CHAPTER XIII
A Kick from a Playful Bullock—and a Joke.
Near Horse Creek lived a ranchman of the name of McDonald, a pioneer, and I believe a religious and perfectly sane and honest Scotchman, although I am not sure of his nativity; however, he had all the good qualities of that race. One June morning I joined a bull outfit owned by him and drove a team attached to the naked gears of two wagons into the virgin parks on Laramie Peak, along the streams and upon the sidehills of which grew the straightest aspen and small pine trees in all the territory. No ax had ever desecrated this beautiful forest. The trip was for the purpose of cutting some of these poles and building, while on the mountain, two dozen hay racks upon which was to be hauled to an army post the contract hay cut in the wild meadows. I was still something of a tenderfoot, for I knew nothing of this kind of work, and I soon discovered that I was regarded—much to my chagrin—as only a half-hand. I complained to other drivers when McDonald indicated that he thought me a burden because I had to learn how to use an adz and because I had mishandled my team on a winding new trail we broke in the hills.
One of the bulls, just before leaving the plain below, had playfully reached me with one of his heavy but unshod hind hoofs and keeled me over into a bed of prickly pears. For hours a kindly bullwhacker helped me pluck the sharp and brittle brads from my back. McDonald took a dislike to me, and naturally I lost any admiration I might have had for him. And here is where I made a fatal mistake. I shouldn't have noticed it; instead I took every opportunity offered to annoy him. One day, while in camp, at the instigation of an older man, I remarked that we were to have a change for supper.
"And what will it be?" queried McDonald.
"Bacon and coffee," I replied.
"But we had that for breakfast," said he.
"I know," said I, "but it was coffee and bacon—now it's bacon and coffee!"
The fact is there was no game in the hills, at least we got none. I knew McDonald wouldn't like the joke, but I never believed it would be taken as a personal affront. He was, as a matter of fact, a bountiful provider, but expected to find plenty of grouse, venison, etc., on the trip and had therefore provided only flour, bacon and coffee.
I met McDonald fifteen years later in the Middle West on a railroad train. He remembered me and hadn't forgotten the wound I inflicted by my alleged wit, for he said: