He watched the riders at work, seen long ropes a swinging, and how them long ropes would stop the bunch-quitting steer; he was familiar with some of that and somehow there came in him a hunch that he'd like to be closer; there was something about the workings of that herd across the creek that had his blood racing above natural, and he felt a kind of a call for the whole of the goings on, a call of the kind he couldn't as yet understand, but it was there sure enough.
Finally, the smell of singed hair wasn't on the breeze no more, branding was over for that day, and the last rope was coiled up and fastened by the saddle horn. Smoky watched as all but a few riders left the herd and headed for camp, he went to grazing then, and neck and neck with Pecos he listened to the rattle of tin plates and the laugh of the cowboys as he nosed around for the tenderest stems of the blue joint.
Four riders on "cocktail" (hours between the last meal of the day and the first night guard) got on their horses and rode to "relieve" the riders holding the herd, and it wasn't long after that when the quiet of the evening settled on the range. Even the critter seemed to want to stop bellering for a spell at that time, most of the bells of the remuda was quiet and the ponies was dozing.
Smoky had been dozing too, but pretty soon his ears perked up at a sound the likes of which he'd never heard before, the sound came from the camp, and strange as it was there was something about it that wasn't at all aggravating.
Around a good size fire was gathered the cowboys,—the cook, the flunky, the wrangler, Jeff the foreman and all was in the circle, all but the four riders on "cocktail" and the "nighthawk" who'd took the wrangler's place for the night's herding of the saddle horses. Most of the boys was setting on or leaning against a big roll of tarpaulin covered bedding, and one closest to the fire was a working away trying to get a tune on his mouth organ.
That was the sound which'd come to Smoky's ears, the older cowhorses all knowed that sound well, and if any of 'em could of packed a tune there'd been many in the remuda a humming.
The song that was being worked at just then had been heard at all the cow camps and round up wagons of the cow country for many years, and handed down from the injun fighting cowboy to the son that took up the trail where he left it and when the horns on the critter wasn't so long no more. There was a lot of memories stirred up whenever them songs was heard and many a cowboy got sentimental at the sound of 'em, for most all cowboys can remember some quiet night when the time of such a song was spread around the herd;—then of a sudden and for no reason a stampede is in full swing, a dead cowboy is found under his horse at the bottom of a fifty foot jump off, and leaves only the memory of the song he'd been singing that night.
"Oh, I'm a Texas cowbo-o-oy, and far away from home,
And if I ever get back again no more will I ever roam,
Wyoming's too cold for me-e-e, the winters are too long,