One morning while waiting for Master to finish talking with a man, we
heard a scream, and the next moment Bobby came rushing out, crying:
"Uncle Dick! Uncle Dick! come! come! Tommy has stalded my little kitten
all dead; hurry! hurry!"
With two bounds her uncle cleared the space between himself and the door
and disappeared for a moment, to appear again in the kitchen, the window
of which was open.
Plainly I could see the dripping kitten rushing frantically about the
room, and Mrs. Wallace flourishing the broom at it as if it were the
offender.
Tommy complacently looked on. By the stove stood the pail of hot water
into which he had dipped it.
Quickly Master put the kitten in cold water, then, drying it, gave a
brief order.
Reluctantly Mrs. Wallace brought a bottle from somewhere, and he
carefully worked some of the contents through the fur on the skin.
Mrs. Wallace's face wore a sneer, but Bobby's, sweat and tear-stained,
turned confidingly up to his.
And then the good man's indignation got the better of his chivalry, and
he gave "My lady" a lecture that greatly offended her.
Among other things, I heard him say:
"As you sow, so you must reap. You may see the time that you will
remember this little burned kitten. I would not be a prophet of evil,
nevertheless, I say the hand that ruthlessly puts a pet to such torture
as this to-day may in in the future as readily slay a fellow man."
Were his words prophetic?
We shall see.
Very often after his return did I hear Master speaking of things he had
seen in the "West," and while, like other men, he spoke often of the
country and people, unlike them, he told of the dumb creation.
"You're a regular crank, Dick," Fred would say, "soft-hearted as a
baby;" but then he would pat him on the shoulder, and I know that there
has always been a tender reverence in his heart for this noble brother.
To me they were wonderful stories, those about the horses of the plains
and the cattle of the ranches.
"Seeing is believing," Master said. "I went there in the fall when the
creatures were in good condition, and watched every phase of their
existence until they--or their survivors--were in the same condition
again; but what they endured meanwhile no earthly computation could
estimate; I doubt not the record is being all kept straight above.
"I made my headquarters with an old friend and schoolmate--one of the
most humane ranchmen on the plains, I presume. I told him I wanted no
varnish, but reality; and he said I should have it.
"He owns a large ranch, his nearest neighbor being eighteen miles
distant. There is, in the clearing, the usual ranch-house, stables,
sheds, horse corral and the like.
"Their horses all come from the wild ones, and a few of them become
truly tame. My friend has one--old Mark--who follows him like a dog, and
obeys him as readily as Dandy does me, but he is an exception. Sometimes
those not in use wander off and are gone for months. When they find them
they are as wild almost as ever, and have to be broken all over again.
And this breaking was one of the things that seemed so inhuman to me,
but you would not believe flesh and blood could stand what they do
anyway, and live. And such looking creatures! apparently nothing but
skin and muscle, and so hardy that men grow naturally, I suppose, to
think they have no feeling. But to me they presented a piteous picture
of dumb faithfulness and brute misery. Despite their hardiness, they are
as capable of suffering as the man who rides them. Of course, old Mark
can endure more hardships than Dandy, just as his master can endure
more than I, but that does not alter the fact that we can all be
overworked, abused and suffering.
"Immediately after breakfast the men on my friend's ranch gather the
horses into the corral. In the centre is what they call the
snubbing-post; here the men stand with ropes, and, as the animals race
around the corral, they lasso the ones they want to use that day, and
then the rest are turned loose again. Some of them get quite tame. I
told Charley that if I were a ranchman I would have them every one
obedient to my voice. He assured me that--as a rule--it ain't bronco
nature.
"He had a professional breaker--'bronco busters,' they call them--break
a few new horses while I was there, but I only watched the operation
twice; that was quite enough for me. These 'busters' get big-wages, for
their work is extremely dangerous, and they are always in such a hurry
that what they do is done in the quickest way, which is generally the
roughest.
"Time and again they jerk the poor creatures up, causing them to turn
complete somersaults, and sometimes breaking their necks, of course.
Then, by the roughest of main force, they saddle and mount them. True to
his nature and common instinct for self-preservation, the animal bucks,
doing his best to unseat his rider. This he rarely succeeds in
accomplishing, and at the end of an hour or two he is submissive through
sheer fatigue and pain. Three of these lessons are deemed sufficient.
Horses broken by more mild, humane means--even ranchmen allow--make
quieter, better servants. Then there is the branding of the ponies,
without which the owners could not tell their own property. In
accomplishing this, the animal is blindfolded and led up to a roaring
fire, where a man with a red-hot branding iron awaits him. Quick as a
flash, there is a sickening odor of burning hair and flesh, and the
frantic animal goes forth with his owner's initials, mark or whatever it
may be, indelibly branded on him.
"These horses can climb like a mountain goat, and in winter they subsist
on the bark of the cottonwood tree, or on the dead grass that they paw
down through the snowdrifts to reach. Ofttimes their hoofs are worn to
the quick, and blood marks their trail. Spring finds them mere shadows,
and so weak they can hardly walk. They endure hardships better than the
cattle do, though. These last lead woeful lives in the winter season.
"I did not get there for the fall 'round-up,' as they call the gathering
together of the herds; but when I did see them they were sleek and
contented looking. Soon after, Charley and his men moved theirs into the
broken lands, where there is some chance for shelter and a bare chance
for their subsisting on the natural hay that abounds there.
"The past winter has not been a severe one, yet more than half of his
cattle perished. Some grew so weak and stupid that they ceased to paw up
the frozen grass; some, very many, in fact, perished in ice-storms.
Their coats become as cakes of ice, and they die by inches. Some die for
want of water, some mired in the spring in their frantic rush for it,
and so on. Wherever one goes after the snow melts, the sight that meets
their eyes is dead carcases.
"The hardened beholder thinks only of the loss to the owner, but to the
uninitiated, each gaunt form, with his sunken eyeballs and worn hoofs,
tells a pathetic tale, and reminds them of the lingering tragedies that
have been enacted there.
"Pitiful enough look the forms of brute mothers, lying in a way to show
that they defended and sheltered their helpless young to the last. But,
looking along the lines of dead, I almost decided that their fate was
preferable to that of the survivors who must yet face the living death
of the cattle car, and finally be inhumanly butchered. At best the lives
of these creatures are full of pain and misery.
"Another harrowing scene is the branding of the calves and young cattle
at the May 'round-up.' I witnessed it for an hour and then turned away,
but I could not shut the terrible din out.
"The ordinary method is to corral a large number of cattle, and then
rope the calves and unbranded animals, drag them to the fire and proceed
as in case of the horse.
"Dust, smoke, blood everywhere, and the air full of the smell of burning
flesh.
"Then there are calls, oaths, coarse laughter, bellowings, moans and
cries of pain and fright, making wildest discord.
"I pitied the poor little calves most. They are generally caught by the
leg, or legs, and jerked rudely over the ground to the branding place.
Here two or more other men grab them and hold them down while the cruel
deed is done. The little things seem so terribly frightened and
helpless. The little while I watched, I saw several of the older animals
badly burned on their shoulders and faces. These were mothers who
charged in defence of their young; then the hot iron struck one steer in
the eye, completely destroying it. The men scarcely notice such a
happening, but I could not forget the suffering. I would rather earn my
bread far down in the mines than by trafficking in flesh and blood.
"In the spring all the stock is reduced; I may say they are barely
alive, but when the rains come and fresh grass springs up they pick up
rapidly."
Thus would my master talk until it seemed to me that we were pretty
highly favored, but there has never been a winter since but I have
thought often about the starving, freezing herds "out West."