THE FILE.
After learning the fate of the two sheepmen we prepared to leave
Cheyenne and catch up with our stock train, which we figured would take
us a day or so. We interviewed the dispatcher, superintendent and
station agent at Cheyenne, asking each one of them to wire down the road
and see if they could locate the special. Every one of them wired and
the next day about noon the agent got word the stock was at Egbert. That
evening the superintendent got a message that they was between Egbert
and Pine Bluffs. About midnight the dispatcher got a message that they
were hourly expected in Pine Bluffs, so we started on to overtake them.
We had noticed with a great deal of anxiety that the wrinkles had
commenced to accumulate on our cattle's horns, as a new wrinkle grows
each year after an animal is two years old, and we had been advised by
several cattlemen who had been in the habit of taking their cattle by
rail to market in place of driving them, to procure files and rasps and
remove these wrinkles before we got to Omaha. So we secured a lot of
rasps and files at Cheyenne and had Jackdo carry them for us, and when
we caught up with the train we went to work to take off the sign of old
age which had come on our stock since shipping them, as the Nebraska
corn-raisers only want young stock to feed. When we first loaded our
cattle we were informed that they were a little bit too fat for the
killers, but, of course, the next day, they was about four pounds too
thin for the killers, but too fat for the feeders. However, by this time
they were nothing but petrified skeletons, and Dillbery Ike wanted to
leave the wrinkles on their horns and sell the entire outfit for
antiques. But the more we discussed it, the more we made up our minds
that as this railroad done a large business hauling stock, the antique
cattle market must be overstocked. So we finally concluded to take off
the wrinkles that had grown since we started and sell the cattle on
their merits. We arranged to run two day shifts and one night shift of
six hours each and to commence up next the engine and work back. So
getting in the first car we climbed astride the critters' necks and
commenced to file. Day after day, night after night, we kept at this
wearisome task, and when our files and rasps became worn we sent Jackdo
(who wouldn't work, but who didn't mind tramping) to the nearest town to
get fresh files and rasps. Sometimes we became discouraged when we saw
the wrinkles starting again that we had removed to commence with, and
our eyes filled with bitter tears when we thought how much better it
would have been to have trailed our cattle through, or even sold them
to some Nebraska sucker and taken his draft on a commission house.
Dillbery Ike, who had some education, made up a song for us to sing
while we were at work, called "The Song of the File," and one of us
would sing a verse and then all join in the chorus, and this song helped
us a great deal. Here it is:
Oh! we are a bunch of cattlemen.
Going to market with our stock again,
And, as we ship over a road that's bum,
The days they go and the days they come.
_Chorus._
Cheer up, brave hearts, and list to the file
As the wrinkles keep dropping below in a pile;
Never fear, my boys, we have plenty of time
To remove old age that's known by the wrinkle sign.
And as time goes by the wrinkles grow
On the horns of the cattle in a train that's slow;
For every year after the second a cow that's born
Another wrinkle grows upon each horn.
While we have a job that isn't so soft,
A-trying to rasp these wrinkles off,
To make their horns look smooth and bright,
We file all day and we file all night.
And as we file, we whistle and sing,
Trying to make it a jolly thing,
To remove the wrinkles that are sure to grow
On the horns of cattle with a road that's slow.
Astride their necks, we sit and file,
And through our tears, we try to smile.
Cheer up, brave hearts, cheer up, we say again,
As we camp along with the bum stock train.