. "It's
going to storm," they said, "and there's no use in going back to camp
and getting into our blankets, only to be called out again in a few
minutes." There was thus a double guard, and the men followed each
other at shorter intervals than usual, singing, talking and calling, in
the effort to give the cattle, which as yet were quiet, the confidence
which so often seems to come from the proximity of a human being.
Presently it began to rain a little, and the wind blew harder, and
in fierce gusts, with lulls between them. During such lulls, the wind
could be heard coming far off, and in the blasts of wind the men to
the windward of the cattle could not hear the sounds made by those to
leeward.
By this time the cattle had begun to rise to their feet and to walk
about, bawling. Then some of them, singly or by twos and threes,
started out from the main bunch to walk away to leeward, only to be
turned back by the men who came across them. Then, little by little,
the whole bunch began to move along, but still only at a walk.
Jack spoke to Vicente in what he thought was a loud tone of voice, but
the wind snatched his words away and Vicente, putting his hand up to
his ear, leaned over toward Jack, who repeated his question.
"Shall we try to hold them, or just let them drift, and stay with them?"
"Must let 'em drift," shouted Vicente, "but keep 'em together. Pretty
soon some boys from camp will come. Must let 'em drift until storm
stops, or they get shelter. The best thing is for three of us to get
ahead, and go slow with the wind, and one man get on each side."
Jack rode off to speak to such other men as he could find, and
presently from up the wind came the sound of galloping hoofs, which
then slowed down to a trot, and in a little while almost the whole
force of the camp except the cook and the night horse wrangler were
about the herd, moving along at the same pace with it, guarding it
carefully in front and carefully on either side, and leaving the rear
of the herd open.
The wind blew with the violence of a tornado and the occasional spits
of level rain which accompanied the storm stung the face. One or two
men who had been slow about tying on their hats lost them with little
prospect of ever recovering them. The cattle were uncomfortable and
moved along bellowing, but showed no disposition to run. On the sides
they sometimes tried to scatter, but the line of boys riding there kept
them turned back.
This went on for some hours, until Jack thought that daylight must
be near. His slicker was on his saddle, but at no time had it seemed
to rain hard enough to justify his stopping and putting it on, for
at every moment there had seemed either something to be done, or a
possibility that quick action might be required; so by this time he
was pretty wet and pretty cold, but he thought little of this in his
anxious watching of the cattle. Presently, however, he happened to turn
his eyes upward, and saw three or four bright stars looking down at him
from the sky, and he gave a whoop of joy for he knew that the storm
had about blown itself out. Soon the wind began to fall and then the
eastern horizon to lighten, and before very long the bright sun rose in
a clear sky, and their troubles for the time were over.
The weary cowboys turned the herd and drove the cattle back over the
trail they had followed, until they reached their old bed ground. There
they turned them loose under the charge of two or three men, and all
the others returned to camp for breakfast, which, as a matter of fact,
was now dinner, for it was high noon.
"Boys," said McIntyre while they were eating their meal, "we may as
well stop here now and rest up; but, Jack and Joe and Donald, as soon
as you've eaten, you three go out and relieve those fellows on herd,
and let them come in and get some dinner. After these boys have slept
two or three hours, I will send men out to relieve you."
The cattle, like the cow punchers, were tired, and as soon as they had
grazed a while they lay down, showing no disposition to move. The boys,
therefore, took a commanding position on a hill and holding the ropes
of their horses allowed them to feed about them.
"Of course, that was not a stampede, Joe?" asked Donald uncertainly.
"Not much," said Joe. "That was just plain ordinary drifting; but there
was one while, just before the cattle started, when I thought that it
was nip and tuck whether we would have a stampede or not. It would not
have taken much to start those cattle off, and it sure would have been
a bad night to ride in front of 'em and to turn 'em."
"I don't see how a man could ride fast over such a country as we
crossed," Donald said.
"Well," said Jack, "could, or could not, he'd just have had to. It's a
ground-hog case when a stampede is on."
"But I should think you'd break your neck; and kill all your horses."
"Well," declared Joe, "sometimes a man falls and breaks his neck, and
oftener still a horse falls and breaks his neck or a leg, but of course
the cattle have got to be turned. That's what we're hired for, and it's
our business to do our work."
"You spoke before about turning the cattle. Where do you want to turn
them to, and why do you want to turn them?"
"We want to turn 'em to get 'em to mill, and if we once get 'em
milling, the trouble is pretty well over."
"I am sorry to seem so dull," said Donald, "but what do you mean by
milling?"
"Why, we want to turn the cattle and get 'em running around in a
circle. The hind ones will follow the lead ones, and if you can turn
the lead ones, and keep 'em turning, after awhile they just keep
running around and around in a circle and the hind ones follow 'em, and
as you can understand, they don't get very far away."
"Now, certainly," exclaimed the Englishman, "that is very clever. I
never should have thought of that. But how do you manage to turn them?
Of course, you cannot go in front of them, because they would run over
you and kill you."
"You do go in front of 'em; and without you go in front of 'em, you
surely can't turn 'em. What a puncher does is to get right up even
with the head of the herd and maybe a little in front of it, and then
to keep edging over so as to push the head of the herd away from him.
Likely too he's got to make some gun play, because, of course, the
flash and noise of the shots close to 'em will tend to push the cattle
over. Sometimes men go right in front of 'em and try to stop 'em by
shooting, but I never saw much good done in that way.
"I reckon if you ask Vicente, or any of the older men here--McIntyre,
for example--he'll tell you that it counts for more to try to push the
cattle over from one side than it does to go in front of 'em and try
to stop 'em. If you do that they may turn; but what's just as likely to
happen is that they'll split and go off in two or three bunches--and
that's likely to mean that the whole country has got to be ridden again
to gather up these scattered cattle."
"It must require an extraordinary amount of courage on a black night
such as last night to ride in front of, or even up at the head of, a
herd of frightened cattle going as hard as they can," said Donald. "I
am sure that I could not have ridden fast last night and guided my
horse at all. I could not see my horse's ears, to say nothing of the
ground in front of him."
"No," Jack said; "I guess you couldn't. I've never been yet in a real
stampede, but I'd be willing to bet that the cow puncher who rode at
the head of a stampede and tried to look out and guide his horse on to
good ground would not be worth very much a month to his employer. How
is that, Joe?"
Joe laughed.
"I guess he'd be worth about seventy-five cents a month; and he'd have
to furnish his own grub, too."
"But what do you mean?" asked Donald.
"Why," explained Joe, "a man riding fast and at night don't try to pick
his ground--he can't try to pick the ground. He leaves that to his
horse; it's up to him to watch the cattle, and it's up to the horse to
keep on his four legs. If the rider doesn't watch the cattle and the
horse doesn't keep on his legs, why horse and rider both are out of it,
and of no use to anybody."
"That's just what I supposed," said Jack. "I remember once a good many
years ago Hugh gave me a lecture on horses, and the use they make of
their eyes; he told me about how many falls young stock have before
they are broken, and how much use horses must make of their eyes. You
can see that if you put a blind on a horse, he will stand perfectly
still, no matter how wild he is, and will let you do 'most anything
with him. Take the use of his eyes away from him, and a horse is pretty
nearly afraid to move."
"Sure thing," declared Joe, as he scratched a match to light a
cigarette that he had just finished rolling; "a prairie or a mountain
horse can go along in the dark without anybody guiding him a great deal
better than he could if driven by the sharpest-sighted man."
"Donald might like to see it, but I hope with all my heart that we
won't have a stampede on this round-up," Jack said.
"I hope not," replied Joe. "I have known of one man being killed and
several men being hurt in stampedes, and if I can keep out of 'em I
mean to do it. Now, look here, if one of you fellows will lend me his
watch I'll set here and look after these cattle for an hour, and you
two can go to sleep; then, after an hour, I'll call one of you and
sleep myself, and an hour later he can call the other. By that time
likely there'll be somebody out to relieve us."
"No," protested Donald; "you and Jack sleep, and let me watch. I have
done less work than any one since I came here, and I can sit on this
hill in the sun and see what the cattle are doing. If they make any
movement I can call one of you."
"All right," assented Joe; "that'll suit me, if you feel like it."
Jack and Joe stretched themselves out on the ground and with their hats
over their faces were soon breathing heavily in deep sleep. Donald sat
on the hill and watched the cattle, but as time passed he grew more and
more sleepy until finally he had almost made up his mind to stretch out
and close his eyes--not really to sleep but just to think. However, as
he looked at his watch just before this desire became overpowering, he
saw that only ten minutes remained of his vigil, and so kept himself
awake until it was time to call one of the others.
Joe on being roused shook himself, rose and walked a few yards back
and forth in either direction and then, thoroughly awake, sat down and
began to roll and smoke cigarettes.
Before the time came to call Jack, Mason and Charley Powell appeared
on the scene, saying that they would stay with the cattle until it was
time to bed them down. The other three gladly mounted their horses,
trotted into camp and threw themselves on the ground in the shade,
where they slept until the cook shouted the call for supper.
After the meal was over Jack sat down by the fire close to the Mexican.
"Vicente," he said, "I was mighty glad I bumped up against you last
night, for I had no idea what had to be done. Of course, when I
recognized your horse I knew that you could tell me."
"Yes," drawled Vicente between puffs of his cigarette, "last night,
most had cattle running, what you say _estampeda_. Pretty lucky the
other men got there. If once those cattle had started, we'd have had
to ride hard."
"There was one while," said Jack Mason, "that I was plumb lost. I was
riding that little whittley-dig pony of mine, and he stepped in a
hole and fell down and I rolled off. It was so black I couldn't see
anything. Reaching around I happened to feel the horse. I mounted, but
I was all turned around. I didn't have an idea which way the cattle
were, and I couldn't see nor hear 'em. Of course I knew the only thing
to do was to let my horse find the cattle; and that's what he did; but
until I got close to 'em I didn't know where they were, nor anything
about 'em."
"Mighty queer," commented Hugh, who was listening, "the way a man can
get turned around, if he can't use his eyes. I reckon I've told you,
son," he added, turning to Jack, "about the only time I ever got lost.
It was on pretty nearly level ground that I had never been on before,
and in a blinding snowstorm. Well, sir, I had no more idea of the
direction of the sun, moon or stars than just nothing at all. For a
little way I traveled by the wind, and then I stopped and made up my
mind that I'd wait until something happened; and I did have to wait for
twenty-four long hours before I got a glimpse of the sun."
"I had something like that happen to me once in thick timber that had
been burned over," Jack Mason said. "It was a cloudy day on a kind of
plateau, and every tall straight stick looked like every other tall
straight stick. A mighty mean situation to be in."
"It must be a terrible sensation," said Donald, "to lose all sense of
direction. Long ago, before I had ever been much out of doors, I used
to carry a compass and to consult it frequently, but of late years I
have rather abandoned that practise."
"When the sky is clear you don't need a compass or anything else," said
Jack, "because you can look at the sun or the stars; but, of course,
if it's cloudy, or rainy, or snowy, that's different. If a man is in a
country he knows, or knows anything about, and gets lost he can follow
the ravines and creeks down to the main stream."
"Well," put in Hugh, "a man isn't in much danger of being lost just as
long as he keeps his wits about him; but just as soon as he gets scared
and loses his wits and begins to think that the sun is in the wrong
place, or the compass is wrong, or the waters are running uphill, then
he's in a bad way, because he's pretty close to crazy. The main thing
is to keep your head, and then you'll come out all right; but in these
days, when there are so many fences and roads and railroads all over
the country it would be pretty hard to be lost, I expect."
"Yet back East," said Jack, "every now and then we hear about men and
women and children being lost in little pieces of swamp and woods
almost within hearing of their houses. Of course, these are people who
have never thought of taking care of themselves out of doors, and get
lost just as soon as they get where they can't see things that they
recognize."
"Such people ought not to be allowed to wander away," drawled Jack
Mason; "they ought to have people to look after them. But then I
suppose back East there are so many houses and so many people that
it's hard to get out of sight of 'em."
"No," laughed Jack; "there are a good many people there, but it isn't
quite so bad as you say."
Hugh knocked the ashes from his pipe, rose to his feet, and stretched.
"Well, good night, boys; I'm going to hunt my blankets," he said.
The others soon followed him and the fire was deserted.