The spring round-up lasts from three to four weeks; after that the several home range round-ups take place and branding commences. The riders will gather several thousand cattle in one bunch at a given place on the open prairie where a camp is established. Here, where they all meet, the cattle are driven into one bunch and surrounded by the riders, and this is the round-up proper. The bellowing of the cows and calves is pitiful, for at first they are constantly in commotion and many of them become separated from each other; the noise they make is so awful one can hardly hear his own voice, but it is not long before each cow discovers her calf and then all is well. A fire is built near by and branding irons of all owners of cattle on the range are heated. Then the ropers will ride into the ring, lassoo the young cattle by the hind feet and pull them by the horn of the saddle to where the fire is, and each calf is branded the same brand as the mother. An account of all calves and of each brand, separately, is kept, so that, at the end of the branding season, the owner can tell the number of calves branded. After getting through in one place the camp is moved to another part of the range, and so on, until the work is finished. It is hard work, but fascinating, and many seek to go on the round-up. In the same way the beef cattle are gathered in the fall and shipped east. The round-up, like the buffalo, will soon be a thing of the past and the Western plains will be dotted with homes occupied by actual settlers.
Robert Vaughn.
July 7, 1898.
TRAVELING “THEN” AND TRAVELING “NOW.”
Some one said that to many persons, especially those in the East, the country west of Chicago is still a hazy geographical proposition, and that the Twin Cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis—those posts at the gateway of an empire—seem to be on the confines of civilization, and to those less informed, the words Minnesota, Washington, Oregon and Montana, which represent new and powerful states, may mean some new patent medicine or the names of noted race horses. In fact it does seem but yesterday that west of the Mississippi was but a dimly-known region when all traveling was done by stage and on horseback; even the first locomotive that entered the state of Minnesota is now in the possession of the Great Northern Railway Company. But “now” there are within the limits of the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington over 17,000 miles of railway.
As I now write the name “Great Northern” I cannot but think of the powerful agency this transcontinental road has been to bring about the “then and now” in the Rocky mountain regions, and, for that matter, from the Great Lakes to Puget Sound, its eastern terminus being Duluth, on Lake Superior, and St. Paul and Minneapolis, on the Mississippi river, and extending westward to Everett, on the Pacific coast, a distance of 1,782 miles. It crosses the main range of the Rocky mountains without a tunnel at an elevation of 5,202 feet above sea level, with a grade on the easterly slope of 1 per cent and on the westerly slope of 8 per cent. A few miles west of the main divide and but three miles from the Great Northern track, lies the famous Lake McDonald, almost concealed by remarkably high and steep mountains and thick forests. It is difficult to one that loves nature’s beauty and the wild sublimity of the mountains as I do, to pass such a vast region as this without making a passing note of it. Lake McDonald is a picture of marvelous beauty, a superb stretch of water eighteen miles long. Professor John H. Edwards, in the New York Observer, describes this beautiful lake and the regions surrounding it, as follows. He says:
“In the very heart of the Rockies in the Northern part of Montana, surrounded by mountain peaks in bewildering varieties of form, lies beautiful Lake McDonald. Not quite so large as Yellowstone Lake, it surpasses that loftiest of American mountain lakes of approximate size in grandeur of scenery. Nineteen peaks shoot skyward along its emerald shores or within easy eyeshot. Snow and glacier ice rest upon some of their summits and shoulders throughout the year. The editor of Forest and Stream says of it: ‘There is every scenic beauty here of an Alpine lake, with a far greater choice of game and fish.’ If Dr. Van Dyke, of New York, would cast his taking fly in these near-by waters, and then cast his irresistible literary book amid the endless beauties of nature in this favored region, his double catch would furnish forth a two-fold feast of choicest quality.
“It would be a hopeless task for any less gifted pen to attempt a description of the noble scenery hid away in this mountain wilderness. The profound blue of the stainless sky, the manifold green of the dense forests that environ the lake and march up the steep flank of the mountain to the vertical height of half a mile above its perfect mirror, that reflects every fine needle and also photographs on its steely plate another half mile of rock and snow towering above the forest line, and then are the rich sunset hues thrown upon peak and glacier—all these seen twice in reality and by reflection. The rare coloring lavished on heights and depths is worth a long journey to see.