ANIMAS VALLEY.--III.
It was still dark when Murray rose and looked outside, letting an eager
rush of frosty air into the room that brought me back from heaven knows
where I had strayed in dozing. Without--
"The dawn in russet mantle clad,
Peeped o'er the brow of yonder distant hill,"
--old Animas Peak, which loomed up indistinct and colourless in the
distance. Everything was ghostly and still, even the breath of chill
wind that crept almost noiselessly up the valley. Presently, like a
great trumpet's blare, the calling of a far-off cow to its calf rang
through the hollow silence. Swiftly the red ripples of sunrise broke on
the gray sea of dawn. The spectral Animas issued from obscurity, clad
regally in purple and a few plumes of silver mist;
"The fair star that gems the glittering coronet of morn,"
in these latitudes, shrank back and paled out of sight.
"And like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn."
"Whist! it is cold!" we gasped, as we broke the ice in the pails of
water that stood on a bench under the wall, and proceeded to wash as we
might.
While breakfast was being prepared, I walked out on to the cienega to
look for ducks. But one shot cleared the swamp, and returning to the
house with a mallard, I fell in with Squito and Joe driving the band of
cow-ponies into the corral. With a broad-brimmed, leather-banded cow-boy
hat on, an old pair of cow-boy, high-heeled[27] Wellington boots, a red
canvas overcoat of old man Murray's, buckled in round her waist by her
cartridge-belt (to which was now attached a genuine six-shooter), and
her vivid little face nestled in its deep collar, the child was a quaint
picture.
"Oh, pshaw!" she exclaimed, with a merry little laugh of malice, for
she utterly refused to believe in a "Britisher," "you've 'done' got up,
then! Joe, the man's up a'ready!" (She always called me "the man.")
"Why not?" rejoined Joe, with a smile of greeting. "You ain't the on'y
one that can get up mornings."
"Why, no! do you suppose that you have a monopoly of early hours?"
"Yes, yes, yes! That's what I do, exactly. The Colonel said th' other
day, when I was wanting to be 'a capitalist,' that he'd give me all the
gold that I could see in the valley at sunrise. You ain't got no sort o'
right to come prospecting around now. I've 'denounced' it all--it's all
mine, all mine." And she threw an arm out, and grasped at the sunny
skies, laughingly. "'Sides" (mischievously), "ain't you one of these
dudes as the Colonel brings down sometimes from El Paso and Silver, that
wants kettles o' hot water to twelve o'clock? Oh, pshaw! we ain't got to
joshing you yet! You wait till the boys and me puts up a job on you."
"Shucks! you think nobody ain't got no sagass but you," ejaculated Joe,
as, launching her sauciest grimace at me, with a seat so sure and
finished, that it was a treat to watch her, Squito shot off at a tangent
on the broncho she was riding, with only a _hackamore_ or headstall, to
bring back a couple of ponies that were straying from the bunch.
"Well, now, you boys," said Murray one morning after breakfast, "we want
to keep on picking up the calves that ain't branded. Joe, you'd best
ride in back of Cunningham's. Jake, you make a bend out towards the
Peak, and the Double Adobes. I'll go in towards the Baker Place and
Skeleton Canon, there's two big calves runs in there somewhere that we
missed at the round up. We've got to get up that band of mares that's
running with Charles Dickens, and count 'em, one day this week, too."
"That's so," chimed in Squito; "I ain't got a colt at all in the corrals
to 'gentle' now."
Squito, who was perfectly fearless, and unerring with the _lariat_, used
to amuse herself during the day with 'halter-breaking' and 'gentling'
the young colts as soon as they were weaned. In doing this she required
but little assistance, and displayed judgment and patience only less
remarkable than her skill.
"Well, we'll get you up one," said the old man. "What are you going to
do to-day, Mr. Francis?"
"I'll ride with you, Murray," I said.
Out in the horse corral there was a busy scene for the next few minutes,
as each man lassoed his half-broken mount, and brought him to a
standstill, snorting with fear, a quivering statue of flesh and
streaming hair, and then led him to the saddling bench by the house.
With a horse-hair _lariat_ on her arm, the loop trailing from her
shoulder, Squito looked on watchfully. But presently, taking compassion
on my unskilful efforts, she whirled the rope twice round her head,
enlarging the noose at the same time, and with the most perfect ease
dropped it over the head of the "clay-bank" nag that I was endeavouring
to catch. Almost simultaneously, she bent the other end of the lasso
round one of the "snubbing" posts that stood about in the enclosure, and
the "clay-bank" suddenly found himself captured. The Colonel, a martyr
to rheumatism at the time, limped round meanwhile, chewing the end of a
long cigar savagely, and swearing, not inaudibly, at the affliction
which enforced his inaction.
Leaving the Gray Place, and turning our backs to the Peak, we headed
for the Baker Place--some springs, about nine miles from the ranch, in
the foot-hills of the San Simon range.
"Wild music makes the wind on silver strings."
A fresh breeze blew, not forcibly, but coolly and merrily, forming, one
could almost fancy, the song of the world, as it grappled
light-heartedly with its day's work. In the pale blue, far-off sky the
sun shone brightly, and translucent cloud formations, of delicate
texture, floated out like woman's hair on the sea of light, crossed and
recrossed by one another as they lay in transverse currents of air at
different altitudes. In the clear sunny atmosphere of the New Mexican
winter, everything looked near and shone vividly; distance seemed to
magnify rather than reduce in size the well-conditioned cattle that our
quick-stepping ponies bore us past. And as we rode, keeping a sharp
look-out for unbranded calves, that had been dropped since the fall
"round up," or had then been overlooked, Murray (a one-idea man, whose
heart and soul were wrapped up in cattle, and whose gods were the
cattle-kings of California, "Dan Murphy, Haggin, Lux, and Miller, and
them fellows,") held forth, as usual, on his favourite subject.
"There's lots of things to look to in choosing a range," he said.
"There's some ranges that you couldn't hold cattle on, not if you had a
man to every head of stock. They won't stay there; they'll keep on
straying away. The grass don't suit 'em, or the water don't taste right,
or there ain't 'nough shelter, or something--you can't always tell what
_is_ the matter exactly. Fact is, you want good grass, and good water,
and good shelter too, if you can get 'em. And you don't want your water
all in one place either, or you'll soon find your grass at one end of
the ranch and your water at the other; and when cattle have to travel
eight or ten miles back and forth, they're going to be in pretty poor
fix[28] all the time. You want the water well distributed--a spring
here, and a spring there, and a creek or a cienega somewheres else. When
you've got that kind of a range, you won't have no trouble holding your
stock, they'll stay right there. I could handle 20,000 head of cattle in
this valley with eight men. To be sure, our stock is pretty well
corralled here by the hills, but all the same they don't want to quit.
There's ways out of the valley, and they'd find 'em sure 'nough if they
did. Why! last round up, over in San Simon Valley, there was only one of
our steers there, and that was one that got driven off with a bunch of
strays which the San Simon boys was taking back.
"It's a great thing to get a range that's isolated, and have your cattle
by themselves. One thing is that you want your cattle gentle and in good
condition, and when there's half-a-dozen bands mixed in together they
don't get no peace; there's always some one in among 'em, 'cutting out'
cattle, and running 'em round, and likely enough handling 'em, too, in a
style you don't approve of. Another thing is that, when you're off by
yourself, it encourages you to go to the expense of turning in good
bulls, and grading up your stock, which you ain't nearly so liable to do
if your cows and your neighbours' run in together.
"I'm all for grading up cattle. Look at it! Graded cattle are more
valuable, ain't they? And they're gentler and easier to handle, so you
work your capital at a less expense than if you run scrubs. Besides
this, there's a larger percentage of increase to them than there is to
scrubs. They always command a sale, and at a fair price too, even when
cattle are way down in the market, like they are at present; and on a
fair range they're always in condition. You can't never get these wild
scrub cattle into condition anyhow; they run all the flesh off their
bones. Why, some of these here black cattle from Mexico, if they see a
cow-boy a mile off, will 'light out and run four miles; they graze at a
lope, and water at full gallop.
"Buy your stock right in this country, if you settle here; never mind if
it costs you more. You may go away down into Texas or Mexico and buy
scrubs cheaper; but see here, now! one of these graded yearlings will
outweigh one of them two-year-olds. Then, again, this is by far the
finest breeding-ground in the States; from eighty to ninety-five per
cent. of the cows here will drop calves every season; the climate suits
'em. They're lucky if they get a forty per cent. increase up in Montana.
When you bring cattle from a distance, too, some of 'em is sure to die
on the road; and more'll die before they get wonted to the range; and no
matter how fine a range you turn 'em on to, it'll take a long time for
'em to find their condition again after a change of country. Then very
likely half the cows you bring from a distance ain't been served, and
many of them as has calves loses 'em on the trail. In the long run
you'll always find it pay to buy cattle that you know something about,
and buy 'em pretty near home, too.
"Spring's the best time to buy stock. Turn 'em on to your range when the
grass is green and there's plenty of it; they get stuck on it[29] then
and stop there, you don't have no trouble locating 'em. But you bring
'em in in summer, when everything is burnt up, and they'll drift off a
thousand miles; and if you bring 'em in in the fall, even if the grass
has recovered a bit, they haven't time to pick up after the change
before winter sets in. Not that that matters so much here, where the
winter don't amount to anything; but there's places where it does; and
if they struck a bad season then they'd die like flies.
"You want to look at everything in a business way. You don't keep a
ranch for fun. You want the cattle that's easiest handled, and easiest
sold, and that matures quickest and keeps in best condition. And you
want to get the most work you can out of your horses, and to place your
men on the outside of your range so that all their riding tells, and
they cover the greatest possible stretch of country. And you want to
work your stock slowly. Don't you never have none of these hell-tearing
rustlers from Texas on your ranch, if you get one. It don't pay to have
fellows blazing off their revolvers, and stampeding the cattle, and
spurring their horses on the shoulders, and always going on a lope, and
driving cattle at a lope too, and lassing steers by the fore-feet on the
trail, and throwing 'em head over heels, just for the satisfaction of
hearing the thud they make when they fall. That kind of monkey business
is played out! There ain't no object in wearing out your horses and
giving 'em raw backs; and as to cattle, if you want 'em in good
condition--that is, so any one will buy 'em--you never should let 'em
out of a walk. You run a steer a mile or so, and lass and throw him for
fun, and the flesh he loses afterwards would hardly be credited. Well,
that's so much money out of your pocket, if you want to sell him. And
you have a horse with a sore back for a month or two, and you can reckon
that loss in money, too. Work stock slowly, and save your horses when
you can, that's all there is to it, if you want to make money ranching."
Murray would ramble on like this by the hour, seldom repeating himself.
Many were the rides we took together, but never returned from one
without his having broached a fresh chapter on the habits and management
of cattle. It is useless to retail these dissertations, however; such
information is only used when gathered by experience--fortunately the
case with all useful knowledge, or by this time the world would have
grown wise and infinitely dull.
We had ridden over a good stretch of country in the direction of the
Baker Place (the old man occasionally marking down an unbranded calf, to
be picked up on our return), when we became aware of a few white dots
amongst some live-oak, on the edge of a slope which led down into a
large draw. "Antelope!" I ejaculated. Murray nodded silently. We had
reined in our ponies on some rising ground, the summit of which we had
scarcely attained. The game was about a mile off.
"We'd best get back, and get around to them by that ridge," said my
companion, withdrawing the extinct pipe he was sucking at, and pointing
to the left. Retiring slowly, until all but our heads were concealed,
we watched the band feeding for a little. It is always interesting to
observe the movements, even of the commonest of wild animals, and,
notwithstanding the distance which separated us from these, so clear was
the air that, as soon as the eye became focussed to the range, they were
easily distinguishable. After vacillating for some time, they finally
all disappeared into the draw.
The direction of the wind and the nature of the country rendered it
necessary to approach them from the side on which we already were--the
opposite side of the draw to that on which we had first seen them. We
cantered towards the nearest tributary of it, therefore, and entering
it, drew as close to the game as we were able to do on horseback.
Leaving the ponies then with Murray, I proceeded on foot with a little
Morse carbine that I had with me. I found that the antelope had made but
little progress, and were about five hundred yards off, feeding at the
foot of the further slope. The intervening ground afforded no cover, and
was perfectly flat; the dried course of a little stream, which found its
way down from the mountains in the rainy season, ran near me, however,
and, having gained this, I succeeded in crawling a hundred and fifty
yards nearer to the band without having attracted notice. Then, since it
was impossible to diminish the distance, I cautiously raised the 45.70,
took a full three hundred yards sight, and dropped the best shot that
offered. As the rest turned and fled up-hill, I risked a shot at their
leader, and killed him also. They were both hit fairly behind the
shoulder, and were dead before reached. Unfortunately, I can by no means
lay claim to this as being my usual form with the rifle. Very far from
it.
We gralloched the carcases, and having divided and packed one behind our
saddles, hung the other on a live-oak to be fetched by the soldiers from
the neighbouring camp. A little further on we found one of the two big
calves that Murray was in search of, and taking this, with its mother,
as the nucleus of our band, turned back, and drove them slowly towards
the Clanton cienega, gathering, _en route_, all those that we had marked
down as we came out. At the cienega we left them unherded, whilst we
went into the Gray Place to lunch, there being no fear, since it was
mid-day, of their quitting the water until we wanted them for branding.
The boys had also brought in a few calves, and immediately after lunch,
we sallied forth on fresh ponies to drive our joint capture into the
corral. For this task, I had been furnished with a trained "cutting"
pony, reported to be one of the best in the valley, and well did he
sustain his reputation. It was only necessary, after having shown him a
cow or a calf getting away from the herd, to give him his head, and at
full speed he started for it immediately. Needless to guide him. Wholly
uninfluenced, he would check and counter-check in mid-career each break
of the truant's with stops and turns so sudden, that once a pocket-book
and some letters were jolted clean out of an outside breast-pocket in my
coat, and fell a yard or two clear of where my mount had stopped. The
cattle were soon penned, and, dismounting, we entered the corral on
foot.
About a baker's dozen of cows and calves were collected. One of the
former was what is termed a "hooking" cow, and to escape her repeated
charges tested all our agility, and afforded considerable amusement to
Don Cabeza, who sat upon the top rail of the corral, smoking, and
exercising his wit at our expense.
The brands were heated in a small wood fire, and a calf being lassoed
and thrown, if necessary it was also hog-tied, or had fore and hind legs
crossed and bound with a few turns of the lariat. The tip of the right
ear was then squared off, the left ear split, the calf was dewlapped (or
had the outer edge of the loose skin of the throat cut, so as to leave
pendent a small rope of flesh, an inch in diameter, and four or five
inches long), and finally the diamond A was branded on its hip. To
cleanse the iron before making a fresh application of it, it was dipped
in a pan of grease.
The foregoing marks may appear cruel, and, some of them, superfluous. In
reality, however, they seemed to cause but little pain. And in a country
where cattle run free, and the brands are endless in variety, it is of
the utmost importance to avoid the possibility of mistakes, or of any
criminal alteration of the marks by which herds are distinguished. _A
propos_ of marks, the Colonel, of course, had a happy instance to quote.
The boys had just released the last calf, and we were about to turn the
lot out, when something was said which caused the Don to refer to the
tale, and we gathered round where he was perched on the rails, the blue
sky behind him, his hat thrust back, his beard grasped affectionately in
one hand, the stump of a cigar between the fingers of the other, and a
smile of delicious knowingness and good humour lighting up his handsome
phiz.
"Ear-marks! Did I never tell you that? No? Well, away back in my old
State, at a little place on the Shenang River, there was an old fellow
called Joshua Welch. His neighbours used to say that he stole their
hogs. Maybe he did; maybe he didn't. Joshua is dead long ago,
anyhow--for all we know he may be squinting through his trumpet at us,
right now--and I shouldn't like to say of any gentleman cherub that once
on a time he stole hogs. Most of the folks kept hogs where he lived, and
some used one mark, some another; some squared the right ear, some the
left. Old Joshua always seemed to be in doubt about his mark; he used
all kinds, and claimed 'most anything that came his way. So one day they
went to him. There was hell a-popping! One fellow said he had roped in a
sow with the left ear off, belonging to _him_; and another fellow said
that he had got a young boar with the right ear off, belonging to
_him_. So they went to him--madder than hell they were, too--and the
spokesman said:
"'Now, Mr. Welch, we just want to know, once for all, what your ear-mark
is? Which ear _do_ you crop, anyhow?'
"'Ear-mark?' said old Joshua; 'ear-mark? Why, that's clear enough. Ear
off next the river--that's my mark.'"
In the way of altering brands there is comparatively but little mischief
done in these days. Stock associations, and the like, have almost put an
end to such trespasses. The ranchero who does not get his own calves
now, or who loses his cattle, has only himself, and a carelessness or
ignorance that absolutely offers a premium for theft, to thank for it.
An old cow-puncher that I met in Washington Territory, regretted this
new order of things very feelingly to me once, over our second cocktail.
"These ain't no sort of times to go to raising cattle down Texas way,"
he said indignantly. "No, sir; don't you try it--not now they've got all
their associations, and conventions, and mutual-protection schemes, and
all that monkey business. Why, I've known the time when, if you started
me in business with one steer, and the proper kind of branding-iron, I
could have raised quite a nice bunch of cattle in a twelvemonth. Half
the 'draw'[30] was worth something those times! Nowadays you don't dare
to clap a brand on a mavorick[31] even; and if they catch you _altering_
a brand--hell! that's a penitentiary job. The cattle business ain't what
it was; and any one who expects to make 'a raise' in it now, in any sort
o' reasonable time, is going to get pretty badly left, and don't you
forget it. I know what I'm talking about! Why, Lord! I tailed cattle
across the plains from Missouri to California away back--way back! I was
in California in '47--when it was a cattle country, mind; when you could
sit on your horse, and tie the wild oats together across the pommel of
your saddle. I was in 'Frisco in '49 and spring of '50. Yes, sir" (with
a semi-defiant air), "that's what I was. I can remember, just like
yesterday, when the water used to come up on Montgomery Street. Those
times, when people had money they spent it; they let it roll! There
wasn't none of this small-minded scraping, and shaving, and adding up,
and keeping tally. Them as'd got it paid, and them as hadn't didn't, and
that's all there was to it; and if anybody said anything ugly about it,
you just blowed the top of his head off, and set up the drinks, and
there was an end of him. As to these here Californians that's come out
since then, they're a tin-horn lot compared--half Jew, half Chinaman;
on'y fit to take their pleasure in a one-horse hearse. Why, I
remember----Are you acquainted in 'Frisco, sir?" he asked, pausing in
mid-career prudently.
As I had heard this kind of thing numberless times before, I intimated
that I was so, and also that I knew several old-timers.
"Ah! fine city! fine city!--compared, that is," he said approvingly.
"But as to this here cattle business, that's played out. _I_'ve quit."
Evidently, in his own mind, this set a seal on the decadence of
cattle-ranching.
"What are you doing now?" I inquired.
"Well--well--I'm just prospecting around--looking at the country. I've
got two or three schemes on hand; there's big money--big money in
'em--millions, if they're worked properly! But it'll take a little
capital to start 'em. Now, if you want a really good investment, you're
in luck. Me and my partner's got a mine, that----," etc., etc.
Many scores of these philanthropists, who have spent their lives in
looking for men to enrich, whilst anxious only "to make a small wad" for
themselves, have I encountered! Many a time have I let "the boss mine,"
or "the boss ranch," slip through my fingers! Such men always take it
for granted that an Englishman is a "sucker." It is as well to foster
the belief, for the amusement of hearing them ingenuously unfold their
magnificent schemes. Besides which, as a matter of policy it is unwise
to endeavour to seem too smart when in quest of information, for a fool
is allowed to see more in an hour than one who is credited with ordinary
sense will discover in twelve months.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] It is an odd thing that cow-boys, particularly Texans, will wear,
if they can get them, boots with heels that would look ridiculous even
on a Parisian _cocotte_.
[28] Condition.
[29] Fond of it.
[30] The cattle that an employe could steal for his master.
[31] An unbranded motherless calf.