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

by George Bird Grinnell

"Just tell him I am all right and having a good time. You might tell him, too, what happened over at Powell's. And, of course, if there's any mail for me, bring it back with you. I don't expect to hear anything from that man I bought the saddle from. Maybe, instead of leaving the saddle at Brown's, he just took it with him on the train; but if he did, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he sent me back my five dollars."

"Well," said Hugh, "it will be all guessing for a while yet; but I'll bring any mail there is."

"So long," called Rube; and Jack turned and rode back toward the camp. The distance that had seemed so very long when driving the herd, now seemed surprisingly short, for he rode fast. He did not ride back to the old camp because they were going to move that morning, and when he rode down out of the hills he could see, a couple of miles away on the prairie, the two wagons and the cávaya crawling along over the sage-brush flat toward the next camp, which was to be on Box Elder Creek.

When he overtook the wagons, Frank, the cook, who was driving the chuck wagon, told him that McIntyre had left word that Jack should start out and make a short circle to the eastward, taking in the low hills on the edge of the basin, but not going far back, and should turn anything that he found down into the flat country, where it could be readily gathered the next day. Jack accordingly rode on to the cávaya, roped a fresh horse, and turned loose Pawnee, and then rode back to the cook's wagon, where he begged from Frank a chunk of bread and some bacon. Having disposed of that, he rode off toward the low hills to the east.

When he had gone a short distance into the hills he saw fresh tracks of horses and of cattle running, and from this he concluded that riders had passed over this ground the day before and gathered what cattle had been feeding there; and presently, coming across a trail of a good many head, with horse tracks following the trail and on top of the cow tracks, he made sure that his conclusion was right.

After riding a mile or two farther, however, he came across a little bunch of cattle feeding on the steep hillsides of a ravine, and going around them he pushed them down the hill and in the direction in which he was riding. The cattle were not wild, and it would have been easy to drive them in any direction; but of course they went slowly, and if Jack simply drove them into the round-up camp he could not cover much country; on the other hand, if he drove them down into the valley he knew that at this time of the day they would at once turn about and return to the hills where there was water and, in the ravines, the green grass that the cattle like.

While he was mulling over this, and wondering what he would better do, the cattle ahead of him passed over a ridge and down the steep sides of another ravine, and two or three yearlings in play ran down the hill and through a thick patch of low brush that grew at the bottom of the ravine. As they rushed into that, from its upper end a small black animal, which was unmistakably a bear cub, ran out.

Jack was riding a good quick horse, and almost without thinking he turned and galloped along the steep hillside to try to head off the cub, which kept on up the bottom of the ravine. The ground was very steep, and broken every now and then by little washouts, and two or three times Jack held his breath as he wondered whether the horse would get across them or not. But the animal was sure-footed, besides being swift. It did not even stumble; and before long Jack was bearing down well toward the bottom of the ravine and was a little ahead of the bear. When the two were pretty close together, the bear suddenly turned and began to scramble up the hill, away from Jack. Two or three jumps of the active horse, however, quickly brought it within roping distance, and in a moment the noose was over the bear's head. The horse had turned, and with a mighty pluck the little bear flew out from the hillside and seemed to land on its head in the middle of the ravine. Jack kept the rope tight for a moment, but seeing that there was no movement at the other end, he dismounted and walked back to the bear. The little beast—hardly larger than a setter dog—was quite dead. Jack could not tell whether the pull of the rope had broken its neck, or it had been killed by its fall.

The work of dressing the cub took but a few moments; but to get it on the saddle was more difficult, for the horse regarded the carcass with suspicion and declined to stand when the bear was put on it. Jack was finally obliged to blind the animal with his coat until the load was firmly tied behind the saddle. Then—being unwilling to take risks in this rough country—he led the animal down the ravine. It did not pitch, though it shied and several times tried to rid itself of the saddle by prolonged kicking. At length, however, when Jack reached a place where the ravine was wider and the ground more or less level, he mounted, and the horse went well enough.

Then Jack went back to look for his cattle. He soon found them, and after following them over three or four ridges, came on another much larger group. Gathering them all together, he started down toward the prairie with about seventy-five head of cattle before him. He took good note of the point where he left the hills, intending to drive his cattle into camp and then, if daylight lasted, to come back and resume his search for others.