HARMON TALKS
During the week that the other riders were rounding up the horses
with Bob Harmon, Connie rode the range with Tex, who took pains to
initiate him into the cattle business, explaining the everyday
details as they presented themselves. This quiet, rather whimsical
Texan had been born in the cattle country and had punched cattle in
every state in the Union that boasted open range. Habitually
conservative in forming friendships, the cowboy's respect and
admiration for his young employer grew with the passing of the days.
And the respect was mutual, for Connie shrewdly penetrated the
other's habitual mask of half-mocking cynicism and evasive tricks of
speech, and recognized the real worth of the man.
The boy took keen interest in the work. Each morning after breakfast
the two rode through the hospital bunch in the big pasture, the
cow-puncher cutting out the cattle whose feeding on hay had put them
in shape to be returned to the open range. Sometimes three or four,
sometimes as many as ten or a dozen were separated from the bunch,
driven through the gate, and located on water several miles from the
pasture fence. This cutting out process created in the boy a
profound respect for the sagacity of the cow-pony, as he watched
Tex's horse, Skewball, deftly separate the selected animal from the
herd. A half-minute after his rider had picked out an animal, the
pinto knew which one was wanted, and thereafter Tex had nothing to do
but sit in the saddle while the pony carefully and slowly worked the
creature out of the herd. At the edge the animal always tried to
turn back, but never succeeded, for knowing that the time for slow
work and caution had passed the pony became a thing of magnificent
action, turning, twisting, pivoting, anticipating every dodge and
rush of the animal that sought vainly to regain the herd.
[Illustration: The sheepman eyed him with a hostile glare. "Why
didn't you ride right through 'em?" he asked]
"It ain't every cayuse that makes a cuttin' horse," explained Tex.
"It takes one that's smart, an' one that's quick as a cat, an' has
got the speed in him. Most of the range horses are either too
knot-headed to learn the game, or they're too clumsy, or too slow.
But Skewball, here, he's a top horse at it."
Under the capable tutelage of Tex, Connie learned to read brands, and
as they circled the range in search of weak stock, he practiced, by
the hour with his rope, trying to drop his loop over anything and
everything, from a patch of prickly pears to a bleaching buffalo
skull.
On one of these rides, the two pulled up at a point on the rim of
Eagle Creek valley that afforded a view of the Round Seven's lower
hay field. A man was pitching hay from a stack onto a hayrack to
which a team stood harnessed. "The boys must be feeding from the
lower field, today," he said. "I wonder what the idea is, when the
other field is so much nearer."
Tex grinned: "That ain't a Round Seven team," he replied. "That's
Wadell, an' he's stuffin' his band of wethers full of your hay.
Saves him a lot of work herdin' when the range is et down close like
it is along Eagle."
"Pretty expensive, isn't it?" asked the boy. "Feeding hay to sheep
that could just as well be picking up their living on the range?"
Tex squinted down the valley. "U-m-m, take it as a problem in
arithmetic, an' it would run somethin' like this: One fifty-ton stack
of hay at twenty dollars a ton equals one thousan' dollars. Startin'
on another fifty-ton stack, which it looks like he'd shoveled off
about ten ton already, two hundred dollars more. Button,
button--who's got the button?"
The boy smiled: "Wadell has got the hay."
"Yup, but the arithmetic don't tell no way to find out who's got the
twelve hundred."
"I haven't seen the books of the outfit, yet," said the boy.
"I don't expect they'll be cluttered up none with no hay entries,
when you do see 'em," opined the other.
"Do you think Harmon has stuck the money in his pocket?" asked Connie.
"I don't think Wadell had no twelve hundred for him to stick in his
pocket. Did you notice the brand on them sheep of his we passed a
while back?"
"Yes, they were branded with a Red X."
"Yup, that's right," commented the cowpuncher. "Me, I used to go to
school onct, away back, but there was some of their rules concernin'
discipline I couldn't recollect, so they cut me out of the herd an'
turned me loose with the wild bunch. But, not before I'd got past
arithmetic an' into algebra. Did they ever pitch you algebra for a
fattenin' feed?"
"No," laughed Connie, "I never had much schooling."
"Well, I was educated onct plumb up to where it made my head hurt to
hold it. It took years of range ridin' before I forgot the heft of
it an' relieved the pressure. I'll learn you algebra some day when
we're eatin' lunch. It would take a half an hour or so, an' we ain't
got time, now. Anyways, in algebra, when you don't know what you're
tryin' to find out, you let X equal it. It's easy, after you savvy
it." Tex rolled a cigarette, and started his horse after the little
bunch of cattle they were driving to the pasture.
"But, what's that got to do with Wadell?" asked the boy, puzzled.
"Oh, that? Well, we want to find twelve hundred dollars. We don't
know where it's at, so we'll let X equal twelve hundred dollars.
Them sheep of Wadell's is branded with an X. Therefore, the twelve
hundred dollars is in the sheep. P.D.Q., as the geometry books says
when they've proved up on a claim. In other words, if I was a
lawyer, instead of a mathmatition, I'd advise layin' low without
sayin' nothin' about books, or anything else that would make Harmon
suspicious. Don't let on you know nothin' about Wadell nor hay, nor
John Grey, till I give the word. When we get Harmon right where we
want him, we'll close in on him an' the sheriff will be along. At
the same time we can attach them sheep, an' see if we can't extract
twelve hundred dollars out of 'em, an' at the same time turn Wadell
over to Uncle Sam for filin' a fraudulent claim."
An hour later, as they were closing the gate behind the little bunch
of old cows they turned into the big pasture, a thunder of hoofs
sounded from the bench. "Here comes the horses!" cried Tex. "Come
on, we'll help 'em run 'em into the horse pasture," and putting spurs
to his pinto, the cowboy headed up a coulee that slanted steeply up
to the bench, closely followed by Connie. They gained the upper
level as the herd swept by. It was a splendid sight, a hundred
horses running free, manes tossing in the breeze, tails held high,
and the noise of their hoofs pounding the buffalo grass like the
rumble of thunder, and behind, and on either flank rode the cowboys,
urging them on. Tex and Connie joined in at the tail of the herd and
the whole remuda swept on up the bench and into the valley of the
west branch of Eagle where they were turned into the horse pasture.
Bob Harmon rode beside Connie as the boys headed for the ranch. "Got
a hundred an' three head," he said. "We're about seventeen head shy.
We generally run a twelve man round-up and I aim to give each man ten
horses in his string. I heard there was four of 'em way down acrost
Big Sandy, runnin' with some IX horses, but I didn't take time to go
after 'em. Half a dozen of 'em's played out an' we left them on the
range, an' the rest is somewheres on the range where we kin prob'ly
pick 'em up on the round-up; Tex an' Milk River has broke about a
dozen bronchos so we'll have enough. How you makin' it? I see
you've learnt to ride, all right. I expect the soreness an'
stiffness is about rode off by this time, ain't it?"
"Oh, yes," answered the boy. "It only lasted a couple of days. I've
been riding every day, helping Tex with the hospital stuff."
"Ridin' with Tex, eh? I s'pose he's be'n kind of breakin' you in to
the cow business." The boy noted that the foreman's eyes had shot
him a keen glance, and shifted to the back of the Texan who rode a
few paces ahead with Milk River Bill.
"Yes, been trying to teach me to read brands, and throw a rope, how
to work a herd, and a lot of things like that."
"He's a good man--when he's a mind to, Tex is," answered the boss.
"He's a good hand with horses, an' he savvies the cow business, all
right. But, I wouldn't get too thick with him. Not that he ain't
all right--maybe. But, well, it's like this, if an owner gits thick
with one of the hands it generally always starts trouble somewheres.
The other boys sees it, an' it kind of makes 'em grumble. Owners
generally don't have no dealin's much with the men, only the foreman,
that is, except it's a little yak outfit."
"What's a yak outfit?"
"Nester outfit. An outfit that ain't only got a few head, an' hires
all the way from nothin' up to two or three hands. Them outfits
ain't got no foreman, an' the owner runs it hisself. This here Tex,
you never know what's a-goin' on in his head. Far's I know he might
be all right, but I kind of like to have a man come out now an' then
with what he thinks. But him, he ain't never got much to say--just
looks at you like he know'd a good joke on you, or somethin', an' he
was laffin' at you--only he don't come out an' laff--that's just the
way he looks--like he was goin' to. Take these here still fellers
like that, an' I wouldn't trust 'em no further than what I could
throw a bull by the tail--not that I'm sayin' anythin' agin Tex, nor
nothin' like that. But I like to know what's goin' on in a man's
head. Course I don't like none of these here mouthy yaps that's
always shootin' off their face 'bout everything that ain't none of
their business, which them kind don't never know nothin' about
nothin'. But Tex, when he does open his mouth an' say somethin',
it's generally somethin' that it takes you till day after tomorrow to
figger out what he's drivin' at, an' chances is, you can't figger it,
then. If it wasn't that men's scurse this year I'd let him go, but I
got to hang onto him till after the calf round-up, anyhow. I've got
to dig out tomorrow an' rustle some men. The grass is beginnin' to
pick up, an' I want to pull the wagons about the tenth of May. It'll
take me mebbe a week to git my riders together."
"We've got four riders beside you and me, now," figured the boy.
"You'll have to hunt up eight more. Is that it?'
"I want 'leven riders besides me, an' a day wrangler, an' a night
hawk. The remuda has got to be herded night an' day," he explained,
"an' run into the rope corral fer the boys to ketch up their horses.
That makes thirteen, an' the cook makes fourteen, an' if you're goin'
to stay with the round-up, it'll make fifteen. We got to leave one
man here besides the ranch hands to handle the hospital bunch, so I
got to rustle up nine hands. I know where I kin git holt of some of
'em, but the rest is goin' to be hard to git, what with the IX, an'
the PU, an' the Bear Paw Pool all hirin' riders to onct."
"How much do you pay them?" asked the boy.
"Forty dollars a month is goin' wages on this range."
"Pay 'em forty-five, then, and you won't have any trouble getting
them."
Harmon laughed: "Not on yer life! If I was to offer forty-five, we'd
have the grass all wore off the range fer fellers huntin' a job--an'
then it would git us in bad with the other outfits. You see, in the
cow business, outfits has got to work together. It's like this:
Here's the range strung out fer hundreds of miles an' the cattle from
all the outfits all mixed up on it. If every outfit tried to cover
the whole range they wouldn't none of 'em git nowheres in all summer.
So we divide it up. We work part of it, an' the PU works part, an'
the IX, an' the Bear Paw Pool. Each outfit sends a man to ride with
each one of the other round-ups. They are the Reps. That way every
outfit has got the same number of hands they hire, an' every outfit
is represented on each round-up--that's where they git the name of
Reps. Each outfit carries brandin' irons of the other outfits. When
we drag out a calf that's follerin a PU cow we slap the PU brand on
it, an' when they drag out one of ourn they brand it accordin'."
They had reached the ranch and as the boys unsaddled beside the horse
corral, and spread their blankets to dry, the voice of the cook
sounded from the kitchen door: "Come on an' git it, or I'll throw it
away!" And with a great jangling of spurs, the riders of the Round
Seven raced clumsily in their high heeled boots for the wash dish
that occupied a bench beside the door.