Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

CHAPTER VII
HUGH CHASED BY INDIANS

Jack's first long ride had made him pretty sore; all his muscles pained him. Hugh said he must keep riding and soon he would be all right.

For several days after this, Hugh and Jack rode together, and each day they went a little further and in a new direction. Each day Jack found riding easier, and before long he felt perfectly at home on Old Grey. Each day after they got home from the ride, they took the rifle down on the flat in front of the house and fired a number of shots at the white rock, and several times Jack hit it, and all his shots were good ones, and the bullets struck close to the mark. Hugh was pleased with the boy's steadiness and told him that before long they would go out and take a hunt.

Besides the rifle-shooting Jack was learning something about horses and how to use them. Now, when he went into the corral with Hugh, he no longer felt afraid that the horses would run over him. The day after their first ride, Hugh and Jack led Old Grey up to a big section of a cottonwood log that Mrs. Carter used in mounting her horse, and, standing on this, Jack saddled and bridled the grey. Hugh showed him how to do it, and then stood by and watched, and when Jack did anything wrong, he corrected him, and helped him change it. After two or three days Jack understood how to saddle up so well that Hugh no longer watched him.

One day Jack had his first lesson in roping—what he had always read of as lassoing. Hugh called the rope a lassrope, or a reata—this being a Spanish word meaning rope. The two took a rope and went into the big corral, and for a time practised throwing at the snubbing post, which stood in its centre. Hugh showed Jack just how it was done, and after he had thrown the rope two or three times he handed it to Jack, and told him to coil it and to throw it. In two or three days Jack found that he could catch the post about half the time, and that throwing the rope, which at first had seemed to him such hard work, was very easy. Several times he caught Old Grey in the corral. After he had come to understand as much as this, Hugh had him practise on horseback, showing him how to throw from the saddle, and how to fasten his rope by two or three turns about the horn, so as to hold anything that he might catch with the noose. He warned him how to handle his rope in taking the turns around the horn, with the thumb and finger held up, not down, so that he should not get them caught under the rope, for many men have lost their fingers in this way, having them cut off between the rope and the horn when the pull came in throwing a steer. So it was that as they rode along, Jack would throw the rope at one sage-bush after another, pulling up those which he caught and then gathering the rope for a fresh throw. This was pretty good fun, and when he grew tired of it, he would coil up his rope and hang it on his saddle by the loop that was fastened there to hold it, and then he and Hugh would talk about the things they saw, and those that Hugh had seen and heard in his long life on the prairie.

The whole of each day was passed in the open air; and this life, so different from that led by the boy in his city home, soon began to affect his health and his spirits. His appetite increased enormously, his flesh began to harden, and his face, under exposure to the keen cool wind and the unshadowed rays of the sun, to take on a hue of brown that it had never shown before. Each night he was heartily and healthily tired, and an hour or two after supper he went to bed, where he slept like a log until called next morning. Each day began with the sun and was enjoyed through every hour. As he became accustomed to his horse, Hugh taught him to mount from the right side, as the Indians do, and urged him to learn to ride bareback, telling him of the skill shown by the Indians in their war and hunting trips, when they use no saddle, but cling to the naked horse.

After he had been a week at the ranch, his uncle told Jack that he was going to send in to the railroad, and advised him to write to his mother, and to tell her that it might be a month or more before she would again hear from him, and the boy did so, sending a long and enthusiastic account of the place and the people. Mr. Sturgis also wrote to his sister and brother-in-law, telling what Jack's life had been up to that time, of the marked interest felt by the boy in all that he saw and did, and of his changed appearance and improved health. These letters made two people in the distant city very happy.

One afternoon, after they had been practising with the rifle, and had cleaned and put it away, Hugh said to Jack, "Now, son, to-morrow, unless your uncle wants me to do something else, we'll ride over toward Sand Creek and see if we can't kill something. Mrs. Carter says we're about out of meat, and she wants me to kill an antelope. Let me see that butcher knife of yours that I took off your belt the other day. If it's a new one it'll need grinding, of course."

Jack ran and brought the knife, and Hugh looked at it and tried its edge on his thumb. "Yes," said he, "it's just out of the shop and we'll have to put an edge on it. No telling till I get it on the stone what sort of a piece of steel it is. Come on and turn for me and I'll find out."

They went down to the blacksmith's shop, and while Jack turned the handle of the grindstone, Hugh ground the knife and afterwards whetted it on the oil-stone until its edge was keen. "'Pears to me," he said, "that this is a pretty good knife. I expect your uncle bought it for you! Most young fellows that come out here carry a dirk knife with a big bone handle and a guard, that ain't no earthly use except in a fight, and they don't expect to fight; they expect to use the knife to butcher with. What you want is just a common skinning knife, such as a butcher uses—what you've got here. Now put it back in your sheath, and if we have any luck to-morrow, you'll have a chance to try it."