[LOST IN THE PETRIFIED FOREST]
By permission Overland Monthly, San Francisco, Calif.
When the stockholders of the "Lazy H" outfit met annually in solemn conclave to receive the report of their range manager and find out how much more the expenses for the year had been than the receipts, they called it the "Montezuma Cattle Company," but as their brand was an H lying down on the sides of their cattle thus, (
) everyone on the range called it the "Lazy H" outfit.
We were in the Lazy H winter horse camp looking after a hundred and seventy-five cow-ponies that had seen a hard summer's work, and the job was a snap. Two men rode out every morning and saw that none of the animals strayed too far, bringing them all in for water down the trail in the cañon, salting them once a week, and keeping a sharp lookout for horse thieves, both white and Indian.
The camp was a dugout in the side of a hill, part logs, part hill, with a dirt roof a foot thick. A grand fireplace in one end served alike for heating and cooking purposes, and at night with a fire of pine knots you could lie in the "double decker" bunks and read as if the place was lighted with an arc lamp. There was a heavy door in the end, while half a dozen loopholes cut in the logs served for windows and for defense if necessary.
Two of the boys were playing a solemn game of "seven-up" to decide which of them should build the fire in the morning, and the balance were smoking or reading some two-weeks-old newspapers that had come out from town with the last load of grub.
Outside the wind was whistling around the corner, and the coyotes, attracted by the scent of a freshly killed yearling hanging in a cedar near the dugout, were howling and shrieking like a lot of school-children at play.
"Just about such a night outside as the night old man Hart's wife and kids got lost two years ago," remarked Peg Leg Russel, who was busy with leather strings and an awl plaiting a fancy quirt.