GRAZING THE SHEEP.
It's not generally known that when sheep get extremely hungry they eat
the wool off one another, but nevertheless this is a fact, and Cottswool
Canvasback and Rambolet Bill's sheep had long ere this devoured all the
wool off each other's backs, but we had had a couple good warm showers
of rain and the wool had started up again and was high enough for pretty
fair grazing, so the two sheepmen were middlin' easy, as they had a
receipt for cooking jackrabbits so they wouldn't shrink in the cooking.
They claimed that Manager Gleason of the Warren Live Stock Company had
invented this receipt. However, lambing season had come on and Cottswool
and Rambolet were kept pretty busy as double deck cars was very cramped
quarters to lamb in. Rambolet wanted to unload the sheep, and when they
got through lambing to drive them to Laramie City and catch the train
again, but Cottswool Canvasback said they would have to pay the same
tariff for the cars and insisted on the railroad company earning their
money.
JACKDO SINGS "HOME, SWEET HOME."
I remember a pathetic little incident that occurred about this time.
When we were waiting on a sidetrack one evening I suggested to Jackdo
that he sing us a song to while away the time, and he started in singing
"Home, Sweet Home," in a choked-by-cinders sort of voice, and he hadn't
been singing long before I discovered old Chuckwagon and Dillbery Ike
lying face downward on the seats sobbing like their hearts would break.
Chuck and Dillbery didn't have much of a home, as they batched in little
dobe shacks away out on the edge of the plains; but that old song, even
if sung by a hoot owl, would make a stockman weep when he is on a stock
train and has got about half-way to market. However, it didn't seem to
affect Eatumup Jake much, and yet Jake had married a big, buxom,
red-headed Mormon girl about six weeks before we started to ship. While
Jake looked like he was in delicate health when we left home, yet he had
grown strong and hearty on the trip in spite of the privations and
sufferings we had to go through, and was pretty near always whistling in
a lively way "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
We now arrived at a town. It was about two o'clock in the morning and
the conductor roused us up to tell us we would have to change way-cars,
as they didn't go any farther. We asked him which way to go when we got
off, and he said go anyway we wanted to. We asked him where our car was
that we would go out on, and he said, "Damfino." So we started out to
hunt it. This was a division station, there were hundreds of cars in
every direction and they had put us off a mile from the depot. We begged
piteously from everyone we met to tell us where the way-car was that
went out on the stock train. We carried our luggage back and forth, fell
over switch frogs in the darkness and skinned our shins, fell over one
another trying to keep out the way of switch engines, ran ourselves out
of breath after brakemen, conductors, engineers and car oilers, but
everyone of them gave us the same stereotyped answer, "Damfino." At last
we started out to hunt up the stock again, but just as we found it they
started to switching. However, we climbed on the sides of the cars and
hung on, all but poor old Chuckwagon, who had been sorter under the
weather and wasn't quite quick enough. But he chased manfully after us
till we came to a switch, when we dashed past him going the other way.
We hollered to him to follow the train, which he did, but only to find
us going the other way again. And thus we kept on. How long this would
have lasted I don't know, for old Chuck was game to the death and had
throwed away his coat, vest, hat and boots and was bound to catch them
stock cars, and the switchman and engineer was bound he shouldn't. But
finally the engine had to stop for coal and water, and they shoved us in
on a sidetrack, went off to bed and left us there till 10 o'clock the
next day. But I never shall forget the anguish and horror we endured for
fear we wouldn't find that way-car and they would pull the stock out and
leave us there. Packsaddle Jack gave it as his opinion that the railroad
people had plotted to do that, but we frustrated their designs by
getting on the stock cars and staying with them. We all believed
Packsaddle Jack was right, but since that time I've talked with a good
many cattlemen and found out that's the way they treat everybody.