Tales from the X-bar Horse Camp: The Blue-Roan "Outlaw" and Other Stories

by Will C. Barnes

The weather had been lovely ever since we started in, but this evening it had clouded up, and in the west, toward sunset, great "thunder-heads" had piled up and little detached patches had gone scudding across the sky, although below on the prairie not a breath of air was stirring. The muttering roll of heaven's artillery was sounding, and occasionally up toward the mountains a flame of lightning would shoot through the rapidly darkening sky.

By eight o'clock, when the first guard rode out to take the herd for their three hours' watch, it was almost black dark. The foreman or "wagon boss" of the outfit came out with them, asked how the cattle acted, and told the boys to be very careful, and if the herd drifted before the rain, if possible, to try and keep them pointed from the cedars, for fear of losing them.

As we rode back to camp we both agreed that the very first clap of thunder near at hand would send the whole herd flying, and if it rained it would be very hard to hold them. He told all hands not to picket their night horses, but to tie them up to the wagon (much to the cook's disgust), all ready for instant use. Perhaps I should explain a little about this business, so that my readers may understand what a "bed ground" is, and how the cowboy stands guard.

At sunset the day herders work the herd up toward camp slowly, and as the leaders feed along to about three or four hundred yards from camp, one of the boys rides out in front and stops them until the whole herd gradually draws together into a compact body. If they have been well grazed and watered that day they will soon begin to lie down, and in an hour probably nine-tenths of them will be lying quietly and chewing their cuds. All this time the boys are slowly riding around them, each man riding alone, and in opposite directions; so they meet twice in each circuit. If any adventurous steer should attempt to graze off, he is sure to be seen, headed quickly, and sent back into the herd.

The place where the cattle are held at night is called the "bed ground," and it is the duty of the day herders, who have cared for them all day, to have them onto the bed ground and bedded down before dark, when the first guard comes out and takes them off their hands.

Well, as I said at the beginning, it was dark, and although it was not raining when they left camp, the boys had put on their slickers, or oilskin coats, well knowing that they'd have no time to do it when the rain began to fall.

The three men on first guard were typical Texas boys, almost raised in the saddle, insensible to hardship and exposure, and the hardest and most reckless riders in the outfit. One of them, named Tom Flowers, was a great singer, and usually sang the whole time he was on guard. It's always a good thing, especially on a dark night, for somehow it seems to reassure and quiet cattle to hear the human voice at night, and it's well too that they are not critical, for some of the musical efforts are extremely crude. Many of the boys confine themselves to hymns, picked up probably when they were children.

A great favorite with the Texas boys is a song beginning "Sam Bass was born in Indianer," which consists of about forty verses, devoted to the deeds of daring of a noted desperado named Sam Bass, who, at the head of a gang of cut-throats, terrorized the Panhandle and Staked Plains country, in Western Texas, some years ago.

We used to have a boy in our outfit, a great rough fellow from Montana, who knew only one song, and that was the hymn "I'm a Pilgrim, and I'm a Stranger." I have awakened many a night and heard him bawling it at the top of his voice, as he rode slowly around the herd. He knew three verses of it and would sing them over and over again. It didn't take the boys long to name him "The Pilgrim," and by that name he went for several years. He was killed in a row in town one night, and I'm not sure then that any one knew his right name, for he was carried on the books of the cow-outfit he was working for as "The Pilgrim."

I lost no time in rolling out my bed and turning in, only removing my boots, heavy leather chaps (chaparejos), and hat, and two minutes later was sound asleep. How long I slept I can't say, but I was awakened by a row among the night-horses tied to the wagon.