“We have different remedies, which only half do their work, but the best that I know of is cresylic ointment. In order to apply it, however, the animal must be roped and sometimes thrown down.”
“It looks as if the cowboy has more work than play in his business,” said Nick, with a laugh.
Strubell turned and stared at him a moment, as if pitying his ignorance.
“If you have any doubt about it, just try it for six months or a year. We spend most of our time in the saddle from daylight till dark. When on the trail, our diet is bacon, bread, and coffee, and not overmuch of that. I have gone twenty hours without a mouthful, for the simple reason that I hadn’t the time to ride to the cook wagon to get it. When one pony gave out, I jumped on another and rode him like a house afire.”
“What was the cause for such hard work?”
“Chiefly stampedes, which set the animals wild. When following the Old Cattle Trail, northward through Texas and Kansas, I have had five thousand cattle scattered to every point of the compass by a thunder-storm, despite all we could do to keep them together. Sometimes they become crazy for water, start bellowing on a full run, and crowd into the first stream so fast that a hundred or two are drowned; then, when the night is still and no air stirring, nor the slightest cause, so far as you can see, exists for alarm, something will set them off again. The only explanation that I could ever think of was that the animals are troubled now and then with bad dreams, and by their cavorting frighten the others out of their wits.”
“They must be guarded carefully at night?”
“Certainly; our men are divided into three reliefs, which makes it a little harder than we have it now. When the stampede breaks out, the riders have no let up night or day till the cattle are brought together again. Then, too, the Kiowas or Comanches may take it into their heads to try a little cattle speculation. They are all fine horsemen and rifle-shots, and a half dozen of the scamps can make things as lively on a dark night as a nest of hornets. However, we like it for all that,” said the Texan, “because it’s the only business we know; but these big cattle owners, that are fencing in most of Texas with their barbed wire, will soon take it away from us.”
At this juncture, Lattin touched his pony with his spur, and placed him alongside the others.