Ranching, Sport and Travel

by Thomas Carson

A small Mormon settlement was not far off. These Mormons were a most venturesome people and daring settlers. Certainly they are the most successful colonists and a very happy people. Living in close community, having little or no money and very little live stock to tempt Providence (rustlers), theirs is a peaceable, though possibly dull, existence. They had frequent dances, but we Gentiles were not admitted to them.[1]

In winter one lives better than in the hot weather, table supplies being more varied. In summer, excepting during the round-ups, we never had butcher meat, and in my camp butter, eggs and milk were not known; but in winter I always had lots of good beef, potatoes, butter and some eggs from the Mormons, but still no milk. This was varied, too, by wild duck, teal and snipe shot along the river bottom.

Talking of snipe, it is very wonderful how a wounded bird will carefully dress and apply down and feathers to the injury, and even apply splints and ligatures to a broken limb.

My principal duties at this season consisted in riding the range on the lookout for unbranded calves, many calves always being missed on the round-up. This was really rather good sport. Such calves are generally big, strong, fat, and run like jack-rabbits, and it takes a fast and keen pony to catch them. Occasionally you would be lucky enough to find a maverick, a calf or a yearling so old as to have left its mother and be still running loose without a brand and therefore without an owner. It was particular satisfaction to get one's rope, and therefore one's brand, on to such a rover, though it might really not be the progeny of your own cattle at all. It was no easy job either for one man alone to catch and brand such a big and wild creature, especially if among the brush and cedar trees. A certain stimulant to your work was the fact that you were not the only one out on a maverick hunt. There were others, such as your neighbours, or even independent gentlemen, expert with the rope and branding-iron, who never bought a cow critter in their lives, but started their herds by thus stealing all the calves they could lay hands on. A small crooked iron rod, an iron ring, or even an old horseshoe, did duty as branding-iron on these occasions. The ring was favoured by the latter class of men, as it could be carried in the pocket and not excite suspicion. Of course we branded, marked and altered these calves wherever we found them. "Hair branding" was a method resorted to by dishonest cowboys; by burning the hair alone, and not the hide, they would apparently brand the calf with its rightful owner's brand; but later, when the calf had grown bigger and left its mother, they would slap on their own brand with comparative safety. One had to be constantly on the lookout for such tricks.

The Mexicans, too, were fond of butchering a beef now and then, so they too required watching; but my busiest time came with early spring, when the cattle were in a poor and weak condition. The river-bed, too, was then in its boggiest state. Cattle went in to drink, stuck, and could not get out again, and thus some seasons we lost enormous numbers of them. Therefore I "rode bog" every day up and down the river. When I found an animal in the mud I had to rope it by the horns or feet and drag it by main force to solid ground. A stout, well-trained horse was needed. It was hard, dirty work and exasperating, as many of those you pulled out never got up again, and if they did would invariably charge you. No special tackle was used; you remain in the saddle, wrap the rope round the horn and dig the spurs in. Of course, on your own beat, you dragged out all you could, no matter of what brand; but when, as often happened, you failed to get them out, and they belonged to someone else, you were not allowed to shoot them; so that there the poor creatures lay for days, and perhaps even weeks, dying a lingering, but I am glad to think and believe not a painful, death. What an awful death for a reasoning, conscious man. Dumb animals, like cattle, happily seem to anticipate and hope for nothing one way or another. Once I found a mare in the river in such a position under a steep bank that nothing could be done for her. Her young colt was on the bank waiting and wondering. Very regretfully I had to leave them and carefully avoided passing that way for some days to come till the tragedy had terminated. The Little Colorado River, and afterwards the Pecos River in New Mexico, I have often seen so thick with dead and dying cattle that a man might walk up and down the river on the bodies of these unfortunate creatures. The stench would become horrible, till the spring flood came to sweep the carcasses to the sea or covered them up with deposit.

Quicksand is much more holding than mere river mud. If only the tip of the tail or one single foot of the animal is covered by the stuff, then even two stout horses will not pull it out. The Pecos River is particularly dangerous on account of its quicksandy nature, and it was my custom, when having to cross the mess wagon, to send across the ramuda of two or three hundred saddle horses to tramp the river-bed solid beforehand. On one occasion when crossing quite a small stream my two driving ponies went down to their hocks, so that I had to cut the traces and belabour them hard to get them out. Had they not got out at once they never would have done so. My ambulance remained in the river-bed all night and till a Mexican with a bull-team luckily came along next day.

At the Meadows, my winter camp, I had to fill a contract of two or three fat steers for the town butcher every week. With a man to help me we had to go far afield and scour the range to get suitable animals, the best and fattest beeves being always the furthest out. After corralling, which might mean a tremendous amount of hard galloping and repeated failures, the most difficult part of the job was the actual killing, which I accomplished by shooting them with a six-shooter, not a carbine. Only when a big steer has its head down to charge can you plant a bullet in exactly the right spot, a very small one, too, on the forehead, when he will drop like a stone. It was very pretty practice, but risky, as to get them to charge you must be afoot and inside the corral. The butcher was rather astonished when I first accomplished this trick, but it saved time and a lot of trouble. Such were my winter duties.

Sometimes neighbours would look in, and the weekly mail and home papers helped to pass the time. I read a great deal, and so the solitariness of the position was not so trying as one might suppose. Indeed, books were more to me than the neighbours' society.

"Incidents" occurred, of course, but I will only mention one. In winter I only kept up two saddle horses, picked ponies, favourites and almost friends. They were fed with grain night and morning, and, to save hay, were allowed to graze out at night. They regularly returned at early morning for their feed, so I never had to go after them. One morning, however, they did not appear. It was quite unaccountable to me and very awkward, as it left me afoot and unable to do anything. Not till about 10 a.m. did they come galloping in, greatly excited, their tails in the air, puffing and snorting. It did not look quite right. Someone had been chasing them. At noon, while preparing early dinner, a man, a stranger, rode up to the house, and of course was invited to eat. He was very reticent, in fact would hardly speak at all, and gave no hint as to who he was or anything about himself. While eating there was suddenly a rapid succession of rifle-shots heard outside. We both rushed to the door and saw a man riding for life straight to the house, with half a dozen others shooting at him from horseback. He was not touched, only his horse being killed at the door. The new-comer and my strange guest at once showed that they were very intimate indeed, so that I quickly and easily put two and two together. The following party in the meantime had stopped and spread out, taking positions behind the low hills and completely commanding the house. Only their big hats showed and I could not make out whether they were Mexicans or white men. My two guests would tell me nothing, except to assert that they knew nothing of their followers, or why they began shooting. Realizing that these two had me at their mercy, that they could make me do chores for them, fetch water, cook, feed and attend to the horses till nightfall, when with my own two fresh mounts they might possibly make a bolt for it, I got a bit anxious, and determined to find out who the larger party were. So walking out and waving my hat I caught their attention and, on advancing further, one of the party came out and met me. They were neighbouring cattlemen, and explained that the two men in my house were rustlers, and they were determined to take them dead or alive. They asked me to join their party as they were going to "shoot up" the house if necessary. To this I would not consent and went back. After a deal of talk and persuasion the two men finally agreed to give me their guns, preliminary to meeting two of the other party, who were also asked to approach unarmed. They met, much to my relief, and when, somehow or other, the two men allowed themselves to be surrounded by the rest they saw the game was up and surrendered. Then the funny thing happened and the one reason for the telling of this story. They all came down to the house, had dinner together, chatted and cracked jokes, and not a word was said about the immediate trouble. They were all "punchers," had worked together, knew each other's affairs, etc., etc. The one party was about to send the other to the penitentiary, or perhaps the gallows; but you would have thought it was only a pleasant gathering of long-separated friends. The two rustlers were lodged in the county jail, quickly broke out, and soon afterwards died in their "boots," one at the hands of the sheriff.

For tracking jail-breakers Indians, Navajoes or Apaches were sometimes employed, and the marvellous skill they showed was simply astonishing and inexplicable; all done by reading the "sign" left by the escaping party, but "sign" often quite unnoticeable to the white man. Indeed, an Indian would follow a trail by sign much as a hound will do by scent.