DAD WAS WELL SET up. A long white tent covered the mess wagon, the stove and a long folding table, The steel range was banked with earth around its base and an asbestos ring protected the tent where the stovepipe went through it. Working at the board in the mess wagon was Dad himself, in spotless white and rolling out pie crust with a beer bottle filled, he assured me, with spring water!
For unlike Charley Russell, the cowboy artist, Dad can make pastry. Charley in the early days was cooking with an outfit and decided to try his hand at pies. The next day two of the dogs were dead and most of the men and the other dogs were laid out good and proper.
“So the old man,” says Russell, “he came around to me, gentle-like but firm, and he says: ‘You’re a good boy, Charley, and we all like you. And you’re a fair-to-middlin’ cook, too, and I’m not complainin’. But in the future I’d be thankful if you’d stick to meat and potatoes, and for God’s sake keep your hand off pastry!”
But we were not ready for Dad. The first duty on the range is to care for one’s horse. One is a tenderfoot indeed who does not know how to unsaddle, for instance, and where; to lay the saddle on its side, to fold the saddle blanket with the moist side in to keep it soft, and to place the bridle neatly on the top.
But the round-up has its own convention of unsaddling, at that. With the arrival of the bed wagon at the camp site, our wrangler had at once set up his rope corral. Tying the center of a long rope to one of the wagon wheels he had carried it out on crotched sticks until he had a circular rope enclosure with an open end, or gate, at one side. Our first duty, then, was to unsaddle outside this-impromptu corral and to line up our saddles neatly near the entrance. But that day our horses were turned loose, and we stood by to watch them.
It is a poor heart which does not swell a bit when tired horses, freed of saddles or of packs, lie down to roll their weary bodies on the ground. And these Western horses have so little and work so hard; they must climb, carrying their burden of pack saddle or of man, up cliffs I would not dare to try afoot; must slide, with slipping rock and treacherous shale, down steep descents with every muscle tense. Only the pampered few can have grain; most of them have only grass and that what they can pick up for themselves. Yet so strong is the strain left by the early explorers, with their Spanish or Arabian animals, that these grass-fed range horses can outwork and outlast our eastern thoroughbred stock. Only the fit have survived and bred, and the result is an extraordinary vitality, plus the intelligence of all creatures who have largely to fend for themselves.
So we stood by to watch them, first as they drank and then as they rolled. Standing in the little creek, some drank sedately; others, like naughty children, splashed and pawed the water, then lay down in it. Their thirst quenched, they rolled on the ground, scratching their sweaty, saddle-worn backs. Their sixty sets of legs were in the air at one time, all colors, all lengths. The hot sun shone on their gleaming shoes, clouds of dust rose above them, and like a chorus of relief came to our ears their gruntings, snorts and plaintive whinnyings. Yes, there is something wrong with us when it does not mean anything to see a tired horse roll upon the ground.
And now we have set our stage; the long cook tent, with the stovepipe rising through an asbestos ring in the canvas, and, at a discreet distance, our own tepees, white—and hot—in the sun; down the hill a bit, near the creek, the rope corral and the bed wagon; wood being cut and water drawn near by; and in the midst of the herd mounted men getting ready for the night. They drive the other loose horses to a green meadow near by, where the nighthawk will watch them, moving them slowly along toward higher ground and napping in his saddle when they lie down, between, say, eleven-thirty and two. He will choose for this purpose a horse which can see well in the dark.
All night horses are carefully chosen for this ability, for there is a great difference in horses in this regard. I have ridden them when I could not see the ground beneath their feet, only to have them pick out the trail unerringly. But once or twice I have had animals who grew confused, who stumbled and hesitated, conveying to me their own helplessness and insecurity.
A horse is practically never wrong in his sense of direction. Again and again I have given one his head to test this out. But his instinct ends there. Unless he knows the road by experience, has actually traveled it, he will often lose it and start directly back, to bring one up unexpectedly at the edge of a rim-rock cliff, perhaps, or against the wire with no suspicion of a gate.
Only yesterday Prince and I had an argument on this matter. We had circled the top of the Red Canon and were some thousand-odd feet above the ranch when twelve o’clock came. Now, at twelve o’clock hay is spread in one of the corrals for the horses. And Prince looked at me and said flatly that it was noon and lunchtime.
“Very well,” I said. “Try it and see what you can do.”
So I gave him his head and he threw his ears up and started for the top of the cliff. Maybe he could have made it; I don't know. But I could not, and I told him so. And he sulked all the way round and down!
So below us the night horses are being hobbled and the preparations for the next day begin. Some of the men ride off to take a sort of general survey of the situation; Burton comes up on the little devil of a buckskin which provided considerable excitement during the whole period of the round-up. Burton is a “rep”—that is, he represents another outfit, his own, which also runs cattle here. As any round-up gathers in all the cattle to be found and then cuts out and brands its own calves, Burton is here to look after his own interests, to mark his own if any turn up, and generally to lend a hand when it is needed.
A cowboy from another outfit rides by, on his way over the divide, and announces a small forest fire a few valleys over.
“How far?” I ask languidly.
“Ten miles or so.”
I subside again upon my back. It is too far; let it burn, or let somebody else put it out. Only let me stay where I am, to drink the lemonade Dad has made in a great tin pail, and to sit quiet on something which neither walks, trots nor canters.
Late that night I sat up in my tepee and made careful notes on the events of the day. My light was a candle stuck in the top of an empty tomato can, my desk was my pillow, held on my lap. Somewhere in the bedding beneath me were my toilet articles, my fresh riding shirts and my pajamas. But I did not hunt them out. After a time I took off my hat and my boots and spurs and, putting my desk under my head, blew out the candle and went to sleep.