When a man's a man

by Harold Bell Wright

Frequently Kitty Reid, sometimes alone, often with the other members of the Reid household, came across the big meadow to spend an evening at the neighboring ranch. Sometimes Phil and Patches, stopping at the Pot-Hook-S home ranch, at the close of the day, for a drink at the windmill pump, would linger a while for a chat with Kitty, who would come from the house to greet them. And now and then Kitty, out for a ride on Midnight, would chance to meet the two Cross-Triangle men on the range, and so would accompany them for an hour or more.

And thus the acquaintance between Patches and the girl grew into friendship; for Kitty loved to talk with this man of the things that play so large a part in that life which so appealed to her; and, with Phil's ever-ready and hearty endorsement of Patches, she felt safe in permitting the friendship to develop. And Patches, quietly observing, with now and then a conversational experiment—at which game he was an adepts—came to understand, almost as well as if he had been told, Phil's love for Kitty and her attitude toward the cowboy—her one-time schoolmate and sweetheart. Many times when the three were together, and the talk, guided by Kitty, led far from Phil's world, the cowboy would sit a silent listener, until Patches would skillfully turn the current back to the land of Granite Mountain and the life in which Phil had so vital a part.

In the home-life at the Cross-Triangle, too, Patches gradually came to hold his own peculiar place. His cheerful helpfulness, and gentle, never-failing courtesy, no less than the secret pain and sadness that sometimes, at some chance remark, drove the light from his face and brought that wistful look into his eyes, won Mrs. Baldwin's heart. Many an evening under his walnut trees, with Stella and Phil and Curly and Bob and Little Billy near, the Dean was led by the rare skill and ready wit of Patches to open the book of his kindly philosophy, as he talked of the years that were past. And sometimes Patches himself, yielding to temptation offered by the Dean, would speak in such vein that the older man came to understand that this boy, as he so often called him, had somewhere, somehow, already experienced that Gethsemane which soon or late—the Dean maintains—leaves its shadow upon us all. The cowboys, for his quick and genuine appreciation of their skill and knowledge, as well as for his unassuming courage, hearty good nature and ready laugh, took him into their fellowship without question or reserve, while Little Billy, loyal ever to his ideal, "Wild Horse Phil," found a large place in his boyish heart for the tenderfoot who was so ready always to recognize superior wisdom and authority.

So the stranger found his place among them, and in finding it, found also, perhaps, that which he most sorely needed.

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When rodeo time came Patches was given a "string" of horses and, through the hard, grilling work that followed, took his place among the riders. There was no leisurely roaming over the range now, with only an occasional short dash after some animal that needed the "iron" or the "dope can;" but systematically and thoroughly the thirty or forty cowboys covered the country—mountain and mesa and flat, and wash and timbered ridge and rocky pass—for many miles in every direction.

In this section of the great western cattle country, at the time of my story, the round-ups were cooperative. Each of the several ranchers whose cattle, marked by the owner's legally recorded brand, ranged over a common district that was defined only by natural boundaries, was represented in the rodeo by one or two or more of his cowboys, the number of his riders being relative to the number of cattle marked with his iron. This company of riders, each with from three to five saddle horses in his string, would assemble at one of the ranches participating in the rodeo. From this center they would work until a circle of country within riding distance was covered, the cattle gathered and "worked"—or, in other words, sorted—and the animals belonging to the various owners disposed of as the representatives were instructed by their employers. Then the rodeo would move to another ranch, and would so continue until the entire district of many miles was covered. The owner or the foreman of each ranch was in charge of the rodeo as long as the riders worked in his territory. When the company moved to the next point, this loader took his place in the ranks, and cheerfully received his orders from some comrade, who, the day before, had been as willingly obedient to him. There was little place in the rodeo for weak, incompetent or untrustworthy men. Each owner, from his long experience and knowledge of men, sent as his representatives the most skillful and conscientious riders that he could secure. To make a top hand at a rodeo a man needed to be, in the truest sense, a man.

Before daylight, the horse wrangler had driven in the saddle band, and the men, with nose bags fashioned from grain sacks, were out in the corral to give the hard-working animals their feed of barley. The gray quiet of the early dawn was rudely broken by the sounds of the crowding, jostling, kicking, squealing band, mingled with the merry voices of the men, with now and then a shout of anger or warning as the cowboys moved here and there among their restless four-footed companions; and always, like a deep undertone, came the sound of trampling, iron-shod hoofs.

Before the sky had changed to crimson and gold the call sounded from the ranch house, "Come and get it!" and laughing and joking in friendly rivalry, the boys rushed to breakfast. It was no dainty meal of toast and light cereals that these hardy ones demanded. But huge cuts of fresh-killed beef, with slabs of bread, and piles of potatoes, and stacks of hot cakes, and buckets of coffee, and whatever else the hard-working Chinaman could lay his hands on to satisfy their needs. As soon as each man reached the utmost limit of his capacity, he left the table without formality, and returned to the corral, where, with riata or persuasion, as the case demanded, he selected from his individual string of horses his first mount for the day.

By the time the sun was beginning to gild the summit of old Granite Mountain's castle-like walls, and touch with glorious color the peaks of the neighboring sentinel hills, the last rider had saddled, and the company was mounted and ready for their foreman's word. Then to the music of jingling spurs, tinkling bridle chains, squeaking saddle leather, and the softer swish and rustle and flap of chaps, romals and riatas, they rode forth, laughing and joking, still, with now and then a roaring chorus of shouting comment or wild yells, as some half-broken horse gave an exhibition of his prowess in a mad effort to unseat his grinning rider.