Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

by G. A. Henty

"I stopped just a week at it," he said, "and what with being thrown off a horse twenty times a day, and what with the work, and what with the goings-on of the boys, I had enough of it by that time. I had been in one or two Indian fights, and I didn't feel scared then, but those cow-boys scared me pretty nigh to death. The way they let off their pistols was a caution. Four or five times, when I was sitting quiet, smoking, bang! and a revolver bullet would knock my pipe into chips, and then they laughed fit to kill themselves when I got up and swore. Then without the least reason, someone, as we were all sitting round the fire, would take it into his head to hit a little bit of flaming wood, then half a dozen others would go at it, and the bits of fire would be sent flying in all directions, and how it was that none of them got killed was more than I could make out. I stood it for the week, and then I weakened. I had got that nervous that I would jump if a fellow moved suddenly, and I concluded that I was not made the same way as the cow-boys, and had better quit and take to some other job."

"I reckon you were about right there," Bill Royce said. "Anyone as is thinking of going for a cow-boy, had best know how to ride, how to throw a rope, and how to draw his pistol as quick as lightning, before he begins."

The next day Hugh asked the teamster to bring him up from the town a rope, such as the cow-herders used.

"This will do," Bill Royce said, as he examined it. "The cow-boys and Mexicans both use ropes sometimes, but they chiefly make them themselves from strips of raw hide, which they work and grease until they run almost as easy as if they were made of silk. Yes, this is the right length, forty feet. Some men will use fifty, and I have known Mexicans who would throw a sixty-foot length with certainty; but that is quite out of the way; forty feet is the right length. I will splice one end into an eye for you, the other goes through it, and makes a running noose. When you throw it, the loop is three or four feet across. Of course, the better you can throw, the smaller you can have the loop, and the smaller it is the better, for the jerk comes all the quicker before the horse or steer is prepared for it. Now, you see that stump of a young tree sticking up two feet above the ground. Well, you form your loop, and you gather the rest in coils in your hand like this, and you stand, to begin with, twenty feet away, and you cast the loop over the stump—so."

Of an evening, when supper was over, Hugh went out and practised with the rope, and at the end of a month found that he could throw it at a distance of thirty feet with a fair certainty of dropping the loop over the stump. He also took Royce's advice as to the pistol. He had laid it by since arriving at M'Kinney; but he now got a belt similar to those worn by the cow-boys, and took to carrying the pistol in it, but unloaded, and at odd moments practised drawing from the belt, levelling it, and pulling the trigger with the greatest possible speed. The action seemed simple enough, but he was surprised to find how, with practice, the time taken in doing it diminished, and his fingers came to close upon the handle in exactly the right position almost instantaneously, and as his hand shot out, his thumb drew back the hammer, and his forefinger closed on the trigger. All this he had practised before, more or less, when he had learned to use the weapon in the conservatory at Byrneside, but at that time it had not appeared probable the accomplishment would be of any use. Now he knew that his life might depend upon it, and he came in time to be able to perform it, with, as Royce had said, something of the sleight of hand of a conjurer.

He devoted the whole of his spare time to practising with the pistol and rope, and by the time that summer had gone Hugh was able to throw the rope with certainty over any fixed object within reach, and to draw his revolver with a quickness that astounded Bill Royce.

"I have seen a lot of pistol shooting," the latter said, "since I came out west—cow-boys and Mexicans, and horse-thieves and such like, but I have never seen one draw as quick as you do, and there are many as draws quick. You shoot fair, but nothing out of the way. There's many a cow-boy kin shoot a sight straighter, but for quick drawing you are wonderful, and that is the great thing. When one fellow gets his pistol out, the other has got to cave in."

The valley was now pretty well cleared of its trees, and the party prepared to go down to M'Kinney for the winter. The wood-cutters were to move at once to the new location, and to begin to fell trees, and as soon as the snow fell deep the teams would go up and drag them down to the new saw-mill, for the timber is hauled down much more easily over the snow than over the rough ground in summer. Thus there would be a big stock in readiness when the thaw came, and the mill began to work in the spring.

Hugh was not sorry when the work of the mill came to an end. He had determined to remain until the season closed, and he was glad he had done so. The time had been by no means lost. He had learned a good deal as to the ways and character of the men with whom he should have to associate. He had from one or other of them picked up a great deal of knowledge about the country, and knew the best places for making a start, the towns from which most of the teams started, and the localities that were best to make for in order to gain the heart of the cattle country. He had learned to throw a rope with enough dexterity to aid him materially in any work he might undertake among cattle or horses, and his constant practice with his revolver gave him a confidence in himself, and in his ability to hold his own in the wild life of the plains and mountains.

In the nine months which had elapsed since he left England he had gained strength, had become manly and self-reliant, and felt that his apprenticeship had been of great value to him. The first thing to do after he came down to M'Kinney, was to look out for a horse. He had been put up to a useful wrinkle in this respect by Bill Royce. "You be careful about any horse trade you make. Bet your boots that any horse that is offered to you here is stolen, and you would get into one of the awkwardest of scrapes if you chanced to go into a district where that horse is known. They don't trouble themselves to ask many questions over a stolen horse. If you buy a horse, the best thing to do is to go before a justice, or the sheriff will do: pay your money before him, and get him to sign his name as a witness to the bargain. His fee will be one or two dollars, and you could not lay out the money better. Men ain't altogether unreasonable even where a horse is concerned, and a paper issued from a sheriff's office certifying that you had bought the horse, and paid a fair price for it, might save your neck from a noose. You may ride a stolen horse all your life, and never happen to light on the place he was taken from; but if you do happen to light on it, you may find yourself in a tight corner."