In Utah a cattleman got married in the glow of summer time,
Married a buxom Mormon girl, warm heart and manner kind.
And as the autumnal sun began to tinge things red,
He rounded up his cattle herd and to his bride he said:
"Come hither, dear, and kiss me and sit upon my lap,
For I am going a lengthy journey with my cows and steers that's fat.
I'm going on the Overland with a special, long stock train."
His bride, she wept and trembled and said, "I'll ne'er see you again.
O Jake, my darling husband, give up this wrong design,
If you must go east with cattle, then try some other line,
For I have heard the stockmen talking and this is what they say,
That if you drive your stock to market, that then there's no delay.
But if you get a special train, the railroad has a knack
Of letting you do your running when your train is on a sidetrack.
Some stockmen they have starved to death, and others grow so old
That none knew them on their return, so frequent I've been told."
But Jake was young and hearty and his mind was full of zeal
To load his beef on a special and eastward take a spiel.
So he started with his steers and cows in the golden autumn time.
Some neighbors also loaded theirs; the cattle were fat and fine.
But they run the stock on the Overland, so slow and awful bum
That stockmen get old and care-worn, staying with a special run.
Their wives get weary waiting for hubby's coming home
And flirt with the nearest preacher who drops in when they're alone.
Jake's wife was no exception, and, as time went by, she said,
"If Jake was alive I know he'd come back; he surely must be dead."
The good woman put on mourning and mourned for quite a time,
But when thus she'd done her duty, she suddenly ceased to pine,
And when a Gentile-Mormon preacher dropped in one night to tea
She put on her new dress of gingham and was chipper as she could be;
Had him eating her pies and jellies that she knew how to make,
Had him sit in the easy rocker, without ever a thought of Jake.
And when the twins got drowsy, she packed them off to bed,
Sat and played checkers with the bishop, just as though poor Jake was dead.
When she jumped in the preacher's king-row, and had eight men to his five,
She cared not (she was so excited) whether Jake was dead or alive.
But at four o'clock next morning, she roused from sleep with a scream;
She'd seen Jake pushing behind a stock train in this early morning dream.
And that evening when the lusty preacher came hanging around again,
He got but a scanty welcome, for she thought of the special train.
For a time she was silent and thoughtful, the dream an impression had made,
She could still see Jake pushing the special, as it slowly climbed the grade.
Now we know how the brave-hearted Jake with the stock train had to stay,
How he camped by her side night times as on a sidetrack she lay.
We know how he pushed so manfully whene'er she climbed a hill,
In fact every one pushed, even the sheepmen, Cottswool and Rambolet Bill;
How hunger and famine o'ertook them as slowly they crawled along,
Their hearts almost broke with home-longing when Jackdo sung a home song.
Eyes filled with tears that were unbidden, hearts o'erflowing with pain—
No pen can paint their sorrow as they stayed with this special stock train.
The passing of poor old Chuckwagon, who slowly starved to death,
On account of the smell of the sheepmen, he couldn't get his breath;
Their camping ahead of the special after they had buried Chuck,
The washing away of the sheepmen, who surely were out of luck.
They lived in snow huts on the mountain that's known as Sherman Hill,
Where the last was seen of the sheepmen, Cottswool and Rambolet Bill;
Their arrival at the Windy City that's known as the dead Shyann,
Some things about Burt and Warren and mayhap another man.
And now with their party diminished by old age, privation and death,
They still kept plodding on eastward, what of the party was left
Till Jake talking with wandering sheepmen, who had trailed by his cabin home.
Heard of the scandalous preacher, who came when his wife was alone;
Heard of the nightly playing of checkers when the twins were safely in bed,
About his wife all the neighbors were talking, her claiming that Jake was dead.
Finally through very home-sickness, he started to take the back track,
And because he was in such a hurry, he rode all the way horse-back.
Arriving in sight of his meadows, a-waving fresh and green,
The alfalfa growing the highest that Jake had ever seen;
Two red-headed boys the hay were pitching; their mother was hauling it in.
There was only one blot on the landscape that made Jake feel like sin.
'Twas our Gentile-Mormon bishop in the shade of his old umbreller.
With his long-tailed coat and eye glasses, he looked like Foxy Quiller.
When Jake got close to the bishop he booted him out the field,
The house dog and twins, with their hayforks, finished making the elder spiel.
Then Jake gathered his family around him, work was laid by for the day,
They told all their joys and their sorrows, so I've finished my lay.
Moral.
The old-fashioned Enoch Arden story was a tale well told;
I can't approach or rival it, nor make a claim so bold.
But the ending of my cowboy Enoch Arden I really like the best,
For he fired the interloper out the modern Arden nest.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
Grand Island.
Before we arrived at Grand Island we learned from Jackdo that most cowmen unloaded their cattle there and drove them back and forth through the stockyards awhile in order to accumulate a large amount of mud on them. This Grand Island mud is very adhesive and once steers is thoroughly immersed in it the mud sticks to them for weeks and helps very materially in their weight. A shipper told him that before he stopped at Grand Island he used to wonder what cattlemen meant by filling their cattle at Grand Island, but now he knew it was filling their hair full of mud. Sometimes he said the mud was a little too thick, kind of chunky and fell off, and sometimes it had too much water in it and drained off, more or less. But when it was mixed just right it would settle into their hair like concrete cement. It's quite dark in color, fortunately, and if they've had a rain it is easy to get pens where you can immerse your cattle all over and thus make them the color of the Galloways, which is the most fashionable color for cattle in the market.
He said there was cases where cattlemen had got a good fill on Grand Island mud and sold their cattle weighed up there to feeders who put them on full feed for six months and they weighed less in the market than to start with, because the feeders had curried the mud off them. Sometimes he said after people left Grand Island with their cattle and before the mud got well set, there would come a hard rain on them and the mud washed off in streaks and gave the cattle kind of a zebra appearance. Especially was this true where the cattle had originally been white. He said we would be expected to order some hay and pay for it and get the mud for nothing. It was just like a boot-jack saloon, where you bought a high-priced peppermint drop and got a pint of whiskey throwed in.