Wild Cow Tales (7 page)

A
KANSAS CITY BANK SPECIALIZES
in cattle loans over much of the western part of the United States. I had worked for them in the Southwest in several different cow deals, and this is how I got into this wild cow deal in the Rocky Mountains.

A Scotsman by the name of Scotty Perth had long been a customer of the bank. His ranch was on the western slope of the Rockies and between bad winters and dry summers and other personal financial disasters, Scotty’s business had gotten in bad shape. He was asking the bank for another advance when they got into some misunderstanding and in an outburst of his Scotch-Irish temper, he bluffed the bank into taking his cattle, range delivery, and mark all his notes “Paid.” He still owned the ranch that the cattle were on, and the bank had until the first of January to have the cattle rounded up and moved off of Scotty Perth’s land.

I had taken the contract to gather three hundred head of cattle (the mortgage called for three hundred head and their increase) that were crossbred between Longhorn Scotch Highland cattle and good Hereford cattle. This is the reason that I was suddenly transplanted from the far, hot Southwest to the high, cool regions of the Rocky Mountains.

I had shipped ten head of horses from Texas and had been on the ranch that was known as Scotty’s Canyon for about a week. During that week I realized how much trouble I was in! Scotty’s Canyon only had one partition fence on the whole ranch, which meant that there were two great big pastures. When Scotty Perth traded with the bank and got his notes marked paid, he specified that they were not to use his headquarters, corrals, and trap pastures to hold cattle in during the time they were being rounded up for shipment. This meant that the only other corrals were high up in the canyon in a very bad spot to try to corral cattle.

This corral high up in the mountains was in the head of a box canyon where a high shaft of rock was at the back of the canyon against the mountain, and the mountain was steep on both sides and at the lower end, which was about three hundred yards from the back, there was a crude rock fence about five to six feet tall that had been built by hand. It was spread out wide on the bottom on the outside of the fence and the rock had been laid reasonably straight up and down on the inside of the corral. This corral was an ancient landmark and was referred to by the natives as the Indian Horse Corral. The story went that Indians had built it to trap wild horses in and no one seemed to know how long it had been there. There was an opening but no swinging gate, and poles had to be fixed across it when stock had been penned. Over to the east of this Indian Corral and up about three hundred yards above there was a mountain not nearly as high as the rest of the mountain range that surrounded it. This little mountain had a trail winding up to the top of it, and it was a mesa of about four or five acres covered with flat rock. This landmark was known as Teepee Rock.

I had made my camp on top of Teepee Rock and was keeping my saddle horses in the Indian Rock Corral at night until I got them located and trained to come in to feed. There was a dripping spring about a hundred yards down the trail off of Teepee Rock and I cleaned out a little basin for it to settle in, and this is where I got water for my camp and to drink.

The location of this corral was bad and something else still worse than this was the fact that my good, hard Texas cow horses were at about a three-thousand-foot-higher
elevation and were out of wind after a short ride in that high mountain country, which meant that I didn’t have enough speed in my horses to outrun cattle that were native at this altitude.

I had ridden out Scotty’s Canyon from one end to the other and was gettin’ ready to make my first big drive. I hired three native cowboys that agreed to mount themselves on their own horses for $5 a day apiece. This was about $2 a day higher than the wages in the rest of the country, but it seemed that most people were in sympathy with Scotty Perth, or else did not want to cultivate his dislike by helpin’ gather the cattle that he had by now begun to take the attitude and spread the word that the bank was “takin’ ” away from him.

The first day’s ride was a pretty wild one, but since we had lots of cattle in front of us and they hadn’t been choused, we netted one hundred and twenty-three head that day. After we got ’em in the canyon corrals we had to drive ’em back down into the pastures and into the valley and by Scotty’s headquarters before we got ’em out into the open country to start ’em to the railroad. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d spill a bunch of ’em the next day goin’ back down through the pasture.

We sat around camp that night and spun a few yarns, and I listened to some of the local wild cow tales before we went to bed.

Next morning we had breakfast and had ridden to the top of the canyon and were ready to turn the cattle out by daylight. It was light enough that you could see a cow and tell her from a boulder or a bush when I gave the signal to start the cattle out of the corrals. I rode the
point and had a man on each wing and the older and slower cowboy that I had hired to bring up the drags. We made it fine through the first pasture, and we were almost through the gate with the herd when the old cowboy bringin’ up the drags “accidentally” let about twenty head get away, but we couldn’t stop and make a drive for them so we started on down the canyon with what we had. The cattle bawlin’ and runnin’ down the canyon gave us a pretty wild ride, but while they were doin’ it, they attracted the attention of a lot of the cattle that were in this pasture that hadn’t been run the day before. So wild cattle like that began to run into and gather with the herd we were drivin’. Once, glancing over my shoulder, I saw the man ridin’ wing to the left almost tryin’ to keep some cattle from comin’ into the herd. This aroused my curiosity and immediately I began to wonder if these native cowboys were tryin’ to help me or maybe they were still tryin’ to help Scotty Perth.

We were gettin’ to the end of the pasture, about an hour and a half later, and the cattle had settled down pretty good and didn’t appear to be mindin’ the drive too much. Since I was ridin’ point, I broke out ahead pretty fast and opened the big double gates that led out into the road. As I mounted my horse and turned back towards the herd, I noticed another one of my good cowboys droppin’ back like he intended to let the point of the herd turn back and start a run into the flat rock at the foot of the mountains. I squalled at him real loud and rode back hard to straighten up the point of the herd. When the herd started through the gate I glanced around and all three of my cowboys were more than a half mile back on
the side of the mountain settin’ in a little huddle and the cattle were followin’ each other and bawlin’ and comin’ on through the gate without any help drivin’ ’em from behind. This was all the proof I needed that I had a roadful of cattle started to the railroad twenty miles away without too much help!

Directly they broke into a lope and caught up and hollered a few times and played like they was really busy, but the truth of the matter was these extra cattle that joined us in the second pasture was quite a surprise to ’em, and the drive was going to be far more successful than their original plans. It was a nice, cool mountain summer day. The cattle were fat and drifted along on the trail without much trouble and were coverin’ the distance to town better than any cowboy could have hoped that they would trail.

We didn’t have any grub with us, and we had made the day without any dinner, but by three thirty in the afternoon I counted one hundred and forty-seven head of cattle through the gate and into the railroad shippin’ pens. I pulled the chain around the gate and locked it with the railroad lock and breathed a sign of relief. We had all acted pleasant all day, and I hadn’t gotten after anybody about their bad way of handlin’ cattle, so I told these native cowboys that I’d go by the depot and order some stockcars to ship in and then I’d meet them uptown in the dining room of the local hotel and we’d eat.

We had a pretty silent kind of a dinner, for cowboys, and I didn’t notice too many of the natives tryin’ to be friendly with my help.

These fellows had hired out to me and brought out their bedrolls and their extra horses and durin’ dinner they’d told me that they was gonna stay with me till I got those cows if “it took all winter.” Well, that might have been their plans, but I had a different idea about it.

We spent the night in town, and by dark all three of ’em disappeared from the hotel and they didn’t show up at the stock pens until up in the middle of the mornin’ to start back to the ranch. I was real friendly and let on like the late start was all right—that I kinda wanted to loaf around a little bit that morning and get acquainted with the town and it wouldn’t hurt if the other cattle had a day to settle in the canyon anyway.

We rode into camp about one o’clock, and all of us set about to stir up some dinner. We’d cooked up a batch of stuff and pretty well devoured it by about two o’clock. And the old cowboy that had let some cattle get away the first chance he had had brought up the matter of whether we oughta ride that afternoon or not. I pulled out my checkbook and said, “Yeah, I think so. But I intend for it to be back to town for you would-be cowboys because I can let these cattle get away without any help and, more’n that, if some wild cattle come and try to get in the herd, I don’t need anybody to fight ’em back, and if some want to go through a gate, I don’t need a cowboy to scare ’em back, and so far as I can tell that’s the only system that you’all intend to use.”

They stood real quiet and still while I made out their checks; then they went to gatherin’ up their bedrolls and catchin’ their extra horses and doin’ a considerable
amount of mouthin’ between themselves about getting fired and makin’ some pretty rash statements about Texas cowboys.

None of this bothered me too much as I had eased over by my bedroll where my extra clothes and saddle and grub were stacked and I’ad sat down on the ground and slipped my arm up in under a sack of flour and casually laid my little fist on the handle of a .45 pistol that I didn’t intend to ever pull out as long as things didn’t get beyond cussin’ and conversation stage.

And sure ’nuff they rode off carrying their belongin’s, their horses, and their ill-will with them!

This left me with one hundred and fifty-three wild cattle in two big rough pastures without any help.

The next day I tidied up my camp a little bit and rode into town to see if I had any mail. I had been into the post office and told ’em who I was and what I was doin’ there and to hold any mail for me … that I’d come in occasionally to pick it up. I had a few letters of no particular importance.

The post office was in the mercantile as was most everything else in the town, includin’ the loafers and the other local talent, such as advisers, wore-out cowboys, and even a few nice people. I tore one of these letters open and was standin’ by the doorway readin’ it when the village doctor, whom I had met, glanced up and said, “Ben, that letter must be good news.”

I said, “Yes, it’s from an old friend by the name of Russell Graham that’s got a horse and mule deal that he’s workin’ on for me and him this winter.”

The doctor stopped cold in his tracks and dropped his
jaw down and said, “Russell Graham! The name sounds familiar.”

I said, “I don’t guess you know him … he was raised out west of Fort Worth a little piece.”

The old doctor turned all smiles and said, “I guess I would. He had an older brother about my age named Harve. We moved from that country when I was in high school.”

This was the beginning of a pleasant visit and a valuable friendship, and we spent half the afternoon talkin’ about old times.

He asked about many people that I could tell him all about, and he seemed to enjoy our conversation. By this time he suggested it was a long way back to Scotty’s Canyon and that I must put my horse in his barn and spend the night.

The doctor had a nice family and home, and while I took on a dose of this hospitality I gathered much information about Scotty Perth, whom I had never seen, and the cow deal.

Scotty Perth was a Scotch-Irish orphan who came to America when he was sixteen years old with a herd of cattle for a Scotch land syndicate that was establishing a ranch in the Rocky Mountains. He was a big, hard Scotsman that had made the most of his opportunities and through hard work and honesty had acquired the ranch known as Scotty’s Canyon. He had a large family and had built a home in town when they started coming of school age, and Scotty spend much of his time at the ranch alone in recent years, until a horse had fallen down a canyon wall with him and broke his left leg. He had lain
out in the pasture a day and a night and by his toughness had managed to crawl and drag himself to his headquarters. It was still another day or two until anybody came by to find him. The final results of this was that Scotty lost his left leg … it had to be taken off. And it was durin’ this spell that his financial difficulties had occurred and that he had developed an unbearable temper and in a fit of rage had settled with the bank by giving them all his cattle, range delivery. However, he still owned all of his ranch land and his friends hoped that he would be able to start over when the bank finally got the cattle moved off the ranch.

I rode out early next mornin’ after I had thanked the good doctor and his wife for a most enjoyable visit. I knew that I could catch some more cattle by myself, but I didn’t know how many. And it seemed that there weren’t any cowboys that were gonna be willin’ to help gather these cattle under the circumstances.

I rode and worked hard by myself for the next two weeks and got thirty-two head, which was about a carload of cattle.

By now I had learned something about runnin’ wild cattle in the Rockies that was just reverse from runnin’ wild cattle in the Southwest. In the Southwest cattle are usually in creek and river bottoms and around canyon pastures. The problem, generally speakin’, is to bring them out and up into open prairie regions where they can be caught or driven. Now in the Rockies wild cattle take to the high country where the boulders and cliffs make it almost impossible to run a horse, and the problem is to get them down out of the mountains into the valleys
below, which are usually open, and makes it possible to drive or herd or do whatever else you need to do with them.