And oh, these “kanaka” horses, with their sure feet! And oh, the wild rushes across grassland that has no pit-falls—gophers and ground-squirrels are unknown—thudding over the dustless, cushioned turf, hurdling the taller growth, whirling “on a cowskin” to cut off stray or willful stock, and making headlong runs after the racing herd. All the while taking commands from General Daddy, and sitting tight our eager horses, streaking the landscape in ordered flight to head off the runaways, the young girls with hair flying, sombreros down backs, cheeks glowing, eyes sparkling, utterly devoted to the work in hand.
Miles we covered, doubling back and forth, searching out the bellowing kine; up and down steep canyons we harried them, along narrow soft-sliding trails on stiff inclines, turning to pathless footing to keep them going in the right direction. And the farther afield we rode, the farther beckoned the reaches of that deceptive mountain.
At last the droves were converged toward a large gate not far from the outlying corrals, and after a lively tussle we rounded up all but one recalcitrant—a quarter-grown, black-and-white calf that outran a dozen of us for half an hour before we got him.
Promptly followed the segregation of those to be marked; the throwing of calves in the dusty corral, and their wild blatting when the cowboys trapped them neck and thigh, with the lasso; the restless circling of the penned victims waiting their turns; the trained horses standing braced against lariats thrown from their backs into the seething mass; the rising, pungent smoke of burning hair and hide as the branding irons bit; then frantic scrambling of the released ones to lose themselves in the herd.
We sat fence-high on a little platform overlooking the strenuous scene, and when the branding was finished, the colt-breaking began, in which the Von Tempsky children took intense interest, as did we. Their father superintended his efficient force of native trainers in the work of handling three-year-old colts that had never known human restraint, which made a Buffalo Bill show seem tame indeed. For breathless hours we watched the making of docile saddlers, all being finally subdued but one, which threatened to prove an “outlaw.” After the “buck” has been taken out of the young things, they are tied up all night to the corral fence, and in the morning are expected to be tractable, with all tendency to pull back knocked out of them forever.
“And some are sulky, while some will plunge,
(So ho! Steady! Stand still, you!)
Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge,
(There! There! Who wants to kill you!)
Some—there are losses in every trade—