THE RUBICON
NOW it was noon of the next day. The cattle had been pushed close to
the south bank of the great mysterious river. The foreman sat with his
employer on the steep crest of the ravine selected as the take-off for
the ford. A bridge had never been, a ferry no man had dreamed of here.
Flowed only the wide sweep of tawny waters, boiling and fretting,
bearing rape of far-off flats, tree trunks rolling and dipping.
The Red was up! This was an ominous and savage scene, and one to depress
even the boldest heart; for over this flood must pass each horned head
ever to find a market in the north.
To Anastasie Lockhart, whitely looking out over the mad waters, this
seemed the very end. It did not appear possible to cross. It never would
have seemed possible to Nabours had he been of longer trail experience
or less desperate in view of other dangers which might come again if
they tarried here indefinitely. A freshet of less extent later was known
to hold back a hundred thousand cows. But Jim Nabours now had made up
his mind to take a chance.
“I’m going to throw the carts over first, ma’am,” said he. “Then I’ll
cross the cows. I’m going to hold the horses back this time. Then, after
the last head’s over, a lot of us’ll cross back after you. We’ll know
the channel and the bars better then. Don’t you be a-scared. We’ll get
you over somehow. That’s how I got it figgered, ma’am.”
“She’s up, Jim,” said Taisie quietly. She was trying her very best to be
brave.
“Yep, some. But she’s fell a foot since last night. She shows a bar, a
quarter below, and a low flat that edges in shaller on the fur side. I
think that’s the real bank, and like enough hard footing.”
“We could wait a week, maybe. She might raise and she might fall. We’ll
soon know how deep she is. I don’t reckon she’s not over two-three
hunderd yards actual swimming—I can’t tell. I don’t want to wait here.
You know why.”
“Can we make it, Jim?” asked the girl soberly.
“I think we can, ma’am,” said the old foreman as quietly. “Ef I didn’t,
do you s’pose I’d throw ’em in? She has been crossed by cows, down
below, for the Arkansaw market. Yore own paw has crossed her. Can’t we?
If Jess Chisholm, or any of the Chickasaw whisky runners, could cross
her with stock so can we. Huh? I’m a good cowman, ma’am, and I got the
best bunch of hands ever pushed a foot in a stur’p.”
Taisie Lockhart turned on him the sober gaze of her steady eyes, but
made no reply at the time.
“Jim!” Suddenly she turned on him.
“Ma’am?”
“Jim! I’ve got no one else—I’ve got to come to you. Cal Dalhart asked
me to marry him—again, to-day.”
“Well, you didn’t, and you can’t. The last minister was at Forth Worth.
There’s others of the same mind, Taisie. Has Del Williams spoke?
Dalhart’s lied.”
She shook her head.
“Poor Del!” said she. “So quiet.”
“Well, he done spoke to me more’n oncet. He allows, and so do I, that no
man had orto talk a word to you about no such thing until after he ain’t
working for you no more. That’s until after Aberlene. That’s the way Del
put it. I liked it of him. Cal Dalhart’s a leetle brash, to my notion.”
“Why do women always make trouble, Jim? I’m making trouble right here.
I’ve made it from the start.”
“Well, ma’am, Eve, she begun it right at the real start. They always
done so, since. I got to pass word again there can’t be no courting on
the Fishhook herd, not till after Aberlene, ma’am. I told you to get
married and go back home; but you wouldn’t. Now, see where you are! Time
enough for marrying and giving in marriage, ma’am, ef we ever get to
Aberlene. Ef we don’t we’ll not need study about that nohow. Huh?”
“I’ll be good, Jim,” said Taisie, smiling.
But when once more she looked at the river she did not hope ever to see
Abilene. She classed herself now as the last of the Texas Lockharts. She
would not disgrace the name.
* * * * *
Ticklish work it was, and asking alike resource and courage; but
methodically as though they had done nothing else in all their lives,
the men of Del Sol went about it now.
Under Nabours’ direction they got together long logs of cottonwood
drift, dragging them in at the ends of their lariats, cowman fashion.
Taking the cook cart for their first experiment, they lashed some of the
longer logs under the body, unbolting the tongue. The clumsy vehicle was
heavily loaded. How much of swimming water there would be none could
tell; but their philosophy was wholly empirical. Nabours turned back at
the edge of the water.
“Keep right after me, men, and keep her a-coming!” he called to the
riders who now were in readiness to take the water. “Don’t try to hold
her against the current. Let her slide down, and keep your horses
swimming. Ef we make that bar we’re all right.
“You, Del, go upstream in front—Cal, get in front below. You’ve got the
hind rope upstream, Len, and Sanchez, you go downstream. Keep her going
just like it was on the ground. She’d orto float some anyway. Come on
now!”
He spurred into the rolling discolored stream. His horse, snorting and
trembling even at the brink, within five yards of the steep bank was in
swimming water; but he headed straight across, gallantly, though carried
steadily downstream.
Stripped to their underclothing, and minus their pistol belts, the men
spurred in. With a sudden plunge the unwieldy craft took the water at
the rear of the horsemen.
“By golly, she floats!” called out a voice on the shore.
Cal Dalhart flung up a hand with a yell. Old Sanchez crossed himself
industriously. But all four of the horses, muzzles flat and nostrils
blowing, followed as best they could the leader who swam ahead, his
saddle horn still showing high. That it was all a mad endeavor, no sane
man could have doubted. But Providence was ever kind to men who dare.
Those remaining on shore watched the strange procession in absolute
silence. Taisie covered her eyes. The plan of the crossing had much good
judgment in it, but only extreme good fortune ever could give it
success. By some kind impulse of its own, the current began to carry the
clumsy contrivance toward the head of the sand bar at midstream,
scarcely more than visible above the surface, but offering great hope to
the swimming horses. The silent watchers at last saw the horse of the
leader plunge upwards and get footing. The two lead horses followed, all
of them still belly deep. The length of the reatas of the rear men
allowed them also to get footing while the great wheels of the cart,
hanging below the edges of the raft, remained floating free. The power
of five horses, even with soft footing under them, finally enabled the
men to drag it to floating water beyond the head of the bar. To their
relief it found temporary anchorage when the wheels caught bottom.
Nabours sat his half-submerged horse, looking studiously out across the
remaining waterway.
“Hold on here, boys, till I try her out,” he commanded. “I think from
here acrost she’s sorter flat. Ef she won’t float the cart, cut out the
logs, splice your ropes and fetch one on acrost to me so we can yank her
through.”
They got floatage for a little way out from the bar, but presently the
raft became a liability and not an asset for them. They cut log after
log free and let it run downstream. Nabours’ horse was no more than
belly deep ahead of them. Four hide reatas, each of forty feet and all
spliced, at last gave them connection with the solid shore. With a great
shout they yanked the first cart up the farther bank.
Nabours rode up to the front of his amphibious vehicle and disclosed
Buck, the negro cook, who had been praying on the floor of the cart, up
to his knees in water part of the time, and now still of grayish
complexion under his natural pigmentation.
“What’s the matter with you, boy?” he demanded. “Climb down out of
there, now, and get things ready for a meal against we get the next cart
acrost.”
It was necessary for the five men to recross the river. After a long
study of both shores for a take-off, they concluded to wade down to the
head of the bar, cross the swimming water from that point, and to land
below the original take-off on the south shore, at a point where the
high bank flattened. Two of the five men knew almost nothing of
swimming. Each man put his life upon the strength and courage of his
horse. Their work was there and it had to be done. They eased their
mounts by slipping out of saddle, swimming downstream and taking tow,
one hand clinging to a saddle thong.
It is enough to say that they did make the recrossing. Taking advantage
of the rebound of the current from the bar, they found footing on the
south bank perhaps a quarter of a mile below the original take-off. Wet,
half-naked, they all whooped on up to the ford head, where all the
remainder of their company were huddled.
“She’s all right, Miss Taisie!” yelled out Nabours. “We can do it plumb
easy. You stay here where you are. I’m going to put Milly and Anita in
the next cart. We’ll swim you over special, on horseback. That’s a heap
safer’n any boat. All you got to do is just to set still on your horse
and let him alone.”
The delay with the second cart was but short. Old Milly, on her knees in
the sand hysterically supplicating her deity, was forcibly assisted to
the seat where already Anita, patiently telling her beads, was seated,
a-waiting fate.
Again they pushed out; once more they made the head of the bar; and this
time, with even less difficulty than at first, finished the second half
of the crossing. For the second time, wet to the skin, the men crossed
back, cursing the luck which had brought them here to meet high water,
but as yet meeting with no mishap. Nabours looked dubiously at the
horses, which had made the crossing twice. The men refreshed themselves
with hot coffee and a hurried bite to eat. The farther camp now was
made, so there would be coffee at each end of the crossing.
But now they must address themselves to the tremendous experiment of
crossing the herd. True, these had had swimming water at the Colorado,
the Brazos, the Trinity; but in each case the farther shore was well in
view of the take-off and the swimming channel narrow. What would the
cattle do now, facing a moving sea of roily water?
“Ready with them fresh horses, men!” called Nabours. “Point the herd in
here. Make them take water just back of me, and throw ’em in spreaded.
All of you act just like it was on the ground. Take your points, you,
Cal and Del! All you swings, ride right above and below just like you
was on the trail. They’ll swing down plenty in the current. Take it easy
and quiet. If any of you gets scared them cows’ll be scared too. Ef they
begin to mill it’ll be hell for every one of us; so keep ’em spread out
and moving. Here’s where we make a cap or shore spoil a coonskin.”
With cracking of horns and tossing of heads, the front of the herd came
shuffling down the shallow draw to the edge of the water, led by a few
lank and rangy steers, old Alamo, the accepted lead steer, still in
front. They were creatures alert and wise as deer, true longhorn stock
of the lower range. Something of the wild instinct blended with their
recent practical education. Crowded by the numbers pushed against them
from the rear, old Alamo shook his head for half an instant, then bent
his knees and plunged in, following the swimming horse on ahead. Some
men still rode the same mounts. Now and then a man lightened ship, by
slipping out of saddle for a time.
One by one, by fives and tens and scores, the other cattle followed the
lead thus established. The inshore leg of the long moving U passed out
and down, the cattle swimming steadily, gently, their muzzles level,
their tails spread. They knew well enough where they were to land.
The stream of the herd seemed almost endless, but when the great U once
was established—the cattle finding footing on the bar at midstream and
wading over the shallows beyond—the line of action was perfectly
apparent to every animal as it was pushed up to the river brink. They
took the water as had those before them, and formed a continuous living
line across the river. It was a magnificent spectacle. It was a triumph
of personal courage combined with knowledge of the art of cows. But
surely fate aided in this first and riskiest crossing of the Red by any
herd passing northbound to the rails.
There was little need of guidance after the first of the herd had
reached the bar in midstream, and here some of the riders turned back to
the south shore, riding up to the take-off. Again and again they took
the water below the swimming stream of cattle. They could see the long
line of the cattle elevate itself like a great parti-colored snake at
the bar, thence writhing along as though upon the ground, and fully
visible as it topped the farther shore. The great adventure seemed in a
fair way to conclude itself upon the side of courage.
The old Del Sol foreman was a good cowman, as good as the next, and
there were few phenomena in the trade of cows with which he was not
familiar. One might have seen him all that day looking up anxiously at
the sky. The heavens were dull and overcast; a bad day to put cattle at
a ford. Rain portended; for long there was no glimpse of the sun. But
had there been any glimpse of the sun the veteran foreman would never
have pushed his herd into the river late in the afternoon, for a reason
which any trail man would have understood.
At that point the river ran almost north and south, so that the course
of the cattle was almost westward. In the evening any rays of the sun
would lie like a path across the water.
But cattle will not swim into the sun. No good trail boss ever undertook
to cross a herd into a sunset. The one hope of Nabours was in a
continuous cloudiness of the evening sky. He did not want the sun to
shine.
But now, as he turned his own anxious face toward the west, he saw a
greater definition of the piling clouds. The lower edge of yonder heavy
bank was tinged with silver. By and by the sun would drop through. Then
its light would lie across the water, straight into the eyes of the
swimming cattle.
The sudden oath of old Jim Nabours had many factors in it—pity for what
he knew might happen, regret for his own hastiness, apprehension for the
property which was not his, resentment at what seemed to him an unjust
fate and a poor reward for the courage which his men had shown. Nature,
always merciless, now seemed mockingly vindictive.
No act of man could affect that which was now to happen. The almost
level rays of the sun did fling their burnished path across the yellow
waters. It was cast straight into the eyes of the drag, some three or
four hundred animals which had not yet crossed the swimming channel. It
half blinded for a moment even the eyes of the men. A floating log came
down among them, caught the upper cattle, swung crosswise.
The line broke. There was a great uptossing of horns, a jumbling of
shoulders as some animals attempted to find floatage on the backs of
others. The spaces were lost, the bodies were packed together in a mass,
struggling, moaning—and steadily passing downstream. The dreaded
swimming mill was on!
Little enough could the bravest or most skilled men do now. What men
could do, the two riders now caught in the mill attempted. They did not
try to swim free of the mass, but drove into it, attempting to break and
point out the mill so that the cattle would find footing somewhere
below. At times the head and shoulders of their ponies showed, climbing
upon the shoulders of the swimming cattle, the men beating with their
quirts, kicking, urging, shouting. But the cattle would not swim into
the sun.
Those upon the nearer shore heard the sound of the rush of waters and a
combined low moan, indescribable. It was hopeless. Not the best efforts
of the entire company could have broken that fatal midstream mêlée. As
though in a dream, Taisie Lockhart, wringing her hands, stood dumb and
saw go forward one of the sudden tragedies of the trail.
“Leave them go, men! Come back! We can’t save them now! Come on out!”
Nabours ordered back his men on the farther side of the bar.
They stood looking at the moving mass which made a dark blot below the
bar, where the current once more headed for the east. Neither head of
horse nor man long showed above the floating island.
“That was Dan and Billy,” said Jim Nabours, the first tears in his eyes
any man had seen there. “I done it my own self! Look at that sun!”
It was dusk when he and half a dozen of his best men once more rode up
the shore to the take-off. Taisie met him, sobbing unreservedly. The
veteran herdsman himself could not speak.