"sign" that arrested my attention and raised hope in my breast,--the
tracks of a big fat buck! He had crossed the river-bottom diagonally,
and his trail plainly told me all about him: the great width of and the
distance between his tracks proclaimed his sex and size, and their depth
in the ground his weight. He had been going at an easy trot; the glaze
on them was bright, their edges unbroken; not a speck of drifted dust
was on them; they were as fresh as new paint. They were not an hour old.
In imagination I smelt roasted venison, and instantly started in
pursuit. I followed on the tracks until within an hour of sunset, but
never got even a glimpse of the deer; and by that time his trail had
brought me to the bank of a stream flowing down one of the side valleys.
The buck browsing here and there, but never stopping long in one place,
had led me a wide circuit through and over valley and ridges. He had not
seen or smelled me, however, since none of his movements showed that he
had been alarmed.
The stream, at the place where the deer's track led to it, was unusually
wide, consequently slack in current, and therefore frozen over. The snow
still lay on the ice, and the buck's track, where he had crossed, looked
but just made. The ice seemed firm, and I started to cross the creek.
About ten feet from shore, bang through I went, waist deep, into the
cold water, and broke and scrambled my way back with great difficulty,
and with noise enough to frighten into a gallop any wild animal that
might be within a quarter of a mile of me.
It was very disagreeable, very annoying, and _very_ cold; and my clothes
beginning to freeze on me, I started for camp at a brisk walk.
Just as the sun was going down I passed near to where the turkeys had
flown off to roost. It struck me that by watching there a short time I
might see them return to the same or a neighboring roost, knowing they
often do so. This, however, was very cold work, my clothes being in a
half-dried, half-frozen condition; and I was just going to give it up,
when I heard the faint distant report of a rifle. The sound redoubled my
attention, since I supposed that game was stirring.
In a few minutes I heard the quick sharp alarm call of the turkey, the
unmistakable pit-pit, and saw four of them sail off from the edge of the
cliff, at about sixty yards' distance from me, into the top branches of
the trees forming one of the groups in the valley below. Drawing gently
back, and keeping as much as possible under cover, I made my way down
into the valley, and started in the direction of the grove of trees in
which the turkeys had settled.
It was getting dark, and I had gone but a short way, when, at a distance
of about two hundred yards in front, a most extraordinary-looking object
presented itself to my view. It looked like a haycock on legs with the
handle of a pitchfork sticking out of it; it was steadily advancing
through the gloom to where I stood, and arrived quite close to me before
I could quite make out what it was. It proved to be my companion, with
two turkeys tied together by the legs and slung over his shoulder across
his rifle. The wind coming up the valley and blowing the feathers out in
all directions had given the turkeys in the gloaming the extraordinary
appearance that had astonished me so much. I gave a low whistle, and he
joined me; I pointed to the turkeys in the trees. He dropped those he
already had, hung them up out of wolf reach, and together we cautiously
crept under the four roosting turkeys.
The light was very bad for rifle-shooting, but our front sights were of
ivory, and our birds were skyed; so drawing the best beads we could, we
fired simultaneously, and with great success, two fine birds dropping
dead at our feet,--the others making off.
We congratulated each other, and started for camp with four fat
turkeys,--and fat indeed they were, for they had been feeding all autumn
on walnuts, hickory-nuts, grapes, sweet acorns, and pinons, at--or
rather I suspect without--discretion.
We had a long trudge home, the turkeys getting apparently heavier every
mile. As we tramped along my companion related his day's experience.
About noon he had come upon the fresh tracks of some turkeys feeding
along one of the ridges, and had followed the birds until within about
three hours of sunset, when, on peeping into an open glade, he saw
fourteen of them scattered over it, picking up seeds and strutting
about. As the turkeys seemed to be approaching him, he lay quite still,
watching them through the thicket which concealed him. Ultimately they
got quite close, giving many fair opportunities to shoot one. But he was
determined not to fire unless necessary, preferring to wait for an
occasion to present itself enabling him to kill two at one shot,--a very
rare chance to obtain. He said it was most interesting to lie there at
his ease and watch the motions and movements of the birds as they fed
about and spread themselves in fancied security. At last his opportunity
came, and firing without a moment's delay, he floored his birds, taking
the head of the nearest clean off, and shooting the farther one through
the body at the butt of his wings. This was the shot I had heard. I then
told him what I had seen, and what had befallen me, and we got home
quite done up, but rejoicing at our good luck.
Supper was waiting, and this meal, a blazing fire, and the pipe of
peace, recruited us after our fatigues.
We had been very careful and sparing in the use of our spirits, not
knowing how long it might be before we should be able to get a fresh
supply, or what necessity might arise for their use; but this was
considered an occasion when the flowing bowl ought to be indulged in, so
grogs all round were mixed and our success celebrated. When this
interesting ceremony had been concluded, my companion remarked to me,
"Our luck has evidently turned, and, as gamblers always do, we ought to
press our good fortune while it lasts. We have got our Christmas
turkeys; no doubt the buck you followed is destined to grace our
Christmas dinner. I am the man to kill it. Daylight shall see me on his
track. You will behold my face no more until I return with the haunches
of the big buck." Then he turned in and I quickly followed his example.
At the time I had not the remotest idea that my comrade really intended
to put his threat into execution; I thought he was "gassing," and put it
down to the credit of the flowing bowl.
Next morning I awoke at my usual time,--daybreak,--got out of my
blankets, arose, stirred the fire into a great blaze and turned my back
to it to get a good warm. I looked for my companion,--his blankets were
empty; I glanced towards the arms,--his rifle and belt were gone; I felt
his blankets,--they were cold. He had consequently been gone for some
time.
I made a cast round, and struck his fresh tracks going in the direction
of our last day's tramp. He had "gone for" the big buck. For my part,
I was too tired to stir that day. Though then as hard as nails, and
in first-rate condition and training, I was thoroughly done up and
quite stiff--"played out"--with the previous day's wetting and walking,
so remained in camp, and spent the time in helping to make the
plum-pudding, dress and stuff the turkeys, and in resting,--principally
in resting.
Night came, but not my comrade. I was not exactly uneasy about him, for
he was a first-rate hunter and mountaineer; but many are the unexpected
accidents that may happen to a lone wanderer in the wilderness.
I piled the wood on the fire and sat waiting for him until near
midnight. Then I began to think I was foolish to do so, and had better
go to sleep. Just as I was turning in the dogs ran out, frisking and
capering, into the darkness. I heard the whistle of my comrade, and he
strode into the light of the camp-fire. On his back, in a sling
extemporized out of the skin of the deer, were the hind-quarters of a
big buck. It was not yet twelve, and though a close shave on being
Christmas-day, our bill of fare was filled. Some more flowing bowl.
At breakfast the following day my companion narrated to us the story of
his late hunt, as nearly as may be, in the following words:
He said, "By daylight I was where you came to grief by breaking through
the ice, with this difference, that I was upon the other side of the
creek, having crossed it higher up by means of a beaver dam. Being a
cold trail, I pushed ahead sharply, keeping a good lookout, and in a
little over two hours came to where the buck had lain down to pass the
dark of the night. There being no morning moon, I knew he had not
stirred before sunrise, and might, therefore, be browsing, or standing
under some tree quite near; so continued my way most cautiously, never
following the tracks when they crossed an open, unless obliged to do so
on account of the ground being frozen hard, so that it often took me a
long time to get his trail again after leaving it; but I knew, if the
buck once saw or got a sniff of me, he might run ten miles without
stopping.
"About eleven o'clock I sighted him. I was peeping cautiously out of a
thicket, at whose edge I had just arrived, into a large park-like glade,
and saw him under a big white-oak-tree, eating the acorns. There was no
cover between me and where the buck stood, so I could not risk trying to
get nearer to him except by making a long detour, and the nearest edge
of the timber I was in was too far off him to risk a shot from. There
was, therefore, nothing for it but to sit down and wait until he pleased
to move on or lie down, and so give me a chance to get nearer. Being
hungry, I utilized the time by eating my luncheon, and then fell to
smoking. Well, he kept me there over an hour, and then started off in a
straight line in a trot. As he took a bee-line for the river, I knew
what he was after: he was going to take his 'little drink.' I, too,
should have liked to indulge in a little drink, to wash down my
luncheon.
"As soon as the buck was well under way I started at the double, on a
parallel course, hoping to get a shot at him in the river's bottom. I
crossed the open ground of a valley in a bend that was above and out of
sight of the course he was taking, got into the cover along the river's
bank, and followed it down, but saw nothing of him. By and by I came to
where the buck had drunk. He had there crossed the river and gone
straight on at a long easy trot towards the Sierra Verde.
"Should he intend going up the mountain my chance of seeing him again
that day was over; if he was going to feed in the pinon ridges, then
careful stalking and the avoidance of all mistakes would make him my
meat. I could not afford to lose time by going to a beaver dam to cross,
so at once peeled and waded over.
"After going about two miles, the buck's tracks showed he had
subsided into a walk, and then almost immediately turned, to my great
satisfaction, into the pinon-ridge country, in which, after about an
hour's careful stalking, I sighted him again. He was strolling along,
feeding; but it was getting pretty well on towards sunset before I was
able to approach close enough to him to care to fire a shot, for I had
taken so much trouble that I was determined to incur no risk I could
avoid, but have patience until I had a certainty of killing him in his
tracks. At last he stopped to browse in a little open, oval table-land,
on the summit of a cedar ridge.
"The ridge-top was nowhere over a hundred yards across, and was
surrounded with a thick fringe of dwarf cedars. Peeping through one of
these dwarf cedars, I could see the deer's broad fat quarters about
forty yards in front of me. The buck was slowly walking from where I
stood concealed. I put my cap in a fork of the cedar, laid my
rifle-barrel on it, brought its stock to my shoulder, and bleated like a
doe.
"The big buck stopped, turned his body half round, his head wholly so,
and looked straight towards me with his head down.
"I drew a careful bead between his eyes, and dropped him--stone-dead!
"I ran up to bleed him, feeling quite relieved and glad at so successful
a termination of ten hours' difficult hunting. I had not noticed it
while engrossed by the interest of pursuit, but now found I was very
hungry, and so lit a fire at once, that there might be roasting-coals
ready by the time I had skinned my deer.
"I was soon enjoying a jolly rib-roast, making a tremendous meal, and
recruiting myself for the tramp of from twelve to fifteen miles lying
between me and the camp."
So, after all, we had our Christmas dinner according to programme, and a
capital one it was, too.
The turkeys were _a merveille_, the venison delicious; for the big
buck--he was nearly as big as a Mexican burro-deer--was very fat indeed.
It is only the man who has eaten _really_ fat wild venison who knows
what good venison _really_ is. The kidneys were completely covered with
tallow, and my companion assured us that the buck cut nearly an inch of
fat on the brisket. The quarters had been hung out to freeze all night,
and were thawed in melted snow-water before being cooked, and so were
quite tender.
The plum-pudding was over a foot in diameter; we could hardly pull it
out of the pot. It was as good as possible, and followed by a bowl of
punch, our punch-bowl being for the nonce a tin bucket; not to mince
matters, it was our horses' watering-bucket, which, though not elegant,
was capacious, and the only utensil we had capable of holding the amount
of punch the occasion called for.
No holly grew in the country, but the bright red berries of the Indian
arrow-wood and of the bearberry-bush made beautiful substitutes, and
there were more evergreens in sight than entire Christendom could have
made use of, so our camp was profusely and gayly decorated. Altogether
the day was well and duly celebrated, and it is marked with a white
stone in the calendar of my memory.
A COLORADO "ROUND-UP."
ALFRED TERRY BACON.
[Among picturesque scenes of American life there are few to
surpass those to be seen on the cattle ranges of the West, the
home of the cow-boy, and of a mode of life widely removed from
the quiet conditions of ordinary civilization. We append a
description of daily scenes during a cattle "drive."]
By a fortunate circumstance I first saw that pastoral pageant known in
the West as a "round-up" among the most picturesque surroundings that
could have been chosen for it even in Colorado. In the northern counties
the abrupt line of the Rocky Mountain foot-hills has nearly a
north-and-south direction. From their base the grass-country rolls away
in great brown undulations with a general downward slope towards the
east for twenty miles, to the depression in the Plains through which the
South Platte flows northward. Beyond the river the land rises again with
an easy slope for several miles. It is from the side of this rise of
ground that the superb panoramic view of the Rocky Mountain range is
seen in perfection. More than two hundred miles it stretches in sight,
from the masses vaguely seen beyond the snowy shoulders of Pike's Peak
to the lower mountains across the border of Wyoming.
At a considerable height on this slope runs a canal for irrigation, led
out from the swiftly-descending Platte some miles above. One brilliant
evening in July, a procession of wagons, each with its arched covering
of canvas tinted by the sunset light, moved up the ascent to the bank of
the ditch. The wagons were drawn up in line, about a hundred feet apart,
and in five minutes each driver had unharnessed and "hobbled" his horses
and a bright row of camp-fires were dancing in the twilight. The wagons
were late in making a camp. Usually they precede the herd by several
hours; but now close following is heard the lowing of the cattle, a
slowly swelling volume of sound, as the drove approaches. At a spot a
quarter of a mile from camp, where a level interrupts the general slope,
the herd is massed together, or, in technical phrase, "bunched," and
with the approach of darkness gradually all lie down for the night. One
by one the herders drop away to camp as the cattle grow quiet, till but
two are left riding in opposite directions about the sleeping herd, each
singing vigorously, for the double purpose of warding off sleep and
keeping the herd aware of their guard. The songs are continued by the
successive watches till dawn, each singer pursuing his tune with a
glorious independence of harmony with his mate; yet in the distance, as
we sit beside the camp-fire or in waking moments at night, it is a
cheerful, vigilant sound. In the cow-boy's dialect, "singing to 'em" has
become a synonymous expression for night-herding.
[Illustration: SUNRISE FROM THE SUMMIT OF PIKE'S PEAK]
Before the day's work is finished, there is a cry heard not far away,
"Ropes! ropes!" Two men start up from the resting groups and form a sort
of temporary corral by stretching ropes from a wagon, and into it is
driven the great herd of saddle-horses, to be "hobbled" for the night.
Then the supper is served,--hastily cooked and hastily eaten. There is
little comfort about it. A kind of lengthened tail-board is let down at
the end of each wagon and supported by props. All the men of an
"outfit"--that is, those banded to work together and share the use of
one wagon--gather about this rude table and devour the meal, as they
stand, with the lion's appetite which only a wholly out-door life can
give.
Each "outfit" carries its tent, for use in bad weather; but with a
dewless night and a dry soil no one cares to stake a tent after fourteen
hours of hard riding. As soon as darkness has fairly settled over the
earth, we are all rolled in our blankets side by side on the ground as
peaceful as a row of mummies. Over us the heaven seems to glitter with a
million stars not seen in lower countries, and sleep soon comes to the
eyes turned upward towards its infinite calm. At intervals through the
night the second, third, and "cocktail" reliefs will be called to go on
duty: all hands must take their turns at night-herding.
With the first intimation of daylight the camp-fires are again dancing
in line. By each a cook begins his breakfast preparations. Long before
the appearance of the sun all the camp is astir; bedding is rolled and
packed away ready for transportation. In the universal freshness of dawn
the view westward from the hill is glorious. Through the meadows just
below us winds the Platte, shaded by noble groves of cottonwood, the
home of ten thousand meadow-larks, and already in the starry twilight
they have begun a choral symphony of innumerable voices....
But the light of the sun has hardly crept down the hill to touch the
tree-tops, still ringing with the morning song, before the hurried
standing breakfast at the camp is over and each man has been appointed
to his work by the captain of the "round-up." Three or four are named to
guard the herd already gathered; some will have special care of the
horses; all others, except the men in charge of wagons, are appointed to
go "out on circle." Then follows a general saddling of horses, and,
while the shadows still lie long across the plain, knots of horsemen,
three or four abreast, strike out across the prairie on lines radiating
in all directions from the camp. They will ride out on their courses for
about five miles, except where the space is limited on the west by the
river, and then, turning back, will drive in towards the centre, or, as
they say, will "circle in," or "round up," all the cattle found in that
district, a space with a diameter of ten miles. It is this operation
carried on day after day over many thousand square miles of country
which gives the name "round-up" to the annual gathering of the cattle on
the Plains....
The long, hot morning wastes away, unvaried by any event but the
changing phases of the mirage and the gathering of cloud-puffs over the
mountains. But when the sun has climbed within an hour or two of the
meridian, some one less drowsy than the rest shouts, "They're coming!"
Across the prairie where he points there is no living thing in sight,
but beyond the most distant ridge a great dust-column seems to touch the
sky and stand motionless. Then on the opposite horizon we catch sight of
another cloud of dust, then another, and another appears, till the
circle of approaching herds is complete. Presently the leaders of a
procession mount the ridge. The long line of cattle comes steadily on.
Half are lost to sight in the hollows of the prairie, half are seen on
the crests of the swelling ground. Up and down the line gallop the
horsemen, urging and guiding the cattle. When the first sound from the
herd reaches the ear, it is like a long trumpet-blast. Among the
multitudes that are approaching there is not one but utters some sound
of protest at this sudden infringement of the liberties of his wild
life. The bellowing of the bulls, the lowing of the cows, the bleating
of the calves, all are blended into a musical murmur in which no single
voice can be distinguished.
With the advance of the cattle the deep note grows louder by almost
imperceptible degrees, but at last, when the lines begin to be driven
together at the centre, it has increased to a deafening uproar.
Conversation is impossible; orders are shouted as in a storm at sea.
When the converging processions have come so near that the animals can
be distinguished, it is interesting to look closely at the passing
lines, in which every breed and size and color of cattle is represented,
from the small tawny Texas cow, as wild as a deer, to the large
high-bred Durham bull that paces heavily along nodding his head at
every step with an aristocratic air of self-satisfaction. The leaders
of a herd are always the strong, fat steers, walking with a quick
step, carrying their heads erect, and glancing about with restless
eyes,--powerful, swift animals, ready when anything startles them to
break into a stampede that will try the mettle of the best horses in the
effort to stop them.
To one who has only known cattle in the Eastern States from watching
working-oxen crawling along a road a mile and a half in an hour, or mild
old dairy-cows loafing home from pasture at night, these spirited wild
cattle seem a different race of animals. A new-comer to the plains can
hardly believe that cattle are capable of great speed; but let him help
in driving a herd for a few days, and his opinion is changed. A small
calf lagging in the rear of a herd is sometimes seized with an insane
notion that his mother has been left behind if he loses sight of her
for a moment. He starts backward on the trail, "like a streak of greased
lightning," his pursuer would say. An accomplished cow-boy is often
baffled for some time in such a chase. His horse, of course, will
outstrip a calf in a long run; but just when he has headed him off, the
exasperating little brute will dodge like a hare, and, while the horse
is carried on by his impetus, the calf is off again as fast as ever in
search of his forsaken parent. I have known a "tender-foot" to disappear
over the bluffs on such a chase in the middle of the afternoon and
return at night crestfallen, to acknowledge himself vanquished by a most
insignificant little calf.
After the leaders of the herd generally follow the young stock,--the
yearlings and two-year-olds,--with the fat dry cows scattered along
the line; then the multitude of cows followed by calves; and last the
lagging new-born calves, attended and coaxed along by fussy old mothers.