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

by George Bird Grinnell

"I was in a beef stampede down there one time," said Tulare Joe. "These were big beeves, ready for market and we were cutting 'em out to ship. That was one of those black nights that you read about. You couldn't see anything. We had the beeves bedded down on the side of a sand-hill, one of those sand-hills that's terraced off in little benches. I never knew what started those cattle, but they started and came down the hill toward me, and I went down the hill in front of them, not knowing whether I'd get out alive or not. The way their horns hit together sounded like a company of cavalry firing their pistols. When we got down on the flat, the cattle passed Jim Lawson and me, and we chased 'em down the valley for several miles, but finally we lost 'em all. Later we gathered 'em—most of 'em at least. When we were rounding up the country down on the middle Loup, we kept finding these cattle for three or four days. We got 'em to the railroad at last."

"There was another stampede, and a queer one, at the Dismal Ranch," Hugh said. "A big bunch of yearlings stampeded in a corral. I never understood how it was, for I wasn't there when they started, but was coming down toward the ranch. Of course we had never thought of cattle stampeding in the corral, and it happened that there were no horses up; most of 'em were in a little pasture close to the house. The corral was cut into four small pens and next to the outside fence there was a gate in the wall of each pen, opening into the next pen. These gates were open, and you'd think that if the cattle had stampeded in the corral they'd all have run around one way, but instead of that these yearlings must have split in two bodies, and one part run around the corral one way, and one the other. Then they must have met and piled up there, and the result was that they broke out two panels of the fence—great strong cedar posts and poles. Some of 'em went over the fence, but most of 'em went through, and the fence was at least seven feet high.

"I was going down to the ranch and was about a mile away when I heard them start, and when I got down to the corral they were just going over and through the fence. I followed 'em, and Buck and Bax Taylor came on as soon as they could get horses. Those yearlings ran all night. Two or three times we got 'em together and turned 'em until they'd stand still, and then they'd keep perfectly quiet. For about fifteen minutes after they'd stopped they were so quiet that you couldn't hear a sound; you couldn't hear 'em breathe; and then they'd begin to step out a little to get room, until they were pretty well spread out. They'd stand still listening and not making a move; and then, all of a sudden, off they'd go again. We lost about a hundred out of the bunch, but got 'em later on another round-up. Several were killed going over the fence, and two or three broke their legs, and there was about a wagon load of horns on the ground there."

"That antelope story of yours is a pretty good one, Hugh, but I've got another," spoke up Tom Smith. "I was on herd one bright moonlight night and the cattle were all lying down. I'd been riding about 'em and had stopped for a little time, and was sitting still on my horse. I was about half asleep, with my face to the cattle, and my horse must have gone altogether asleep. He must have been asleep, because he fell on his knees, and when he fell the saddle-flaps squeaked. That started the cattle. They jumped up and ran; but they didn't go far. I don't think they really stampeded—they were just startled, not scared."

"I reckon everybody was kind o' surprised that time," chuckled Hugh.

"I know I was," admitted Tom.

"I don't call that stampede by the antelope, nor the one Tom just spoke about, a real stampede," said Joe; "but that stampede of the yearlings, and the one we had last night, were sure enough the real thing."

"Yes," said Hugh, "those yearlings were scared for keeps. That bunch had just come over the trail from Texas, and the animals were tired and thin. They'd just come in and hadn't been branded. I never would have supposed that they could have stampeded, but they were scared; and they were always afraid of that corral. We never got that bunch into that corral afterward. We had to rope most of 'em out on the flat, and brand 'em that way. It was awful slow work, and before we got through we tried separating 'em into little bunches of forty or fifty, and these little bunches we could get into the corral."

"Wasn't it dark last night?" remarked Donald. "I do not remember ever to have seen a blacker night."

"I guess so," said Joe. "We've all of us been out on some of those black nights when you just can't see anything. Some nights maybe you think it's just as dark as it can possibly get, and then all at once it gets so much darker that you think it hadn't been at all dark before. On some of those nights you can see the electricity on your horse, a sort of blue light running up from your horse's ears and then maybe a little blue flame running down the back of his neck toward your saddle. I never saw cattle run in that kind of weather; though you'd think they would.