Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up

by George Bird Grinnell

The cowboys rode off, and Jack and Donald were soon in camp eating breakfast. Jack's slicker in his fall had been split from neck to skirt and until mended would be useless. Hugh, who with the cook and horse wrangler had remained in the camp, saw it, and told Jack to leave it with him, and he would sew up the tear. "It won't be of much use," he commented, "in real rainy weather, but it'll keep you dry in a drizzle."

Hugh had smiled at Jack's story of his attempts to dodge the stampeding cattle, and had told him that he was mighty lucky to have got off as he did.

A little later, Jack and Donald, mounted on fresh horses, rode out to take the trail of the stampeded cattle, but they had gone only a short distance, when from the top of a hill they saw, far off, a bunch of cattle coming.

One of the first men they saw when they met the herd was Jack Mason, and the two young men rode up beside him to ask an account of his adventures, and to relate their own.

"I was following along not far behind you, Jack," said Mason. "You were advertising your place by shooting and hollering, and I was trying hard to get up to you, to try to help push over the lead cattle and get 'em turned. All of a sudden, though, your light seemed to go out. There were no more shots and no more yells, and I made up my mind something had happened to put you out of business. Before very long I got up to the leaders and managed to crowd 'em over and over until at last I got 'em running in a circle, and then before long, of course, the circle got smaller and smaller until they all got packed together and then they had to stop. They didn't get very far beyond where you left 'em, not more than a mile and a half, I should think, and I didn't have any trouble holding 'em there until daylight; and soon after that the boys came up, and here we are again. But what happened to you? I suppose your horse fell, because he was with the cattle when day come. One of the boys has got him there now."

Jack told again of his fall, and as before the story was laughed at and he was congratulated on his escape.

"Well," said McIntyre, as the party got into camp, "we seem to be anchored to this place. We'd better move to-day. You boys go out and ride a short circle and we'll camp to-night over on Sand Creek."

That night in camp the talk was all of stampedes; there was the usual speculation as to what caused them, and all agreed that no one could tell why cattle stampeded.

Jack Mason was asked whether anything had happened to start the cattle, so far as he could see, and both he and Donald declared that they knew of nothing that could have alarmed the cattle.

"I saw something funny a number of years ago, down on the prairie," said Hugh. "I was working for Cody and North, on the Dismal River, and one time when we were taking some beeves into town south of the range, near Cottonwood Creek, these beeves stampeded. It was a bright moonlight night, and you could see quite a long way. I had been riding around the beeves and had stopped my horse and was sitting quiet on him, watching the cattle, when, suddenly, a little off to one side, I saw an antelope. He must have seen me about the same time and have wondered what I was. He trotted up pretty near me and then trotted away again, and made a circle and came around near the cattle, and when he got pretty close to 'em he whistled, and away the beeves went. It didn't take 'em half a minute to get started, and they were headed straight toward the tent and the wagon. I crowded 'em off so that they missed the wagon. They were not much frightened, and ran only a little way. I suppose they were just startled for a minute."