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

by George Bird Grinnell

"Vicente," he said, "I was mighty glad I bumped up against you last night, for I had no idea what had to be done. Of course, when I recognized your horse I knew that you could tell me."

"Yes," drawled Vicente between puffs of his cigarette, "last night, most had cattle running, what you say estampeda. Pretty lucky the other men got there. If once those cattle had started, we'd have had to ride hard."

"There was one while," said Jack Mason, "that I was plumb lost. I was riding that little whittley-dig pony of mine, and he stepped in a hole and fell down and I rolled off. It was so black I couldn't see anything. Reaching around I happened to feel the horse. I mounted, but I was all turned around. I didn't have an idea which way the cattle were, and I couldn't see nor hear 'em. Of course I knew the only thing to do was to let my horse find the cattle; and that's what he did; but until I got close to 'em I didn't know where they were, nor anything about 'em."

"Mighty queer," commented Hugh, who was listening, "the way a man can get turned around, if he can't use his eyes. I reckon I've told you, son," he added, turning to Jack, "about the only time I ever got lost. It was on pretty nearly level ground that I had never been on before, and in a blinding snowstorm. Well, sir, I had no more idea of the direction of the sun, moon or stars than just nothing at all. For a little way I traveled by the wind, and then I stopped and made up my mind that I'd wait until something happened; and I did have to wait for twenty-four long hours before I got a glimpse of the sun."

"I had something like that happen to me once in thick timber that had been burned over," Jack Mason said. "It was a cloudy day on a kind of plateau, and every tall straight stick looked like every other tall straight stick. A mighty mean situation to be in."

"It must be a terrible sensation," said Donald, "to lose all sense of direction. Long ago, before I had ever been much out of doors, I used to carry a compass and to consult it frequently, but of late years I have rather abandoned that practise."

"When the sky is clear you don't need a compass or anything else," said Jack, "because you can look at the sun or the stars; but, of course, if it's cloudy, or rainy, or snowy, that's different. If a man is in a country he knows, or knows anything about, and gets lost he can follow the ravines and creeks down to the main stream."

"Well," put in Hugh, "a man isn't in much danger of being lost just as long as he keeps his wits about him; but just as soon as he gets scared and loses his wits and begins to think that the sun is in the wrong place, or the compass is wrong, or the waters are running uphill, then he's in a bad way, because he's pretty close to crazy. The main thing is to keep your head, and then you'll come out all right; but in these days, when there are so many fences and roads and railroads all over the country it would be pretty hard to be lost, I expect."

"Yet back East," said Jack, "every now and then we hear about men and women and children being lost in little pieces of swamp and woods almost within hearing of their houses. Of course, these are people who have never thought of taking care of themselves out of doors, and get lost just as soon as they get where they can't see things that they recognize."