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

by George Bird Grinnell

"I always thought Mexicans got angry easily, but Tony never seems to. I should think sometimes he'd get mad."

"Tony has good judgment," said his uncle, "and that's the reason I have him ride these colts. It is very easy to spoil any horse by fighting with him, and if he comes to look on a man as his enemy, he will never be worth much. I have these horses broken as gently as I can, and I find that people are willing to pay me more for a saddle horse than they pay people who just break their horses any way at all. It is profitable to use care in breaking horses."

CHAPTER XX
A TRIP TO SMITH'S HOLE

Some weeks passed. The work of the ranch went on. Jack was now becoming a useful member of the society there, for he had come to feel so much at home that there were many things that he could do about the place. Every day he gained more confidence in himself and it was no longer thought necessary that he should have some one with him when he rode out away from the ranch on the prairie. One night his uncle had suggested that he should go out and bring in the milk cows, and he did so, and after this it became his regular duty to look for them, if they did not come up to the corral to be milked at night. A little later Joe had asked him one morning to go out and bring in the saddle horses, which were feeding high up in the mountain, but could be seen from the house. He did so, and after a few days this became a part of his regular work. For such riding as this he did not use Pawnee, but rode, instead, old Grey, or the Pilot, or any one of three or four other gentle horses that were always close about the ranch. He remembered Hugh's advice, given to him soon after he had come out, and always carried his gun with him. During these rides he had killed two coyotes and a badger, the skins of which he had taken off and stretched quite nicely, under Hugh's direction. He had had two or three chances to shoot antelope, too, but always close to the house, and so he had not fired at them, for Mr. Sturgis liked to see these wild creatures of the prairie near the ranch, and had asked that no hunting be done close at home. Jack had tended his live stock, and his ducks were now quite large and full feathered birds, and were very tame, and pretty well able to take care of themselves. When they were still little bits of fluffy things, Hugh had advised him to cut off the tip of one wing from each, and he had done so. The birds, therefore, could not fly, and wandered about on foot, feeding with the hens and dabbling in the brook. Hugh warned him that he would have to look out for them when the weather got cool, or else they might start off to go south on foot, and if they ever wandered off on the prairie the coyotes would surely pick them up at once. The calf elk had grown very large, and was annoyingly tame. It was sure to be where it was not wanted, and Mrs. Carter once declared to Jack that she wished some one would kill the little brute, for if she left the kitchen door open it would go in, and put its nose into every dish in the place.

Although he had many things to do, they did not take up all Jack's time. He spent many hours lying on the hills, watching the beasts and the birds and the insects, and this seemed to him better fun than anything about the ranch, except the long talks that he had with Hugh, whose stories of old times were always interesting. He had gotten down his uncle's bird book from the shelf in the sitting-room, and had learned the names of many birds of the prairie, and from Hugh he had learned also how the larger beasts and birds lived, and what they did in summer and autumn and winter and spring.

One evening as Hugh and Jack were sitting on the steps of the bunk-house, watching the lengthening shadows of the mountains creep further and further out over the prairie, Hugh said to Jack:

"Son, your uncle wants me to go off and get a horse load of meat, and I am thinking of going over to Smith's Hole, to see if I can't kill a couple of blacktail bucks; they ought to be getting pretty fat by this time. I expect I'll have to be gone two or three days, and I thought maybe you'd like to go, if you can get Joe and Rube to look after your live stock. What do you say?"

"Oh, Hugh," said Jack, "that would be fine. Do you know, I have been out here now nearly four months and I've never slept out of doors yet. I don't know what a camp is. I'd love to go over there with you, and it would be splendid to see these deer. You see, I have never seen a deer since I have been here."

"Well," said Hugh, "I expected maybe you'd like to go, and I'd surely like to have you come. We'll speak to your uncle about it. I expect we'd better start day after to-morrow, because I've got to look over them pack riggings, and see if they're all in order. I expect we'd better take two pack horses. We won't have much of anything to carry going, besides our beds, but if we get two or three deer, the horses will both have loads coming back, and I'd rather lead a pack horse than walk and lead my own horse loaded with meat."