Which reminds me of an incident in this connection. I was moving a small lot of steers, some 400 head in all, to pasture in the Panhandle of Texas. The force consisted only of the wagon driver, one cowboy and myself. But the cowboy turned out to be quite ignorant of the art of driving cattle, did more harm than good, and so annoyed me that I dismissed him to the rear to ride in the wagon if he so chose, and myself alone undertook to drive, or rather not so much to drive, that being hardly necessary, as to guide the herd on its course. I got them strung out beautifully half a mile long, and they were making good time, when suddenly a confounded sheep herder and his dog met the lead steers and the procession was at once a scene of the most utter confusion. It should be explained here that, in the case of a small herd thus strung out, its guidance, if left to only one man, may be done from the rear by simply riding out sharply to one side or the other and calling to the lead cattle. How I did curse that wretch and his dog. A man on foot was bad enough; but a man on foot with a dog! Horrors! Yet, perhaps, barring the delay in getting the cattle started again, the incident had its uses, as it had just previously occurred to me that the line was getting a bit too long and might soon be out of control. Such are the uses of adversity.
It can be understood that even a small herd of 400 lusty young steers can keep a man, or even two or three men, busy enough, especially if there are any cattle on the range you are passing through. In this case there were fortunately few.
Amarillo, being the southern end of the Kansas railroad, was a great cattle market. Buyers and sellers met there; and there, immediately around the town, were congregated at any time in spring as many as 40,000 cattle, all under herd. Amarillo was then the greatest cattle town in the world. She was the successor of such towns as Wichita and Fort Dodge, simply because she was at the western terminus of the railway. Though a pretty rowdy town her manners were an improvement on such places as Dodge, where in the height of her wickedness a gambling dispute, rivalry for the smile of a woman, or the slightest discourtesy, was sufficient ground for the shedding of blood.
My life during these eight years had its pleasures and its troubles; certainly much discomfort and a lot of disagreeable work. During the working season, April to November, my time was mostly spent with the round-up or on the trail, with occasional visits to our head office in Las Vegas, and also to Amarillo on business matters. To cover these immense distances, near 300 miles (there were few or no desirable stopping-places), I used a light spring wagon or ambulance, holding my bedding, mess-box, grain for the team, some water, stake ropes, and a hundred other things. I nearly always camped out on the prairie, of course cooked my own meals, was out in all kinds of weather—sun, rain, heat and drought, blizzards and frightful lightning storms. My favourite team was a couple of grey ponies. From being so much together we got to understand each other pretty thoroughly, and we had our adventures as well. Once on going up a very steep hill the ponies lost their footing. The wagon backed and turned over, and ponies and wagon rolled over and over down the hill among the rocks till hung up on a cedar stump. I was not much hurt, but found the ponies half covered with stones and rocks that had rolled on to them, the wagon upside down and camping material scattered everywhere. Cutting the tugs and rolling the stones away the ponies jumped up miraculously little injured, and even the wagon still serviceable, but I had to walk a long way to get assistance. Then we have fallen through rotten bridges, stuck in rivers and quicksands, and all sorts of things.
One pony of this team, "Punch," was really the hardiest, best-built, best-natured and most intelligent of any I have ever known. Many a time, on long trips, has the other pony played completely out and actually dropped on the road. But Punch seemed to be never tired. He was a great pet too, and could be fondled to your heart's content. He had no vice, yet was as full of mischief as he could possibly pack. His mischief, or rather playfulness, finally cost him his life, as he once got to teasing a bull, the bull charged, and that was his end.
It was with this team too that when driving in New Mexico through a district where white men were seldom seen, but on a road which I had often selected as a shorter route to my destination, I came on a Mexican ill-treating his donkey. His actions were so deliberate as to rouse my ire, and I got down, took the club from him and threatened castigation. On proceeding on the road I passed another Mexican mounted on a horse and carrying a rifle. Happening by-and-by to look back much was my surprise, or perhaps not very much, to see the gun and horse handed over to the first man, and himself mounted and galloping after me. Knowing at once what it meant, that his game was to bushwhack me in the rough cañon immediately in front, I put the whip to my team to such good purpose that we galloped through that cañon as it had never been galloped through before. I would have had no show whatever in such a place, and so was extremely glad to find myself again in the open country.
Another time I hitched up another team, one of which, a favourite mustang-chaser, had never been driven. We made some ten miles all right till we came to the "jumping-off" place of the plains, a very steep, long and winding descent. Just as we started down, Prince, the horse mentioned, got his tail over the lines, and the ball began. We went down that hill at racing speed, I having absolutely no control over the terrified animals, which did not stop for many miles. Again, with the same team I once started to Amarillo, being half a day ahead of the steer herd. First evening I camped out at a water-hole and staked out Prince with a long heavy rope and strong iron stake pin. The other horse was hobbled with a rope hobble. Some wolves came in to water, and I was lying on my bed looking at them when the horses suddenly stampeded, the strong stake rope and pin not even checking Prince. They were gone and I was afoot! Prince ran for forty miles to the ranch. The hobbled horse we never saw again for more than twelve months, but when found was fat and none the worse. Next day the trail outfit came along and so I hitched up another team.
But the worst trouble I used to have was with a high-strung and almost intractable pair of horses, Pintos, or painted, which means piebald, a very handsome team indeed, whose former owner simply could not manage them. Every time we came to a gate through which we had to pass I, being alone, had to get down and throw the gate open. Then after taking the team through I had of course to go back to shut the gate again. Then was the opportunity apparently always watched for by these devils, and had I not tied a long rope to the lines and trailed it behind the wagon they would many times have succeeded in getting away.
Yet it is only such a team that one can really care to drive for pleasure; a team that you "feel" all the time, one that will keep you "interested" every minute, as these Pintos did. How often nowadays does one ever see a carriage pair, or fours in the park or elsewhere that really needs "driving"?
"Shipping" cattle means loading them into railroad cars and despatching them to their destination. The cattle are first penned in a corral and then run through chutes into the cars. One year I sold the Company's steers, a train-load, to a Jew dealer in Kansas. They were loaded in the Panhandle and I went through with them, having a man to help me to look after them, our duty being to prod them up when any were found lying down so they would not be trodden to death. At a certain point our engine "played out" and was obliged to leave us to get coal and water. While gone the snow (a furious blizzard was blowing) blew over the track and blocked it so effectively that the engine could not get back. The temperature was about zero and the cattle suffered terribly; but there we remained stuck for nearly two days. When we finally got through, of course the buyer refused to receive them, and I turned them over to the railway company and brought suit for their value. The case was thrice tried and we won each time; and oh, how some of these railroad men did damn themselves by perjury! But it is bad business to "buck" against a powerful railway corporation. This will serve to give an idea as to what shipping cattle means. Many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, are now shipped every year. Trail work is abandoned, being no longer possible on account of fences, etc. Such great towns as Chicago and Kansas City will each receive and dispose of in one day as many as ten to twenty thousand cattle, not counting sheep or hogs.