'Why, bless my stars, you don't suppose that Tony is such a tarnation fool as to let them critters stop to smell this here skin, do you? Wait till you see what our cayouses say to it,' Atkins added. 'Now then, steady, will you, quietly,' he said, approaching his own pony. 'Here, Snap, get in front of him and don't let him look round,' he added, and as Snap obeyed him he slipped the rolled-up skin behind his saddle, lashed it firm into its place, and leapt into the saddle as with a snort and a bound the pony shook itself free from Snap's hold.
Then Snap saw some real riding for the first time. Perhaps that pony never got quite six feet off the ground, and perhaps he had not lunched freely on earthquakes, but, to see the way in which he performed, you would have thought so. First, down came his nose between his knees, in spite of his rider's strong hands and the cruel curb; out went his heels like twin cannon balls; and away he went over the prairie, travelling apparently all the time on his forelegs, when he was on the ground at all, which was not often. Really, it did not seem possible that his limbs should remain united. No muscles, you would think, could stand the strain of those furious bucks and kicks. Every moment Snap expected to see the strange figure part in flying fragments, the legs one way, the body another, and Atkins in a third direction. But, though for the second time since his arrival upon the prairie Snap himself got unseated, the cowboy sat tight until he was out of sight of our hero, who, having luckily stuck to his bridle, managed to recover and remount his horse, which had become almost as unmanageable as the one which carried the bear-skin.
Once again in the saddle, Snap made the best of his way after his friend, and some time before nightfall was agreeably surprised to see the ranche in the distance. It must be confessed that he had had no idea that he was near home until he saw the smoke from the ranche chimneys, having been completely 'turned round' as Yankees say. Atkins had been home some time, and the skin was pegged out to dry. Old Wharton laughed until his sides ached at the boy's rueful plight and his very apparent stiffness. 'Ah,' he said, 'I guess the Cradle don't work very easy yet, but my word, boy, if you do want a donkey to gallop or a cayouse to kick, just you put a carrot in front of one or a bear-skin behind the other, and you won't have to wait long, you bet.' In the big corral was a band of about thirty-seven cattle, quite enough after their long drive, and, as Tony said, 'likely to give anyone a nice day's work, branding them to-morrow.'
CHAPTER XII
BRANDING THE 'SCRUBBER'
A rancher's life is not an easy one. The hardest work comes in spring and autumn, when the cattle are 'rounded up,' or gathered together from their feeding-grounds all over the place, and parcelled out amongst the different owners. As the great pastures have no fences to mark off one from another, of course the cattle stray, and the Rosebud herd and the Snake River herd mix with one another, and with individuals belonging to ranches even more distant than these. At the great annual round-up a certain number of cowboys from each ranche in the district meet, and proceed to drive the whole of the neighbouring ranges, collecting a vast mass of cattle as they go.
Each cowboy has about a dozen ponies with him, and in the work of the round-up even this large string is very often used up. For horse and man the work is as severe as human muscle and horseflesh can stand. During the day the men ride round by the banks of every crik, investigate every quiet glen among the hills, sweep over the rolling plains, and little by little gather up the waifs and strays into a huge herd. At night this herd has to be watched, as well as the big band of horses accompanying it.
From time to time along the route the occurrence of one of the big home ranches causes a delay. Here a great corral or enclosure of rough logs has been erected, and smaller pens of a like nature. The whole party camp near the ranche, and the cattle are herded beside it. In the morning comes the chief work of the year. Every cow with a calf at her heel is the subject of careful scrutiny. If she bears the Rosebud brand, the calf belongs to the Rosebud ranche, and has to be caught there and then and branded. If not branded whilst still a calf, the little beast will be lost to the owner, for, once grown up, with no ever-present nurse to point out to whom she belongs, the unmarked heifer belongs to anyone who can catch and brand her. There are always a few scrub cattle on every range—beasts like some of those whose capture has been described in the last two chapters—who had succeeded so far in escaping the cowboy's hot iron.
The work of 'cutting out,' that is, separating, the beasts to be branded from the rest of the herd, is to the cowboy what Rugby Union is to the schoolboy. It is full of excitement, tries every muscle of the horse, every quality, mental or physical, of the rider. This, on a small scale, was the work awaiting Snap on the morrow of his bear-hunt. Amongst the beasts driven in were a few which required to be branded, and, though their capture was mere child's play to the old hands, used to following a dodging heifer through a herd a thousand strong, it was intensely exciting to Snap. How the ponies twisted and turned amongst the crowding beasts, never for one moment losing touch of the animal which they wanted to cut out, was a marvel to him for many a day. Polo on a quick pony is trying to a man's seat, but cattle-driving on a pony which twists like a snipe and doubles like a hare, without any warning to the rider, is even more so.
Having cut out, lassoed, and branded all that were unmarked save one, Tony and Wharton held a consultation as to that one. The men had not much to do; they had just had work enough in the crisp air to 'get their monkey up,' and were ready for anything.