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Sketch by Frank Tenney Johnson
“T guess we must a’ bin three fect ahead, with a hundred yards to go. Split was
a-cussin’ aw spurrin’,an’ whippin’. I jes’ whispered, ‘Now, Stud! Now! Now!’”
(See Chapter XXIV — “Old Gran’ pa’)
A RANCHMAN’S
RECOLLECTIONS
An -Autobiography
IN WHICH UNFAMILIAR FACTS BEARING UPON THE
ORIGIN OF THE CATTLE INDUSTRY IN THE
SOUTHWEST AND OF THE AMERICAN
PACKING BUSINESS ARE STATED,
and CHARACTERISTIC INCI-
DENTS RECORDED
BY
FRANK 5S. HASTINGS
Manager of the S. M.S. Ranch
STAMFORD, TEXAS
PUBLISHED BY
THE BREEDER’S GAZETTE
542 SOUTH DEARBORN STREET
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
1921
Copyright, 1921,
SANDERS PUBLISHING Co.
All Rights Reserved.
The Lakestde Press
R. R, DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHICAGO
TO THE OWNERS AND EMPLOYEES
OF THE S.M. S. RANCH
WHO THROUGH THEIR CO-OPERATION AND
UNSWERVING CONFIDENCE
HAVE GIVEN ME INSPIRATION IN MY
INDUSTRIAL WORK
THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
FRANK S. HASTINGS
3 ay
ne
A
"i
poy
iH
B
Aw)
Nin
i)
PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
“And thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall
come water out of it, that the people may drink.”
N the opening paragraph of the first chapter of
this volume the author intimates that we ‘‘may”’
not have known that we were to unloose a flood when
we asked him originally to write of his experiences
in connection with the rise and progress of the west-
ern cattle trade. In response I will simply say that
we have known FRANK Hastincs for full thirty
years. We thought we knew him well, but we now
find that he has gifts not hitherto suspected.
Originally brought out in the columns of The
Breeder’s Gazette, these sketches attracted at once
and held the close attention of thousands of delighted
readers in every part of the country. In soliciting
their preparation we approached the subject with the
same confidence that the Prophet of old smote with
his rod the rock of Horeb; but I must here and now
confess that the stream of thought called forth sur-
passed in purity and sweetness anything anticipated.
Mr. Hastincs has made a real contribution to
the pastoral literature of the West; one vitalized
throughout by an intensely human touch. We count
ourselves fortunate in having the privilege of giving
his work this permanent form.
ALVIN H. SANDERS.
[ vii]
Weak tee,
Ave)
os
Ayan aiRY
ren
ya
ay
tes
aff
ms
CRU UT ath
ts, Nh wie
oy
ibe
Rule)
Ta
Coys)
Ni
aria
At ee
) sh i
han
ane
naae
i
ne
‘
i
aarp!
Wa
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
HE only excuse I can offer for the publication
in book form of the series of sketches which
under the title, ‘“‘Recollections of a Ranchman,”’ ap-
peared in The Breeder’s Gazette, Chicago, from July
15, 1920, to and including the Holiday Number of
that year, is found in letters from people whom I
know and many whom I do not know, and from
librarians and educational institutions, suggesting
that the matter should be republished in this form.
I confess that while the opinions of my immediate
friends are dear to me, yet they may be indulgent and
that the kind words written from the forks of the
creek by people whom I do not know have been a
greater boon tome. This is particularly true of old-
timers on the range who have commented on the
cowboy dialect used in some of the sketches as being
correct, or, as one or two have written, “‘You have
got the cowboy down fine.”
It is solace to a writer to have his written word
ring true to ‘“‘men who know.” Their expressions of
appreciation have gone straight to my heart.
It has been a source of pleasure to look backward
over the cattle industry as it has come into my life,
and to recall some of the wonderful men whom it
has been my privilege to know. This prelude would
[ ix ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
not be complete without an expression of my grati-
tude to Alvin H. Sanders and DeWitt C. Wing of
The Breeder's Gazette, for their patience, care and
thoroughness in editing my. manuscript, and their
helpful suggestions as to topics.
If by chance an indulgent reader shall find any-
thing of historic value in these sketches, or if the
book shall prove helpful to any of the young men
who are coming along in the cattle industry, my cup
will be full.
Very truly,
FRANK S. HAstTINGs,
Manager of the S. M.S. Ranch,
Stamford, Texas.
June) 1, 1921-
[x]
CONTENTS
PAGES
OBLISHER S| (PREFACE 0: Shi iyi iy ay etiaalie Vii
ENUM ORIS) PREFACE 6 t,o) eK san Wah ae silts ix-X
WIST OF MULE WSTRATIONS| <n) foc ati eho XML XAV.
MbinE AREY DAV SHC ONr si cor fo) Goria on her date Dalle I-16
Earty PAcKING AND REFRIGERATION . . . . = 17-25
“THE STORY OF THE HEREFORDS” . . . . . 26-35
More Asout HEREForRDS AND MEN. . . . . 36-41
“BILLY” CUMMINGS: ANALL-ROUNDCATTLEMAN 42-48
ME VATE VIARCUS) DALY Via 2) 5 ae) eben 49-55
“THE EMBALMED BEEF SCANDAL” . . . . . 56-69
ARETE DABY | DEER IDEA). \Csiicailaie ys nine. i) ZOu7O
SoME JouRNALIsTS I HAavE KNown. . . . . = 77-86
Kirk B. ARMourR ASI KNEw Him . .. . . 87-95
BRAHMIN CaTTLE: CULLING A RANGE HERD . 96-103
SoME WESTERN CHARACTERISTICS . . . . .~ IO4-II5
SoME Cowspoy CHARACTERISTICS. . . . . «~ I16-125
CaTTLE WeicHT Comparisons; Ticks. . . . 126-134
SomE Packers I HavE KNowN . . . . . . 135-145
[ xi ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
PAGES
APHEC LONG, DRATL( Wen ei Oa A Ost eS
TEXAS Cow PoniEs AND Stup HorsE Luck . . 159-167
DHE STORM?) VA) VEAGE STORY (2). ysis) re LOG-175
SoME HumBLE WESTERN CHARACTERS. . . . 176-184
GRUBB) THE | POTATOCRING 1 185-190
REFRIGERATION AND By-Propucts . . . . . 191-196
ADVERTISING: PARTING REMARKS . + 197-203
re ost! CHILD ii.) Wiel Manian (auieth enim eE2O4e2ts
Op GRaAn’pA:.A “Mace” Story . . . . .« 214-226
‘WHE SSPECKLED YEARLIN) feo) o.oo)! ssi ol e222 35
[ xii ]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Orn GRAN PAW enc erst ol es Wisi iso Montispiece
Say Vine o(COWS IN SPRING FORM. ). 1) 0.923) 0) 2). 33
THROWING A Rounp-Up oN WATER. . . . . . 65
SEPARATING Cows FROM CALVES . ..... . 75
IIRKLAND Be ARMOUR. che) ei velitiast al Wal crenitietine iy Oy
Currinc Our Cate BY CLASsEs, 30) )).//.)4). 2) TOT
BRINGING | BACK (AWGWRUANT)) 6) 5) fo) Wel) oi) willis es 117,
GPE OWIET Scere de iu elas el vel Males Wide te pet ESE
PPEHILIP SE) ARMOUR sal sitet yey Weslaleui ion Weuee tell team e) T.3O
INEESON@IVEORRISW Meira te mmiCe EO ei ainranme Nese DAS
Seve Ss BOYS SADDEING IN’) CORRAL |lei/e0> 6) -) )e))/e 50
BOL CARRY aly hemo n aul) Mune chuGe MPa ay cu RU TOE
CURLEY PANDM PACK) sy cua Manila yen hy Py (ete OS
Mace Himsetr on “Oxtp GRAN’PA” . . ww «e215
[ xiii ]
+1
Mi
Aap. i p
Lat)
ve
WaMeihs
Bay
eet
cup
mkoy
ta VOT My }
PAN te
Raa w
iA
i HIN ane
Ai rete pene
i tan i i RY
i (vay
nae
Phat
reais
PHN ¢
(ial
in ai
|
Ara
ron
aoe
PAWNS
2 WV
‘3
hast
vata :
Ni Mabe } ‘ , ' Keak,
MUNI hea O yity : eet ) nN .
SAMAK Haat} i i eral O)) Ui teal
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY DAYS
T IS a far cry from the S. M. S. ‘Ranch in 1920
to the five-board fence on my father’s little farm,
near Leavenworth, Kans., where I sat fifty years
ago (in 1870) watching the first herd of Texas cattle
that I had ever seen. They were driven into an
adjoining pasture, and as I look back through the
vista of men, methods and events that have filled that
gap in the evolution of the cattle industry I am
reminded that The Breeder’s Gazette in asking me
to review that period from a personal standpoint
may not have realized how full of it I am, or how
much space would be required to tell the story, which
must necessarily be rambling. I shall not attempt
to write history in chronological order. As Henry
Watterson, in some wonderful stories of men and
events, in his “Looking Backward” series, wrote of
characters and events of interest rather than orderly
history, so I wish I might use the general title of his
recollections, because my own will be simply the
memories of “looking backward,” and yet I shall try
to reach the time when the past steps upon the
threshold of the present.
Harking back to the boy of 10 years on the
board fence, I recall that the cattle were from the
[1]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
King Ranch, and had been shipped from Abilene,
Kans., which was then the great objective of Texas
trail herds, and the first great shipping point in the
west. It was late in the fall of 1870. The herd was
of mixed cows and steers. The steers in the main
were disposed of by December and the cows win-
tered. Their pasture had been my playground.
The “Ole Swimming Hole” was there; it was also
my wild duck preserve, in fall and spring, as well
as my fish pond. Black walnuts lined the stream
and hazelnuts abounded on the rolling ground; they,
too, were my treasures. My winter rabbit trapping
and quail shooting were there. I used the scrub oak
thickets for a screen from which to shoot prairie
chickens as they came over in the fall on their way
southward. .
The longhorns seemed an intrusion. They had a
wild-eyed way of keeping one covered. I was in-
clined to resent their advent, but my mother said
that they would not bother me if I attended to my
own business and let them alone. Perhaps that was
intended as much for a life admonition as to remove
my misgivings. It worked out all right, and I was
soon persona grata to go and come. I have often
thought of her admonition, with its practical demon-
stration; it has helped me over some hard spots since.
In the following spring the Texas cows began to
bring calves. The town butchers wanted them, and
the cattle-owners wanted the cows dry and grass-
[2]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
fat. The calves were sold at $2.50 per head, the
butchers to come and get them, as wanted. Their
first trip, made in an ordinary butcher’s wagon, with
no horse to rope from, encountered maternity from
the jump.
My father had a first-model Smith & Wesson blue-
barreled six-shooter. He had furnished me with
cartridges for unlimited practice. I have not car-
ried or fired a revolver in forty years, but at that
time I could pepper my shots pretty well about the
ace at fifty feet. I hired out to the butchers, and
had good success shooting the calves in the forehead
from the wagon. I was allowed Io cents per head,
which was probably a better return, in proportion,
than the cattle-owners, received from their invest-
ments.
In the summer tragedy came. The winter had
been very mild; ticks carried over; a dairy herd
which had been culled and selected for years was
turned into the pasture with the Texas cows, and
suffered a 90 per cent mortality. The whole coun-
try became excited, thinking it an epidemic which
would spread; stories of Texas fever were brought in
vaguely from other states; a great many domestic
cattle in Dickinson County, Kans., near Abilene,
died; New York State issued a quarantine against
Texas cattle; the Governor of Illinois called a con-
vention at Springfield, Ill., which was attended by
delegates from most of the northern states and two
3]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
from Canada; Texas fever and quarantines were dis-
cussed. Only three theories, with any following,
were presented. The first was a theory advanced by
scientists which argued that Texas fever resulted
from a small egg or sporule, deposited upon the
blades of grass in Texas. The blades, being eaten by
the cattle, enabled the sporule to find its way into
the blood and grow to be well-defined, under the
microscope, resulting in disorganization of the blood
and a fever of deadly character. ‘The second theory
was that Spanish or Texas fever came from such
causes as fever aboard emigrant ships, privation,
hard usage, and insufficient feed, water and rest.
The third theory was ticks, which, dropped from
Texas animals, were eaten by domestic animals, with
fatal results.
_ Texas was without representation at the meeting,
from which prejudice was spread with more or less
justification over the whole United States against
Texas cattle, setting the industry back many years.
About this time the nucleus of the now great pack-
ing industry began to form, but for the moment I
shall only write of it as it came into my own life.
One Joseph Whittaker of Cincinnati gave a 99-
year lease on some valuable vacant property for city
park purposes. He received a yearly income which
looked big then, and, with cattle and hogs at low
value, furnished a good working capital, protected
by a handsome annual income. He came to Leaven-
[4]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
worth, Kans., formed a partnership with Matthew
Ryan, and built a substantial small packinghouse
for the slaughter of hogs and cattle on the bank of
the Missouri River, which stream formed a cheap
sewer as well as cheap ice supply. ‘They specialized
on hogs during the winter months, and cattle dur-
ing the cattle season; that is, from mid-summer to
December, doing a limited fresh meat business, and
running largely to barreled beef and dried beef hams.
A lot of negro women and children could always
be seen coming from the packinghouse, carrying
fresh livers, hearts and kidneys, which were given
away. In modern technical parlance these organs
were the “pluck,” which is now a material item in
modern packinghouse salvage. In looking back I
do not understand why it was not thrown into tank-
age, which they were then making, nor why they did
not use in the main everything else in the offal.
Whittaker bought a half-section of land near my
father’s place. It was a rather light-soiled tract.
He began hauling tankage to scatter over it. That
was my first sense of the packer drive to eliminate
waste. It was literally a sense, because the first
intimation came through the nostrils and the second
through the ears from the expressions of outraged
neighbors, who sought the courts and tried to have
it declared a nuisance, but most of them lived to see
an almost sterile farm develop into one of the best
producers in the country. I do not know whether
[5]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
they ran the blood into tankage then or not, but
have a vague memory that it went into the sewer.
What has followed in the wake of the primitive
initial move in animal fertilizer production and use,
in comparison with what is being accomplished now,
and the greater saving from using what originally
went into tankage, will come in for later comment.
Whittaker’s boys were my playmates and chums.
On Saturdays we often went to the packinghouse.
On one of these visits an incident occurred which has
been vital in relation to some of my _ subsequent
studies in breeding. They were killing quite a string
of aged Texas steers, using a sharp lance, and strik-
ing behind the horns. We saw them lance a big
fellow, with the usual result: a quick fall, the trap
door opened, and he was dragged to the skinning
beds. When the knife was at his throat he jumped,
with one bound, to his feet, saw daylight through a
door at the rear, jumped a story and a half to the
ground, swam the Missouri River to a sandbar one-
quarter of a mile distant, shook himself and turned
his head to the shore, at bay. In later years Texas
steers running amuck in the Kansas City bottoms
charged cable cars, head on.
I am sure that the wonderful vitality of the prim-
itive Longhorn, backed by self-reliance and the
hustling qualities of the Hereford, blended with the
old Spanish blood, has served as a kind of iron basis
for the well-bred bovine stocks in Texas today. This
[6]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
vital seed, as represented by its modern beef type,
transplanted to the north, stands the rigors of winter
better than native cattle. In my own work here in
Texas I found that the S. M. S. herd had a won.
derful basis. There were many weeds in it, however,
and I cut for conformation, leaving lots of 1,000-
pound cows, with some brindle or often straight duns,
long after I had cut out a lot of cat-hammed, flat-
ribbed animals with clean flesh marks and color.
Cortez may have treated the Mexican race badly,
but he gave to America or, more exactly speaking, to
the Texas prairies, a heritage in vital cow brutes
which has done almost as much as pure breeding for
the American cattle industry. That heritage fur-
nished the vitality in which to fix the beef-making
instinct. I have never lost sight of it in the S. M. S.
herd. While our fraction long ago was reduced to
-999 pure, we have kept our eyes on the strong,
‘‘good-doers,” and watched the winter feed grounds,
like hawks watching chickens, for weak constitu-
tions, and the spring pick-up for the laggards, and
kissed them goodbye.
We owe the primitive Texas cow a debt. She had
much to do in making possible the record that well-
bred Texas cattle are registering in the markets, as
regards both prices and poundage.
If the foregoing may take the caption “Fifty Years
Ago,” perhaps what follows could be headed ‘Light
Begins to Dawn.”
[7]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
The early days of range cattle production may only
be considered as a tragedy, in the light of what has
followed—a thought which can probably be applied
with truth to the frontier in making a path for
civilization and progress—but the story, rich in ter-
rors and privations, of the gold-seeker and the trail
from the Missouri ‘River to the Golden Gate, has a
sequel in the story of the men who have made the
Texas of today.
From Charles Jones, an associate in my packing-
house days, and now at the head of the Freeport,
Tex., Sulphur Co., I have obtained a book which
induced him to become a cowpuncher in 1877. It is
out of print and priceless, and I go to the safe to
see if it is still there, just as one puts one’s hand on
one’s pocketbook in a crowd. It was written by
‘Joe’ G. McCoy, and bears the title ‘Historic
Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and South-
west.’ It was published in 1874, just at a time
when the dark hour was on the Texas industry. The
state was under quarantine, and there was no known
remedy or protection against Spanish or Texas fever.
The book contains interesting data. Its most inter-
esting chapters deal with attempts to find an eastern
market for cattle, first by trail, even into Illinois, and
in 1868 to Abilene, Kans., when shipping pens had
been established on the Union Pacific Railroad and
buyers assembled during the season for purchases
distributed by rail everywhere east.
[8]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Conditions were at their worst in 1873, when Mr.
McCoy evidently turned in his copy. The wail of
despair in his concluding thought sums up the his-
tory of those awful preceding ten years. I quote him,
not only because of what has followed, but because
the evolution of Texas into a nursery for well-bred
beef cattle in the national supply offers a striking
illustration of the courage and never-know-when-
you-are-licked-persistence of the Texan, in the cattle
industry or any other industry. Texas is the first
state in cotton and cattle; the third in oil, with the
prospect of becoming first; the first in sulphur, and
wheat is coming fast, to say nothing of truck gar-
dening, poultry and butter—all distinct national
factors—and there are still millions of fertile acres
of virgin soil begging for the plow; but I am getting
away from my story. Mr. McCoy, himself a pioneer
frontier trailer and cattle trader, says, in 1874:
“Of the cattle coming from Texas two-thirds are
marketed when almost totally unfit for consumption,
thus entailing comparatively immense losses upon
the parties selling them. Rather than continue this
foolish, wasteful and ruinous practice, drovers had
infinitely better buy stock ranches in western Kansas
and Colorado and there keep them until their stock
isi fate:;
It is not my thought to ridicule McCoy’s conclu-
sion. He was logical and could not look forward
to the Texas of today, any more than the cattlemen
[9]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
of those times could look forward to agricultural
development and solidify their land holdings when
the alternate section was school land under lease
and it seemed cheaper to lease than to buy.
The nester was not dreamed of then. The range
was open, and the wire fence was still in the back
of John Gates’ head. There were a few notable
exceptions. S. M. Swenson was one of them, and
we find on his maps this notation, made before the
Civil War: ‘‘Do not sell this tract; it has water on
it, and is good agricultural land.” Men who had
that foresight have reaped deserved rewards.
The northwestern movements had not begun to
any appreciable extent, but except in so far as the
Spanish fever scare limited trails to Kansas rail-
road connections, a ray of light had appeared at
Kansas City, and there was another day dawning for
the beef industry. That light was the packinghouse
plus refrigeration. First came the packinghouse,
with its immense capacity for barreled beef and
pickled dried beef hams, with a limited natural ice
refrigeration. Barreled beef was almost as great a
staple as barreled pork, and it had an immense con-
sumption in lumber camps and sailing vessels, besides
a large aggregate domestic consumption.
Plankington and Armour owned packinghouses in
Milwaukee and Chicago, but with that great fore-
sight which seemed to make the future an open
book, and made a fortune for him in pork after the
[ 10 |
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Civil War, Philip D. Armour became convinced that
he needed a location nearer the source of beef pro-
duction. Accordingly in 1870 he located a packing-
house in Kansas City, devoted largely to the slaugh-
ter of beef, although the hog was an important
factor in the business. The Kansas City stockyards
were simply a holding-place. Crude cuts of the yards
in the McCoy book show them to be made like good-
sized railroad feed and rest pens of the present day,
probably about twice the size of those at Parsons,
Kans.
Some trading was done in the yards, but in the
main packinghouse buyers went out to Abilene,
taking real money with them, and making their
purchases as trail herds came in. G. W. Tourtelotte,
familiarly known as ‘“‘Charlie’’ Tourtelotte, later
superintendent of the Kansas City plant for twenty
years, was Armour’s pioneer buyer. I wish that
space permitted my going into details concerning the
reminiscences that I have heard him relate. He was
a man of unusual balance, likable, competent and
dependable. He did not believe, even in those early
days, when it was so much in vogue, in mixing
“booze” and business. From others I have learned
that his great asset with the men whom he came in
contact with in those early days was his absolute fair-
ness. He established for his company that most
valuable of all business assets: “A good concern to
do business with.”’
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
“Charlie” was a born handler of men, always
taking the human equation into consideration, and,
during his superintendency, probably had as few
labor complications as any superintendent in any
industry in America. His men idolized him. Dur-
ing a strike, which came very quickly after the plant
was visited by labor organizers, I recall that men
were hard to hold in line, and persisted in telling the
agitators that they would do anything “Charlie”
Tourtelotte said was right. I recall that Samuel
Gompers came promptly and effected a settlement.
The strike was with the firemen, and lasted only a
short time; but with its inception notices were sent out
all over the country urging a boycott of the products
of the Armour Packing Co., which had not then con-
solidated with Armour & Co. of Chicago, with Philip
D. Armour as a large stockholder.
Corrective notices were of course sent. At that
time the western mining districts were strongly or-
ganized. Butte, Mont., the most notable, was the
leading district, and at that place there were 52
organizations, operating through a central council,
and a notice of the lifting of the boycott had not
reached that body. Everything was peaceful at
Butte. In the Coeur d’Alene country, with head-
quarters at Wallace, Idaho, practically the same
condition as to organization existed; but in that
country things were very bad. Mine-owners were
being killed, and troops were sent there.
[ 12]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
At this point I shall digress for a moment to illus-
trate the workings of the boycott system in restraint
of trade, and how far-reaching, after local troubles
had been adjusted, the system sometimes unintention-
ally carried serious injury, and relate some personal
reminiscences which are amusing in the telling, but
were very real then.
I had charge of the western brokers, and usually
spent two months every spring in the west. Our
immense trade there was blocked by the failure to
have the boycott raised. Our brokers were wiring
us about it. I was sent out to investigate. I found
that the boycott had not been raised because the
notice of its having been lifted had not been placed
before the central body, the secretary of which told
me that it would be necessary to locate the particular
union which presented it. His record did not show
that union, so I had to make the rounds, of the 52
secretaries until I located my man. I ferreted out
two or three of the leaders. They treated me very
courteously, and helped me locate the various sec-
retaries. Butte was a three-shift town, most of
whose population consisted of miners; it was prob-
ably the liveliest town in America at that time. It
had no day or night. Members of one shift or
another were always more or less on the streets. It
was said that “It is day all day in the daytime, and
there is no night at Butte.”’
I began selling meats, subject to lifting the boy-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
cott, and spent a week, most of the 24 hours each
day, as the shifts were out, trying to locate my man.
Most of them dropped into Demer & Hicky’s sa-
loon, and I spent most of my time there playing
whist with some of the good fellows who would point
out some of my 52 varieties as they came in, but
always the wrong man. Finally I got down to five,
and located them in certain mines. I was doing a
land office business selling carloads, but they were
needing the goods and punching me up for shipment,
which we did not dare make until my man was found.
The central body had its monthly meeting the
next night. I went out to one of the mines where
one of my five men worked. It really was not a mine
but a hole in the ground about 500 feet deep, with
a bucket instead of a cage in which to bring the ore
up, and the bucket, by the way, was a whisky barrel,
with a steel-pointed bottom. My man was there,
but down below. The engineer was a fine fellow, but
he evidently wanted to have some fun, so he said,
“You can go down and see him.” I asked if the
man could not come up for a few minutes, and said
that I would pay his wages for the day. The
engineer said, ‘‘You are not afraid to go down, are
you?” I replied, ‘‘No,”’ but I lied, and could feel
myself slipping off the barrel, yet I knew that I
must have the miner’s respect. He gave me some
slicker clothes and delegated one of his helpers to
accompany me.
fal
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
We stood with our feet on the rim of the barrel,
our hands on the cable, and as the drop began I
looked up at the daylight above, and said, ‘“‘Goodbye,
old girl, if I never see you again.”
Below the level of the mine there was a sump,
and the engineer, not through with his fun, dropped
us to the water line before my guide could signal
him to stop. I found my man, got my release, and
when I reached the top was so glad to see any one
but the engineer that I rushed over and kissed a
handsome setter dog. That night the central body
met and released us, but the miners told the story,
and had about as much fun over it as boys on a
ranch have when some one is thrown but not hurt.
I shall not here enter into a description of very
much the same procedure in the Coeur d’Alene
country, except to say that I was accompanied by
a merchant from Missoula, Mont., who had a branch
at Wallace, Idaho. We went into a little restaurant
in the mining district for lunch. There was a local
strike on, and almost everyone had “tanked up.”’
Our waiter had achieved a particularly compre-
hensive “‘jag.’’ Some one pointed me out as the man
who was trying to lift the Armour boycott. We
ordered boiled eggs. The waiter called back, “Boil
two dozen,” and then addressing us directly, said,
“When any of ye damned capitalists come out here
to run this country we'll feed ye well, but, by God,
ye ll eat what’s set before ye.”’
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
My friend turned to me and said, “What are you
going to do?”
“T am going to eat mine,” I answered.
In the meantime I suggested to the waiter that
we all go in at the next door and have a drink with
the “‘capitalists.”’ In the end the waiter found my
man for me.
There is hardly a day in my life when something
in connection with my old packinghouse training does
not help me over a difficulty. A duty to perform
meant in those days ‘“‘sticktoitiveness,’’ quick wits,
keeping one’s temper, attending to one’s own busi-
ness, and work. That is how men have been trained
to encircle the globe with American live stock
products.
[ 16.]
CHAPTER II
EARLY PACKING AND REFRIGERATION
J. CALLAHAN in his reminiscences shows
e that Armour slaughtered the first beef, from
a packing standpoint, in Kansas City in 1869, using
the Nofsinger House, but in 1870 the company killed
in its own plant, and by the fall of 1871 thought it
remarkable to be killing 100 cattle in a ten-hour day.
McCoy records 68,000 cattle killed in 1871 and
1872 in Kansas City, Armour killing one-half, the
other one-half by others whom he does not mention;
also that in 1873 26,800 were killed, the volume
being reduced by the panic of that year. Callahan
says that in 1869 some cattle were slaughtered in
Houston, Tex., by Hancock & Cragin and some at
Junction City, Kans., by Patterson & Co.
fns6o Philip Ds Armour sent) PC. Cole) to
Texas with a view to selecting a killing point, but
after careful investigation Mr. Cole reported that
it was too early to go to Texas, and, placing his
finger on the map at Kansas City, said, ‘“This is the
logical point.” Mr. Cole was more or less ‘with the
Armour Kansas City plant and was associated with
Geo. W. Tourtelotte in the early range buying.
McCoy records that in 1873 the Missouri, Kansas
[17]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
& Texas Railroad was completed to Denison, Tex.,
where pens for 2,000 cattle were built; also that the
Atlantic and Texas Refrigerator Car Co. had con-
structed 100 new cars, adapted to shipping fresh
beef and local capacity for killing 500 cattle per day.
I have been unable to ascertain the fate of the Deni-
son enterprise, but hope to before my story is
finished. The reference to cars can hardly mean
refrigerators, since all records seem to point to 1875
and 1876, with Chicago taking the initiative.
Callahan records 1876 as the year in which the
first killing was done in Kansas City for local butcher
trade. He also comments on beef hams as going in
large quantity in tierces to William Windsor, Liver-
pool, England, contracted for in advance, and to
Jacob Dold, Buffalo, N. Y., who later established
a large plant in Kansas City. Procter & Gamble of
Cincinnati bought the tallow, Buffalo, N. Y., took
the hides, and a Massachusetts concern the horns.
Callahan makes another comment which explains in
a way why the packing business moved rapidly be-
tween 1870 and 1880. He says: “It was usually
considered that if a packer either owned or could
rent a packinghouse, and had money enough to
accumulate a suitable stock of cooperage, salt and
saltpeter, and had a fair line with a good bank, he
was ready to run the business.”
The first record of refrigeration, still using natural
ice, is given by Joseph Nicholson of Chicago as
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
having been built in 1875 by him, the idea being
taken from a small domestic icebox, known as the
Fischer box. A royalty of 6 cents per square foot
was paid for the use of the idea. A year later Mr.
Nicholson felt that he could improve the Fischer
box, and built an entirely different one, using his
own ideas with success. Another interesting fact
recalled by Mr. Nicholson is that prior to the re-
frigerator car, fresh meat, mainly pork, was shipped
in barrels, with a link of stovepipe filled with packed
ice in the center and meat packed about it, but it
was never sent further than Aurora or Galesburg
in Illinois. Pork tenderloins were then considered a
by-product, and sold for 6 cents a pound. The lowest
temperature obtained from this class of refrigeration
was 34°.
The Bankers’ Magazine for January, 1919,
carries a stary of the house of Swift & Co., which
says: “Mr. Swift in 1876 perfected a refrigerator
car that would carry dressed beef to eastern markets
in prime condition. He built his own refrigerator
cars because the railroads refused to build them.
The same is true of Armour & Co., and others with
well-defined refrigerator car service in 1878, by
which time the prejudice against refrigerated meats
had been overcome by the splendid quality of prime
beef in prime condition available for every table in
cities.”
The history of refrigerator cars is especially inter-
[19]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
esting at this time, when bills in Congress are seek-
ing to take them away from the packers, and yet it
is a fair deduction that without private initiative
the beef industry must have dragged on for years
without markets. In 1881 I was with a produce
house in Denver. Hundreds of cars of apples and
potatoes were shipped in the winter from the Mis-
sour! River, there being stoves in the cars. It is a
fair deduction, too, that the development of meat
refrigerator cars brought the same service for prod-
uce, fish and fruit, most of it under private initiative,
years before it would have come from the slow
process of railroad development.
It is not my thought to follow the development
of the Kansas City market for cattle through any
tedious process of dates and figures, but rather to
sketch epochs of vital bearing.
The hog industry does not call for any special
mention of its advent, except that refrigerator cars
began the movement for the sale of fresh pork cuts,
with limited natural ice refrigeration for curing, a
gradual increase in summer killing, the time-honored
term “‘winter-cured,” as applied to hams and bacon,
becoming obsolete as mechanical refrigeration be-
came definite.
Artificial, or, more properly speaking, mechanical
refrigeration, meaning the use of the ammonia
process, was first used by Kingan & Co., Indianapolis,
in 1885. Its use in Chicago and Kansas City oc-
[ 20 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
curred in 1886 or 1887, but it did not come into
widespread use as to butter, eggs, cheese, poultry and
fruit until after 1890. It will be seen how far-reach-
ing the refrigerator car was in advance of mechanical
refrigeration in establishing a market for both fresh
beef and pork in at least all the medium-sized and
large cities.
The years 1870 to 1880 marked the period of
great change from the uncertain to the certain, from
‘salt junk” to fresh meat distribution, and gave the
real swing not only to the western packing industry
but to a conception of better cattle on the ranges.
The Armour family were farmers. The old fam-
ily plow, dating back to pre-revolutionary times, is
still to be seen at the Chicago stockyards. The gen-
eration of packers, consisting of five brothers, be-
came great captains of industry. Philip D. Armour
founded Armour & Co., and brought all of his broth-
ers directly or indirectly into the business. In 1869
he sent the oldest brother, Simeon B. Armour, to
take charge of the Kansas City packing venture, and
later another brother, A. W. Armour, to head the
banking firm of Armour Bros. in Kansas City, after-
wards merged into the Midland National Bank. A.
W. Armour never became a packer, but his sons
Kirkland B. Armour and Chas. W. Armour went
into the business as boys. A. W. Armour brought to
the great Kansas City banking house the instincts of
the trained country banker, with its cordial intima-
[21]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
cies, human interests and intuitive estimate of men.
He was in every way a lovable character, with the
faculty of attracting young men and helping them in
their business problems. Many of the stalwarts in
today’s Kansas City activities grow fondly reminis-
cent of him and his influence on their lives.
When I went with the Kansas City Armours in
1889 Simeon B. Armour was still the active head,
with John Mansur as confidential adviser. Mr. Man-
sur had in the ’70’s been of the firm of Slavens &
Mansur in Kansas City packing, but withdrew to
go with the Armours. He remained with them until
his death. Hides and fertilizer were his immediate
specialties; he also directed the hog buying. He was
known throughout the industry as one of the ablest
men of his time.
Among the traditions of the Kansas City plant is
that of Simeon B. Armour’s methods. He sat at the
receiving scales in the early days, weighing in the
hogs. He kept in close touch with the class of cattle
and every day saw every nook and corner of the
plant, keeping in the closest touch with his men and
calling most of them by name, all distinct Armour
traits. He was reserved, conservative and eminently
just; his charities were extensive but never ostenta-
tious. Himself a man of exemplary habits, he had
the deepest sympathy for human weaknesses, and the
cry of a soul in distress always found his hand reach-
ing down to grasp one struggling in despair. He did
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
not have the magnetic force of his brother Philip or
of his nephew Kirkland, but by a quiet force, pecu-
liarly his own, drew men to him with bonds equally
strong.
When Kansas City, the unsightly town of hills and
hollows, began to develop its parks and boulevards,
he was on the first board, remaining until his death,
and was the great inspiration for the now beautiful
Kansas City. Mr. Armour attended church regu-
larly, and had a quiet but effective method of passing
on the sermon. If it appealed to him he remained
and gave the minister a cigar, but otherwise filed out
with the congregation. An instance of his innate
honesty occurred when the celebrated heifer Armour
Rose was being raffled off to build Convention Hall.
Kirk B. Armour was making a public sale of reg-
istered Herefords, and several heifers sold at $1,000.
Members of the Commercial Club asked him to do-
nate a heifer to be sold for the Convention Hall
fund, which he did, saying that she was as good as
he had. The public knew the sale price, and figured
that Armour Rose should be worth as much as the
best, but very few wanted a heifer.
S. B. Armour called me to his desk and asked,
‘What is this that I see in the papers about Kirk
and you calling this heifer worth $1,000? Did you
say that she is worth that?’ I said that she had
been given without valuation, but the public had
jumped at the conclusion that it could have the heifer
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
or $1,000. He replied, ‘““We’ll make her worth a
thousand dollars.”
He had a weakness for hickory wood from the
earliest days until he died; he just could not see an
outstanding load of straight hickory wood come into
the smokehouses without saying, “Send that up to my
house.”? He always had a four or five years’ supply
ahead, and, so far as possible, heated his house
with it.
Another incident illustrated his penchant for the
quick liquidation of obligations. While at Hot
Springs with his family Mr. Armour met Hiram
Berry, the manufacturer of “Old Crow” whiskey.
Shortly after Mr. Armour’s return Mr. Berry sent
him a case of “Old Crow,” with the following dog-
gerel, signed by Mr. Berry: “To Mr. 5S. B. Armour:
“Herein, Mr. Armour,
I send you a ‘Charmer’ ;
A real assuager of grief;
It is good for the ‘inner,’
And when taken at dinner
Will go mighty well with your beef.
‘Perhaps you don’t know
‘That our real ‘Old Crow,’
Is made on the perfectest plan;
It will cheer, it will cure,
And we warrant it pure,’
As the meat you put up in a can.”
I had introduced verse into our advertising, with
rather good results, and was known as “The Rhyme-
[ 24 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ster.’ Mr. Armour brought the Berry effusion over
to my desk and said, ‘“‘I want you to send Mr. Berry
a case of the best things we prepare. I want it to
be the best case that ever went out of this shop.
When a man thinks enough of me to fix me up like
this I want to do something for him; then see what
you can do about some poetry.”
I manufactured the following, and between the
two doses of rhyme they had good times showing it
to their friends who were sharing the bounty. (I
wonder if even millionaires would not be appalled
at giving or receiving a case of “Old Crow” now!)
“To Mr. Hiram Berry:
“All Hail! Mr. Berry,
I am feeling quite cheery;
Have just swallowed a drop of ‘Old Crow.’
If I’d a shadow of grief
”Tis my earnest belief
You would banish the presence of woe.
“This parcel of stuff
I trust is enough
To keep the gray wolf from your door.
If it isn’t, please know
That one croak from ‘Old Crow’
Will bring you a hundred-fold more.”
This was signed “‘S. B. Armour.”’ Perhaps it may
seem trivial to introduce these little incidents in the
lives of the great captains of industry, but in my
study of men give me those who are intensely human,
and try to get a laugh every day.
[25]
CHAPTER III
“THE STORY OF THE HEREFORDS”’
BEGAN with the Kansas City Armours in 1889,
and remained with them until 1902. My advent
in the cattle industry proper came about in an acci-
dental way. I was on the provisions side of the
packing business, holding down a desk of specialties,
‘“‘mild-cured, selected hams and bacon,” for our
whole territory, and also in charge of western
brokers, which latter work brought me in contact,
largely by observation, with the northwestern ranges,
although I met many of the owners. In 1892 reg-
istered Herefords were ‘in the dumps.” ‘There
was no movement; breeders were in despair. The
range was taking some bulls but at values below the
cost of production.
Chas. M. Culbertson, Newman, IIl., a retired Chi-
cago packer, had become interested in Herefords in
1877, accumulating, through importations and top-
ping American sources, one of the greatest herds in
history. Having decided to clean up, he visited his
old friend Philip D. Armour, explained his plans,
and asked Mr. Armour to instruct his cattle buyers
to mark the registered cattle up for all they would
stand for slaughter. Mr. Armour told him that
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
it was a shame to kill that class of stock, but that he
would weigh it up for all it was worth on the market,
and Mr. Culbertson could add whatever per head
price he thought fair, and transfer the pedigrees to
Kirkland B. Armour, who owned a beautiful sec-
tion-farm at Excelsior Springs, Mo. This was done,
and Mr. Armour wired his nephew that the cattle
were being shipped to him. Here I must pause to
speak of that remarkable breeding basis.
In Alvin H. Sanders’ book, The Story of the
Herefords, on page 424, the imported cow Pretty-
face 5735 is described. By original Anxiety and
out of a Longhorn cow, she was the wonder of Eng-
land as a two-year-old in 1881, repeating her vic-
tories in 1882 over the American circuit. This cow
came with the Culbertson purchase. Mr. Sanders
comments: “Unlike many cows with distinguished
show records, she made a wonderful record as a
breeder, giving birth to eleven calves in ten years,
none of them twins.” Mr. Sanders may have in-
cluded her calves after the time she came to Kirk
Armour, but I do not think so. She gave birth to
five or six calves after reaching Mr. Armour, among
them Lady Prettyface and Lord Prettyface. The
cow Prettyface offers a striking comparison between
the show winners of 1882 and those of the past
twenty years. She was 13 years old when she came
to Mr. Armour, but lived, as I recall it, until 1g00,
prolific to the last. She was distinctly long-horned,
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A. RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
very short-coupled and low-down; not a very large
cow. Her horns today would probably decide a
breeder not to show her, and that takes me to some
range observations, leading up, among: other things,
to our decision to dehorn the S. M. S. herd in the
face of all sorts of range traditions against it.
I found that cornbelt buyers, as they looked over
the breeding herd, inclined to think that any animal
carrying much horn development got it from primi-
tive Texas longhorn, and when I argued that the
Hereford was basically a breed with much horn de-
velopment, as evidenced by the Armour importations,
and that English breeders had been slow to follow
the American plan of breeding to the modern droop
horn, they looked askance. I have been a Hereford
man always, but while I do not think Hereford horn
development in any way a detriment, it has given
the range producer of well-bred whitefaces lots of
headache to hear or read the oft-repeated theory
that the animal still carries too much primitive blood.
The Culbertson herd included many daughters of
The Grove 3d; also the cow Marcie (by Waxwork)
which produced 17 calves, including several sets of
twins; Wiltona Grove by Lord Wilton—but I will
not burden this story with references to all the
famous bloodlines in that wonderful basis of the
original Armour herd. The herd bull was Kansas
Lad 36832 by Beau Real by Anxiety 4th and out of
Bertha by Torro. Then, as now, the blood of
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A’ RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Anxiety 4th was eagerly sought. I recall that once,
in talking with John Steward, I said: “John, what is
the best line of blood to breed Anxiety on?’ He
replied, “Anything.” He was right. I recall that
in the first Armour sale he bought the bull Tempter
with two sires and one dam strong in Anxiety and
a The Grove 3d outcross. He used this bull for one
season, and sold him at a then big price, but when
the calves began to come he went back and rebought
him. Steward was to my notion the best breeder of
his time, and a wizard at “nicking.” I am sure that
his early death only prevented him from becoming
America’s greatest breeder.
I began to tell of the accident which drifted me
into the cattle industry, but it is hazardous to drift
a little without ‘drifting a lot. The ten years of my
association with registered Herefords are so full of
reminiscences of men and cattle that I cannot hope
to hold the patience of my readers longer than it
takes to do some skimming.
Mr. Sanders’ Hereford history is an orderly chron-
icle, and those who do not have it in their library
should waste no time getting copies. I shall offer
a few sidelights in which I had the personal touch,
and for that reason shall not refer to many of the
most noted factors in the evolution of the American
cattle industry.
When Kirk Armour took on Herefords they were
sent to the Excelsior Springs, Mo., farm, now owned
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A) RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
by E. F. Swinney of the First National Bank of
Kansas City. The farm was managed by Charles
Wirt, one of the best all-around farmers and stock-
men whom I have known. He was an unusually
good feeder. Aged steers from the stockyards were
sent over every year, and mares from the packing-
house stables were sent over, bred, and returned for
work until within safe foaling time. Wirt was not
a pedigree man, except that his breeding records
were infallible, but he was backward in his book-
keeping. Mr. Armour went to the farm frequently,
taking his two boys Watson and Lawrence, now vital
factors in the Chicago plant. He knew that I loved
the outdoors, and one day asked me to go along.
While there Wirt asked me to help him with his
herdbook. It wound up with my taking charge of
that end, and, later, the breeding and public sale end.
Herefords were beginning to swing back. The
range was getting much interested, and I began to
see, under Mr. Armour’s progressive methods in
everything, that the herd had a future. So, with a
penchant for publicity, I began naming the heifers
with an Armour prefix, after the first year. The
celebrated Armour Maids were all born in 1894, the
Armour Naiads in 1895, and later came the long
list of “flowers” and other feminine names, with the
Armour prefix.
“Billy” Cummings, Armour’s cow buyer, probably
one of the best buyers in history, was in close touch
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
with rangemen as they came to the yards, and took
on the private selling end, while in heifer and cow
sales I was taken along as a “‘pedigree-shark.” Our
first crop of bull calves sold at the age of about nine
months, going to New Mexico at $45 per head. ‘The
second year they sold for $65 to the Prairie Cattle
Co. of Colorado, but after that they began to go in
small lots to various rangemen, the price Jumping
up along the line. But few heifers or cows were sold
except from a cull standpoint; in fact, Mr. Armour
began to buy, and, as I recall it, bought 25 cows
with calves at foot from Gudgell & Simpson at $100
each, calves not counted, and quality the regular
rotation of drop. From Jas. A. Funkhouser he
bought the wonderful cow Queen Mab, bred to
Hesiod 2d, at $300, and turned down May Day, then
carrying Hesiod 29th, at $500. Mr. Armour never
quite forgave me for deciding that she was too high
in price when her calf, a year later, sold for $500.
I have always felt that we made two mistakes: first,
in not buying May Day, and, second, in not buying
an outstanding Hesiod 2d sire, and bringing back
into the herd the line of blood of The Grove 3d to
combine with our Anxiety 4th strains, and The
Grove 3d cows.
The days when we visited the Funkhousers are
fragrant memories of wonderful drives, of an ideal
host and hostess, of dinners better than kings have,
and of chats with Mr. Armour, whom, next to my
[31]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
father, I loved better than any man. Loved? Yes,
idolized, with all the strongest outpourings of the
human heart where man loves man. I shall often
refer to him; somewhere in this series I shall devote
a chapter to him, but I must get off by myself. (My
manuscript may bear the tear stains which a man
wishes to hide from his fellows.)
“When the frost is on the punkin and the fod-
der’s in the shock,” when the day dawned sweet and
clear, with the delicious thrift of October air, Mr.
Armour would say, ‘Never mind what you have on
hand; let’s go over and see Brother Jim.” We took
the train to Lathrop, Mo., and usually, while I was
hiring a team, Mr. Armour, a persistent trader,
would buy a team of horses or a few mules. Our
drive to Plattsburg, Mo., and to the Funkhouser
farm, took us through a rolling, wooded country,
with little streams here and there, bridged with the
picturesque structures of before the war, often with
the elms meeting over them. In October Nature’s
most wondrous brush had painted a landscape no
artist could reproduce. ‘There were hard maple
reds, cottonwood and hickory yellows, poplar silvers,
multi-colored pawpaws, and the deep ermine of
vines clinging with suffocating ardor to giant oaks;
redbirds whistling goodbyes to dying summer, and,
as if in conclave for the flight to winter quarters, the
little bird folk of the woods kept the music of God’s
great outdoors echoing the exultation of our souls.
[ 32]
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M407 BUMS Ut sworn “gS "py *g
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
How we loved it all! The smell of the woods we
knew would slowly give way to the odor of chicken
frying and the rest of the wondrous aromas that
drift in from the kitchen of country homes. Pound
cake is my weakness, served warm and buttered as
eaten. We knew that it would be a part of the meal.
We always asked to go out and see it brown and cool-
ing, and get a “whiff.” Angel’s food is all right for
angels, but I am in the other class, and pound cake
is good enough for me.
The Funkhouser home, a one-story brick, vine-
clad and picturesque, nestled in a glorious maple
grove. A distinguished trio met us, “Brother Jim,”’
his wonderful wife and Will Willis, her brother, the
well-known herdsman. “Brother Jim” had the right
system: he never asked you to look at his cattle
until some one had helped you up from the table.
There may have been some one strong enough to
turn his back on a trade after eating one of Mrs.
Funkhouser’s dinners, but he is not of record. She
was an ideal hostess, a woman of unusual attain-
ments, comely and entertaining, her soft Missouri
southern accents suggesting ante-bellum days, with
their graces and courtesy. Mr. Armour said to me,
on our way home, ‘“‘I believe that ‘Mrs. Jim’ is a
better salesman that ‘Brother Jim’; she gets you in
the humor to pay any price he asks.” He then added:
“T am willing to buy a cow or a bull any time to sit
down to one of her dinners.”’ Its results may have
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
been commercial, but I am sure that Mrs. Funk-
houser’s part of the work was deep-seated in the
joy of hospitality.
Mr. Funkhouser had the rare gift of being able
to pick a great sire as a calf. Hesiod 2d made him
famous. I have heard it called luck, but I believe
that most men who have developed great sires have
had the “picking gift.”
As the result of their initial intimacy, Mr. Armour
and Mr. Funkhouser made their first joint sale in
Kansas City in 1898, using the old stockyards horse
auction ring. At that time Truelass from the herd
of Queen Victoria topped the sale at $1,025. Lady
Laurel brought $1,000. ‘The imported heifer Lalla
Rookh, a two-year-old, brought $1,000, and the bull
Kansas Lad Jr. $1,000—new records after the slump
of years. The 113 head averaged $385.
It was at this sale that Geo. W. Henry fell ill
of pneumonia, and died at the Midland Hotel. He
had been a liberal buyer at the sale, taking among
others the young bull Kansas Lad Jr., a bull that we
made a mistake in selling, as his after-history afirms.
Our decision was made because he had practically no
white on his crest, and Mr. Armour loved ideal
markings. We all regarded him as otherwise the
most beautiful calf dropped up to that time.
Kansas’ Lad ‘Jr. was’ the sire |of Prime Lad
108911, whose dam was Primrose 80150, brought
over by Kirk B. Armour in his third importation,
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
and sold in the same sale as Kansas Lad Jr. It will
be recalled that Prime Lad, in the hands of the late
Wm. S. VanNatta, became one of the greatest sires
of his time. I undoubtedly made the greatest mis-
take of my service with Mr. Armour’s breeding
problem by not fighting to a finish to retain Kansas
Lad Jr., but, as I have said, or will say somewhere
in this series, Mr. Armour was a trader. He loved
to buy as well as to sell, and never turned us down
on anything we wanted in connection with our
breeding problem. But when it came to a choice
between a trade or breeding theory, it was apt to
be a trade, and he did love to sell a good one; in
fact, “‘Brother Jim” was to some extent tarred with
the same stick. “They were both dead-game sports,
‘and took their medicine gracefully when things
didn’t come their way.
Mr. Funkhouser left an impress on the registered
Hereford industry which was more far-reaching than
that of men who have since come into prominence.
I make this comment without a thought of dis-
paraging them, but rather to emphasize the faith and
persistence of men like Funkhouser, ‘“Tom” Clark,
Wm. S. VanNatta, Gudgell & Simpson and others
of their class who stayed with the trade during
its dark days. They remind me of the trait which
always produces the great men of any industry:
“The man worth while is the one who can smile
when everything goes dead wrong.”
ssi
CHAPTER 1V
MORE ABOUT HEREFORDS AND MEN
E HAD two permanent engagements: one
for a day with the Funkhousers in October,
and one with Gudgell & Simpson in May. Both
were gala days, and looked forward to as bright
spots. Gudgell & Simpson’s homes were in the
historic old town of Independence, Mo. ‘The old
courthouse still exhibited evidences of the Civil War,
and the story of Joseph Smith’s discovery of the
tablets which formed the Mormon faith was the
privilege of the oldest-timers to recall. May in
Missouri means strawberries, and the varieties
grown near Independence outdid the catalog illus-
trations. We always finished our pasture visit in
time to have supper at a combination saloon and
restaurant, kept by a Teuton family, which was large
enough to retain all the help-wages in the family.
They still pounded the steak, and it was Kirk Ar-
mour’s delight to get a table near the kitchen door,
which he asked them to leave open, in order to hear
the old-fashioned thud of the spiked mallet. May
in Missouri is also housefly time. The low-ceiled
dining-room was fitted with swinging fans, decorated
with tissue paper streamers, run by hand-power.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
They did good work; that is, they kept the flies
moving but persistent.
Mr. Armour had an intimate friend who was the
glass of fashion, a fine fellow, but fastidious in every
way—a man who called the head waiter to com-
plain of the temperature of the wine served. He
would never go anywhere with us because he did
not like the country, and was always suspicious that
we would steer him up against something queer.
When we went to the German restaurant Mr. Ar-
mour would always say, “If you can get Bob to
come down here and eat pounded steak, and fight
flies with us, I will buy you a whole winter outfit.”
I never landed the outfit.
I can close my eyes and still see Mr. Armour and
“Billy” Cummings sitting across the table, burdened
with a mammoth pounded steak, fried potatoes, cot-
tage cheese with chives, potato salad, wilted lettuce,
a bottle of home-grown grape sour wine, and bowls
of strawberries filling in the space. J must not forget
several breads. Flies did not count. ‘Billy’ re-
marked that he would sit down with a swarm of bees
in order to get so good a meal.
My first visit to Gudgell & Simpson was in the
summer of 1893, shortly before their show herd
was shipped to the Chicago World’s Fair. That was
my first look at a real show herd, and there was a
master to answer all questions. Perhaps it was a
young man’s earnestness, an ignorance frankly con-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
fessed, but in the many years of my visits to him
and his to us, and my persistence in hunting him up
at shows, putting on one side of the scales what I
learned from Gov. Simpson and on the other side
all that I learned from all other sources, left his side
the heavier. Much of my work in Texas goes back
to him. Once we were looking at a remarkable
bull. I said, ‘Governor, how much does that heart-
girth mean in the whole problem?” He stood for
a moment, looking the animal all over, and then,
turning, he put his hand on my shoulder and said,
“Everything; but let me tell you something: the
front end of a Hereford will take care of itself;
that is why he will be the redeemer of the range.
That heart-girth will carry him over hard times,
but you take my advice and spend your life build-
ing up the hind end. I bought Anxiety 4th to do
all I can in that direction. My life is slipping;
yours is coming on. I hope you will use it for
building up.’”” When I come to the story of imp.
Majestic, I shall refer again to this vital quotation.
When I went back to the Armour herd I took hours
and days and weeks and years to study and apply
his thought. An old man’s dream had given a young
man visions which neither could think of as extend-
ing to the great range industry.
In The Story of the Herefords Mr. Sanders gives
so concise and comprehensive an account of the Gud-
gell & Simpson herd that I shall not burden this
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
article with the process by which I think the greatest
herd in the world was evolved. One thing, however,
is pathetic: the necessity which caused them to drop
the bull Druid out of their problem. It was heroic
to kill him on account of his dangerous temper, but
while Gov. Simpson had little to say about it I am
sure that it was the sorrow of his life, and from
Druid’s comparatively small get his loss to the breed-
ing Hereford world can never be estimated and, I
am almost tempted to add, nor repaired.
Another remark made by Gov. Simpson stuck.
A perfect bull was being examined. [ said, ‘‘Gov-
ernor, do you mind going over this bull and pointing
out where, if anywhere, he is defective?” Again
he stood and looked for a long time; then, turning,
he said, ‘Son, this is for you. I don’t want to
criticise another man’s bull.”’ Then he placed his
hand on the defect, and added, ‘‘But when I hear of
one absolutely perfect I am going just as far as he is
to see him.”
Among the stalwarts of those times was John
Sparks, originally from Georgetown, Tex., and after-
wards governor of Nevada, and, as I recall it, the
pioneer breeder of registered Herefords in the far
northwest. He was also a large breeder of stock
cattle, with ranges between Elko and Reno, Nev.
His herd was almost wiped out by a severe winter
in the ’80’s. The friendship between Kirk Armour
and John Sparks was one of those rare intimacies
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
which occur between men drawn together as if by
a magnet, probably the closest intimacy Mr. Armour
ever had in the cattle industry. Both had absolute
faith in the great ranges becoming the great eventual
source of well-bred cattle, and the foundation of
my faith in that result came largely through being
with them much, and listening to their talks. And
this reminds me of a thing which seems absurd,
but in a way I still resent the advent of the auto.
My mind goes back to the easy exchanges of long
rides behind a team as against the difficulty of close
conversation in a “‘jitney.”’
In my early days on the range, driving all day
with one of the Swensons, we would cover the whole
ranch problem. Now the conversations are short
and jerky in a car, and we find ourselves waiting
for the journey’s end, and crowding into an hour
what we formerly took several days to drift over.
John Sparks drew his basis for registered Here-
fords from several of the best Missouri herds, and
was in a sense forgotten until the records of Oregon,
Nevada and northern California began to tell the
story of improved range breeding. Mr. Sanders
records that Sparks was the largest factor in that
work. In 1899 Mr. Sparks sent a wonderful draft
from his Reno herd, joining Kirk B. Armour and
James A. Funkhouser in a public sale in Kansas
City. For many years I looked after a lot of little
private business for Mr. Sparks in Kansas City, and
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
probably the most important thing I did was to locate
the supply for his annual ’possum dinner in Reno.
He would wire the date, and I would set the word
going for live ‘possums. The Midland Hotel was
Mr. Sparks’ Kansas City headquarters, and all the
official family loved him. The steward would set a
cellar-room aside, and it became a veritable possum
den during the period of accumulation. It is told
of Mr. Sparks that he ran for governor to pardon
a man who he was convinced was the victim of
circumstances, and innocent.
Another prominent man of those times was Frank
Rockefeller. He was a close friend of Mr. Sparks
and Mr. Armour. All of them bring to my mind
the love of men vital in general industry for the
country, and good cattle. Looking back over the
history of men who have given their time and in-
fluence to the upbuilding of the cattle industry, those
who have appeared to play with it as a relaxation
from their major business seem to have carried it
through the dark periods, and while usually too
busy to look after its details have been able to
draw the right kind of men to them for that work.
This brings another angle of thought: the herdsmen.
Some have come into the limelight, but the great
mass of faithful painstaking men in that class have
been known only to one another, and a few out-
siders. History means well, but the workers in the
vineyard are seldom known to those who sip the wine.
[41 ]
CHAPTER V
“BILLY” CUMMINGS: AN ALL-ROUND
CATTLEMAN
MONG the men who stand out in my memory
as all-round cattlemen, “Billy” Cummings,
cowbuyer for the Armour Packing Co., holds the
record. He came to the packinghouse end from the
farm through a long novitiate of feeding and trad-
ing, and was probably as well liked by rangemen
as any buyer ever in the yards. He was a wizard
for getting “‘first”” on trainloads of range cows. His
knowledge of values was almost uncanny, since he
almost invariably paid a price satisfactory to pro-
ducers and with a killing test in line with killers’
marginal averages. His purchases rarely showed
either large profits or heavy losses. He had the
rangeman’s instinct for averages.
I was thrown into close association with him in
the early days of the Armour registered herd. He
handled the private sales; I handled the public sales
and general publicity. Few men are equally good
in selling and buying. ‘Billy’ was one of the few.
His methods were not those of most salesmen, who
suggest or lead. He pointed out, if possible, all his
wares, without making a price, watched his cus-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
tomers carefully for indications of their preferences,
and worked to round lots, often pricing animals
which they did not appear to fancy at high prices,
but always making fair prices on those which they
fancied. Where a selection was left to him he in-
variably took a little the worst of it, on the theory
that no advertisement is so effective as a pleased
customer. Any one who did not know the business
was absolutely safe in his hands. ‘‘Billy’s’” wide
acquaintance with rangemen and his reputation for
fair dealing were vital influences in the Armour
establishment. Both Kirk B. Armour and ‘‘Billy”
Cummings were distinct traders, and often gave me
both the headache and heartache in disposing of
something I wanted to keep for breeding purposes.
Mr. Armour often said, ‘““You know, Frank, I like
to buy and sell, and we will buy anything you want
to keep things going, from a breeding standpoint;
but you will have to get accustomed to a jolt now
and then when it makes a good trade.”
“Billy” liked to buy good ones. He startled the
breeding world when he visited the Elmendorf herd
at Kearney, Neb., in 1897 and bought the Hereford
show bull St. Louis at $800, the show cow Lady
Laurel at $1,000 and Dimple, a daughter of Lady
Daylight, at $700. Lady Laurel, after bringing
the bull calf Laurette, sold in Armour’s first public
sale to T. F. B. Sotham for $1,000. The bull calf
Laurette by Headlight sold in the same sale to D. W.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Hart, Partridge, Kans., and was acquired by Swen-
son Bros. when they bought the Hart herd a few
years later.
That is a story I should perhaps tell here. Mr.
Hart at public and private sales bought about 20
head of Armour’s cows and importations, each with
a heifer calf at foot, at $300, calves not counted.
“Billy” Cummings offered to take every bull calf
at weaning time at $100 each for five years, as they
were all in effect of Armour breeding, but Mr. Hart
was dazzled by $1,000 cows, heifers and bulls and
refused. Bad times came on, both as to season
and price. His records were inaccurate, and just
before I came to Texas C. R. Thomas, then secretary
of the American Hereford Cattle Breeders’ Associa-
tion, asked me to go down and straighten him out.
I have never seen a range herd that looked worse.
Shortly after I went with the Swensons, he asked
me to make him a bid on the entire herd, everything
counted. The cattle were as well known to me as
one’s children. Without going to look at them I
bid $50 per head, and took the lot, and a sorry lot
it was upon the arrival of the cattle, but we applied
the feed cross and did some culling; in fact, we have
done some culling ever since, and the 253 breeding
females, which are now in evidence in the S. M. S.
registered Hereford herd, are the culled accumula-
tion, forming perhaps the most distinct holding of
the old Armour herd in existence. Last year we
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
bought from James McNeill, Spur, Tex., some 25
registered young bulls, which came from a set of
Armour cows bought by Mr. McNeill some ten years
after the Hart purchase, and from which we were
able to select several outstanding herd bulls.
In the meantime, we are still using from Dr.
Logan’s Young Beau Brummel several herd bulls
which were preceded by other bulls from his herd
carrying the blood of Saint Grove, a bull by St. Louis
and out of a The Grove 3d cow, both bought from
Armour. We bought his entire bull calf crop for
two years, selecting several herd bulls for our regis-
tered herd, and on several occasions bought Gudgell
& Simpson bulls and bulls by Majestic, imported by
Kirk B. Armour, with the net result that we secured
a distinct Armour Anxiety combination. So again
my chickens have come home to roost.
When Mr. Armour bought Meadow Park, a farm
south of Kansas City, from the Wornall estate, and
moved everything from the Excelsior Springs farm,
“Billy” Cummings moved out there, going to his
home near Lawrence, Kans., for week-ends. I was
married in 1899; Mrs. Hastings and I moved out
during the summers, and “‘Billy’s’’ reminiscences are
still a joy which we go over quite often.
Meadow Park was a part of a famous battle
ground during the Price raid in the Civil War. I do
not remember whether that engagement was the same
as the battle at Westport, where bullet holes still
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
show in some of the old brick buildings. The Yankee
plan had been to fight Price just hard enough to let
him advance slowly until he reached a big bend in
the Missouri River between Kansas City and my
birthplace, Leavenworth, Kans., where a trap had
been laid. I recall the panic into which Leaven-
worth was thrown. My earliest vivid recollection
is of my mother packing up to flee, and putting
in some of my little playthings. Our town was
entrenched and the home guard stood duty every
night. The Wornall road between Westport, the
country club and Meadow Park was the scene of the
fight, and a Kansas regiment overdid the thing,
spoiling the trap by fighting Price so hard that he
turned back. The old Wornall homestead, built of
brick in the old-fashioned solid way, still stands about
a quarter of a mile towards town from Meadow
Park. It became the hospital for both sides under a
primitive ‘Red Cross.
T recall the lines by the late Senator John James
Ingalls on grass: ‘‘Fields trampled with battle, sat-
urated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon,
grow green again with grass, and carnage is
forgotten.”
Meadow Park carried scars over which grass,
“nature’s benediction,’ had been spread. One night
a neighbor came to the farm, inviting us to a chicken
fry, given for the benefit of a Confederate Monu-_
ment Fund. As we chatted he remarked, “This
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
doesn’t look like the place I fought over during the
Civil War.” ‘Billy’ came alive like an old fire
horse. ‘Fought over! Were you in that battle?
I belonged to the Kansas regiment that turned you
fellows back.” The lights faded. Mrs. Hastings
and I were no longer there; the house was gone, and
these two old veterans looked out over fields and
lived again on a battle ground, with questions and
answers flying fast. ‘‘Where were you when we
came up the slope? Did they take you to the old
Wornall house? We filled our canteens at the spring
down in the draw.” When the lull came the Blue
and the Gray arose at attention, hand met hand, and
stood in a silence too sacred for us to break. After
the old fellow had gone, “Billy” grew reminiscent,
and one of his stories was so good that I want my
readers to share it.
Regiments on both sides during the Civil War did
more or less foraging along the line of march. The
captain of the company in the Kansas regiment, to
which “Billy” Cummings belonged, had a peculiar
code. He held his men down to a strict observance
of decency in their foraging, but, when they got
into trouble, backed them to a standstill. ‘‘Billy”
said that one day on the march they noticed a farm-
stead at which there were forty or fifty beehives.
That night, with five or six others in their company
he sneaked out four mules with wagon equipment
and drove back to the bee-farm. They closed the
[47]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
slides on eight or ten hives, loaded them in the
wagon and began the drive back to camp, smacking
their lips in anticipation of honey for breakfast.
The bumpy road must have loosened the slides of
several hives, so that all at once angry bees seemed
to swarm from every side, settling on the men and
sweating mules, and creating general havoc, including
a classy runaway. The result was two dead mules
and a demolished wagon. The boys had to make a
clean breast of it to their captain, who promptly
reported, ‘“T'wo mules and one wagon lost in action.”
“Billy” Cummings retired under the Armour pen-
sion system, after some 24 years of service. The last
years of his life were hampered by some bone trouble
in his legs. One foot was amputated, but he con-
tinued to work in the yards for some time, often
remarking that the new foot which had been given
him was better than the other. Later he lost the
other foot, and some complications resulted in his
death. Few men in the Kansas City yards left so
many friends or had so many unbroken, satisfactory
relations with salesmen and producers as “Billy.”
He died aged 71 years at Lawrence, Kans., in 1919.
[ 48]
CHAPTER VI
THE LATE MARCUS DALY
MONG prominent men with whom I have
had passing association, few have left more
pleasing or lasting impressions on me than Marcus
Daly, the Montana “Copper King,” and one of the
world’s greatest horse breeders. He came into my
life through a service which I was able to render
him, and through his habit of paying all obligations
at his earliest opportunity. I spent two months every
spring with Armour brokers in the northwest and
on the Pacific Coast. Montana was our great strong-
hold. In that state I made some personal and busi-
ness intimacies which were real joys. The west
everywhere is big in its manhood, ideals and instincts,
but somehow Montana seemed bigger than the rest.
Distance did not mean anything; the people seemed
to be one big family; everyone knew everyone else,
and while all had their political differences and fac-
tions they were a grand lot in their collective con-
geniality. I have often thought that Marcus Daly,
through his prominence as a horseman, who naturally
followed great race meets over the state, did much
to bring them together.
The public may have a vague memory of the
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Clark-Daly factions, but one had to know Montana
to realize that practically the whole state had pos-
itive opinions on the subject, the Daly element
undoubtedly being the more popular one. ‘That is a
story that I shall not dip into here, although it
would make a thriller. I took no sides, but my
lines fell in largely with the Daly contingent, since
it was one of comprehensive commercial interests,
and, by contact, I learned of Mr. Daly’s talent for
picking men as well as horses. It was a great
habit with him to select men between 25 and 40
years of age, and set them up in business under
their own names, with a liberal working interest.
Few wealthy men I have known have done so much
of this as he did. He was beloved of the working
classes. He had begun with a shovel and a pick,
knew the problems of the laboring class, treated
workmen with outstanding fairness, and supplied
every comfort and safety device for them in his mines
and smelters. He practically built the wonderful
town of Anaconda in Montana, where his smelters
are located. The Anaconda Hotel of thirty years
ago had all the “‘go” of New York, both as to fittings
and cuisine, while The Anaconda Standard had its
own leased wire, and carried the news of the world
in line with the dailies in the great cities. Civic
improvement was not overlooked.
At Hamilton, in the beautiful Bitter Root Valley,
were the great horse breeding stables and pastures,
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
including one-half and quarter-mile training tracks
under roof. Horses were bred and trained in that
high, rare atmosphere, giving them lung power and
endurance over animals raised at lower levels. It
was said of Mr. Daly that he knew the mark of
every Thoroughbred racehorse in England or Amer-
ica. He loved the breeding and training ends, equally
with the racing end, and directed his own breeding,
in connection with the counsel of experts. His
great ambition was to win the English Derby. I
recall once that in talking with him about breeding
he said, “I want to breed a Derby winner. It is
like shooting at the moon, but the fellow who does
not shoot has no chance of hitting.’’ He bred some
great ones, but, as I recall it, never won the Derby.
I have read many stories about Marcus Daly,
which have referred to him as uneducated and un-
couth. That is far from my own impression of the
man. He probably had but little actual schooling,
but he was rich in the education and polish that
come of contact. It was my good fortune to spend
a number of evenings with Mr. Daly and his friends.
On several of these occasions he became reminiscent,
holding his hearers spell-bound under a flow of
beautiful English, punctuated with rich Irish wit,
thrilling adventure, some touches of pathos, and
occasional approaches to the dramatic. I recall
especially his account of an early-day wagon trail,
and have always regretted my not having repro-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
duced it, because it was by all odds the best story of
that period that I have ever heard. My life has
thrown me much with old-timers who followed the
trail to the goldfields.
I have always classed Mr. Daly among that won-
derful galaxy of men who conquered the frontier,
and were able to build character and education with
world polish as they came along. His was indeed a
charming personality; he was full of human kind-
ness, a good friend, a good enemy, a builder, a
benefactor of mankind. My most direct contact
with him came in connection with one of his de-
veloping plans. He resolved to build an abattoir
at Anaconda, wishing chiefly to protect the hog-
raising industry, and obtain a local beef and mutton
supply. On one of my western trips he sent for me
and said, ‘“‘I have got a packinghouse which has lost
$18,000 in twelve months. I want a man to run
it who can make $18,000 in twelve months. Do
you know where to find him?” I replied that busi-
nessmen were shaking the bushes for that sort of
fellow everywhere, but there might be one left. I
put him in touch with W. N. Montgomery of St.
Paul, Minn., who did the trick in eight months, and,
upon Mr. Daly’s death, took the plant over.
Few know of Marcus Daly the cattleman. A
brief reference to his limited operations appears in
Alvin H. Sanders’ book The Story of the Herefords,
but even as well as I knew of his interests I was
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surprised a year or so later, when he sent for me on
one of my trips, and said that he was going to
send Mr. Montgomery down to the Armour herd
and buy a basis for a registered Hereford herd in
the Madison Valley. I told him of a public sale
that we were to make that fall. Montgomery was
on hand, and bought a number of the best. Mr.
Daly had paid his debt.
I think that Mr. Daly, before his death, gave the
herd and ranch to Montgomery. I know that he
regarded Montgomery highly, and desired to per-
petuate his own work by leaving it in good hands.
Some of my Montana friends, and undoubtedly some
of Montana’s politicians, may differ with me, but
according to my own observations of men, who have
made a strong impress upon the industries and wel-
fare of their state, Marcus Daly is in the top-notch
crowd.
As to his characteristics, a little story—one of
many stories which I picked up during my Montana
travels—has always appealed to me. Among Mr.
Daly’s stalwart admirers in the state was one
“Jerry” Flannagan. As the name implies, he was
a true ‘raw mouth Irishman.” He was a conductor
on the Great Northern Railroad between Anaconda
and Havre. I think that he was on the first train,
and hope that he is still running. It was said of
“Jerry” and his opposite train companion, Frank
Bingham, that they had never had a serious accident,
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
and never a damage suit. They fought snow and
high water and were sometimes on duty for 48
hours, but never lost a train. Whenever Mr. Daly’s
car was on “‘Jerry’s” train it was said to be a picnic
to hear those two Irish wits clash. It was even
said that Mr. Daly sometimes just took the trip to
cross swords with “Jerry.” One of “‘Jerry’s’” most
intimate friends, whose name I do not recall, but
let us call it ‘“O’Grady,” had double-crossed Mr.
Daly. I have said that Mr. Daly was a good friend
and a good enemy. He bided his time. “Jerry,”
like everybody else in Montana, was a sport, as to
‘the ponies” in particular. On one of his trips over
the line Mr. Daly handed “Jerry” $1,000 in cash,
and said, “ ‘Jerry,’ they are on to me, but I want to
back Soothsayer in the Long Island meet. Place
this for me, but don’t bet a dollar of your own. I
may be mistaken, but the odds are likely to be good,
and I can afford to lose. I would not want you
or your friends to lose; so don’t say a word, and
be sure not to tell O’Grady.”
“Jerry” placed the money, and Soothsayer got
the flag.
The next time ‘Jerry’? met Mr. Daly he said,
“That was a hell of a tip you gave me on Sooth-
sayer.” Mr. Daly expressed surprise, and said, “I
was mistaken, ‘Jerry,’ but I cautioned you not to bet
a dollar of your own money.” Said “Jerry”: “With
the great Marcus Daly backing a horse, what sort
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
of an Irishman do you think ‘Jerry’ Flannagan is
to stay out? It’s the children at home that are down
to cornbread and molasses, with potatoes on Sunday.”
“But, ‘Jerry,’ I hope you did not tell any of your
friends, including O’Grady.”’
‘Sure, Mr. Daly; I have no friends left, and
O’Grady has a mortgage on his store.”
Several months later Mr. Daly placed $1,000 on
a horse that got his nose in front and sent the pro-
ceeds to “Jerry,” but the O’Grady mortgage still
stuck.
I cannot close this sketch without recording one.
of Mr. Daly’s great commercial triumphs. I refer
to the D. J. Hennessey Mercantile Co. of Butte,
Mont. It operated an immense department store,
which carried a stock that would have been a credit
to any great city. Butte was an immensely pros-
perous town. The concern made its own Paris im-
portations. I recall attending a ball at Butte in
the ’90’s at which I saw as many beautifully-
gowned and jeweled women as I have ever seen at
a great city function. Daly had backed the man
who had the talent and let him do it in his own name.
[55]
CHAPTER VII
“THE EMBALMED BEEF SCANDAL”
OFTEN wonder, when I pick up a newspaper
and see glaring headlines featuring some new
investigation of the “big five packers,’”’ whether the
public realizes that it forms its opinions from the
accusations, and loses sight of any vindication which
may come later. ‘“The embalmed beef” and “canned
roast beef”’ scandal which followed the close of the
Spanish-American War turned the industry upside
down as few things have done. Its long investiga-
tion filled columns of the daily press for months,
and yet few know that canned roast beef was re-
stored as one of the great staples in the United States
Army Commissary, and has been for twenty years.
Nor did the public gather from the investigation
that “embalmed” fresh beef was a myth in army
rations.
For ten years before going with the Kansas City
Armours I was with a wholesale grocery house in
Leavenworth, Kans. The purchasing commissary for
furnishing supplies to frontier posts, at which the
bulk of United States troops were rationed, was at
Fort Leavenworth. The grocery firm was a large
contractor in commissary supplies. From my earliest
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business experience I was brought in contact with
that work and the officers in charge. Shortly after
going with the Armours I was given charge of com-
missary supplies in their work, both for the American
and English armies. It was under my direction that
the process of canning uncooked bacon was evolved,
simply applying the new process of sealing tins in a
‘vacuum as against the old process of eliminating air
by the application of heat. Canned bacon was
originally introduced in 1-pound and 14-pound cans
for the retail trade in sliced form, and was the
original of what is now packed in glass jars and seen
in every retail grocery in America. When the
product was announced The Kansas City Star pub-
lished a staff story about it. Several days later we
received a telegram from Maj. John Weston, pur-
chasing commissary, stationed at San Antonio, Tex.,
asking for samples; upon receipt of which he wrote
us that he was very much interested in the product
as a part of an emergency ration which the Govern-
ment had under consideration. This gave me an
idea, and I did not stop until it became a great
factor in the supplies of the American and English
armies, the latter using millions of pounds during
the Boer War in 2% and 5-pound cans, taking it
originally raw, but later processed in the cans.
Upon receipt of Maj. Weston’s letter I urged the
Armours to extend a cordial invitation to the com-
missary department of the United States Army to
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
use their plant for any experiments that the army
wished to make. This was done, an army board
appointed and the original army emergency ration
was worked out and manufactured in the Kansas
City Armour plant. It consisted of dried beef,
smoked and ground (moisture eliminated) and
mixed with coarse-ground or rather cracked, parched
wheat, which could either be eaten without treatment
or made intoa soup. To this were added three cakes
of chocolate, to be eaten uncooked, or made into a
drink; salt and pepper were added in individual
papers. I was detailed to work with the board. I
wanted bacon used for the meat part, and many
officers did, but the medical division of the army
fought it hard, because of the possibility of trichina,
if eaten raw. In vain we argued that United States-
inspected meat could be used. We conducted ex-
periments, using heavily-infected trichina meat show-
ing how the process of curing and smoking destroyed
it. This was done by feeding it to sparrows and
finding the cists undeveloped in their stomachs. Maj.
Weston, however, did not give up his view of canned
bacon as an eventual form for army use. He bought
a carload, canned in the 5-pound size, using as nearly
as possible two pieces to the can, the rind removed;
this was put aboard a navy vessel and sent around
the world, to test its keeping qualities in all climates.
When the Spanish-American War broke out,
Maj. Weston was made acting commissary general.
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The story of our absolute unpreparedness, and of
our little handful of regular soldiers, is too well
known and too pathetic to be rehashed here.
The foregoing may indicate my close contact with
the commissary department for nearly twenty years
previously to the Spanish War, during which time,
among its many able officers, there were two: Gen.
Weston and Gen. Alexander, who stood out with
commanding force. Both were practical in commer-
cial knowledge and instinct; both would have been
among the great merchants of America, had their
lives fallen in that direction. Gen. Weston was a
brilliant, aggressive, do-it-yesterday type; Gen.
Alexander was a calm, methodical, far-seeing man.
They were perfect foils for each other. Their work
threw them much together. Both were fair, exact
and practical, with none of the army ego or red tape
arbitrariness about them. I have never known two
men in any walk of business life more delightful to
deal with.
As acting commissary general, Weston shared with
the quartermaster department the first great prob-
lems of the Spanish-American War. Stocks of
canned corn beef were small, and the process of
curing meant time. Canned roast beef, really boiled
beef, required only the time for killing, cooling and
boiling. Gen. Weston seized upon it as immediately
available, while corn beef was being cured, and in-
tended to use canned bacon for the major meat
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
element, with a stew of vegetables and meat in
canned form, packed in a liquor or gravy, on which
he made experiments with the Franco-American soup
people, all the packers and other conservers bearing
carefully in mind that it must be palatable.
I was in Montana on the night of Dewey’s vic-
tory. My firm wired me that Gen. Weston had
asked to have me come to Washington, to help him
work out the canned bacon problem. In Kansas
City Kirk B. Armour joined me, and we went to
Washington, to find that Gen. Weston had been sup-
planted by the appointment of Gen. Egan as actual
commissary general, and that Weston had been sent
to Tampa, Fla., in charge of the southern base. It
is not my thought to criticize Gen. Egan. He was
wholly blameless as to the charge of embalmed beef,
but he made a bad mistake in not following Gen.
Weston’s recommendation as to canned bacon, as
will be seen later. Everything was confusion in
Washington. Egan had not had Weston’s expe-
rience, nor did he have Weston’s commercial instinct.
I did not know any of Gen. Weston’s plans, except
to surmise, but in the interview Mr. Armour and [|
had with Gen. Egan we cautioned him about send-
ing uncanvassed bacon into tropical countries. So
many things were happening, however, that it was
unheeded or overlooked.
I followed Gen. Weston to Tampa, and found that
his problem was a statute specification which re-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
quired that issue bacon should be from the bacon
short, clear side of commerce; that he could not
under the law buy and can bacon bellies, which up
to that time had been the only cut used for canned
bacon. He instructed me to have the regular issue
cut put into from 6-pound to 14-pound cans, using
as few pieces to the can as possible, but with the
rind on, and as little waste as possible, sending sam-
ples to him, and duplicates to the commissary gen-
eral. I had worked on the product so long that I
was able to give my house by wire comprehensive
details. The samples were forwarded promptly, and
Gen. Weston recommended that bacon be used in
canned form. I learned later that one of the vital
reasons for this was that when lightering from a
vessel in the surf bacon saturated with salt water
becomes limp. The canned form gave the only pro-
tection, and in turn would keep and be free from
maggots in tropical climates, while any fat melting
from heat was available for general cooking.
Years afterward Gen. Weston told me that while
in Cuba the carload of canned bacon that he had
bought and sent around the world came in on the
vessel and was lightered in the surf in perfect condi-
tion at a time when it was vitally needed. I think
it was sent to the San Juan Hill fighters. The com-
missary general turned the Weston recommendation
down, but just before the close of the war bought
heavily in 34-pound tins, canceling the bulk of these
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
orders on account of peace being declared before they
could be filled.
While at Tampa Weston asked me to send him
several iced boxes of fresh beef, which he could set
out in the sun and let spoil, in order to get a line
on how far beef in that form might prove available.
It was purely an experiment, the beef never having
been intended to be used, and it never was used.
The celebrated “‘embalmed beef’ scandal came from
a similar experiment.
In May, 1898, one Alex. B. Powell proposed to
process fresh meat for the Government by purifying
the germs of meats so that they would withstand
the destructive elements of any climate and keep in
perfect condition four to ten days. He quoted as
reference the managers of various southern hotels
who had used meat prepared under his process, and
proposed to treat meats for 14‘ of a cent per pound
for the Government. In the investigation which fol-
lowed there was only one testimony among a mass
of testimony submitted that did not agree that the
quantity of food was not only abundant but of good
quality. The exception was that of Dr. W. H. Daly,
major and chief surgeon on the staff of Gen. Nelson
A. Miles, who supported Daly in his testimony.
Dr. Daly’s report of Sept. 21, 1898, was as follows:
‘‘T have the honor to report, in the interest of the
service, that in several inspections made in the vari-
ous camps and troopships at Tampa, Jacksonville,
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Chickamauga, and Porto Rico, I found the fresh
beef to be apparently preserved with secret chemicals,
which destroy its natural flavor, and which I also
believe to be detrimental to the health of the troops.”
General Miles stated before the commission:
“There was sent to Porto Rico 337 tons of what
is known as so-called refrigerated beef, which you
might call embalmed beef.”’
Dr. Daly testified that a sample of broth taken by
him from a kettle of boiling beef, on being analyzed,
exhibited the characteristics of boric and salicylic
acids. ‘The testimony by Gen. Weston disposes of
the charge that the beef seen by Dr. Daly at Tampa
was furnished by contractors, or issued to the troops.
Gen. Weston testified that it was permitted to Ed-
wards & Powell, who were interested in a preserving
process, to place a few carcasses of beef aboard the
Comal at Tampa for a demonstration of its keeping
qualities under severe tests, but that none of the meat
so treated was rationed out. The report by Brig.-
Gen. Charles P. Eagen of the Subsistence Depart-
ment contained the following, page 151:
“Our investigation showed that rations were is-
sued, as per published schedules, and always on hand
in abundance. The department exercised great vigi-
lance in the inspection of all articles, and obtained,
so far as we can ascertain, the best quality for the
price paid.”
Numerous tests were also made by outside chem-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ists, at the instigation of the commission, of both
fresh and canned beef, and the reports throughout
specified that no trace of preservatives was dis-
covered. -
From the foregoing it will be seen that whatever
overtures were made to use preservatives in fresh
meats were made by the inventors of a process direct
to the Government, which, had they been adopted,
would have been a contract between the inventors
and the Government to treat meats received in nor-
mal condition from the packers, and in which the
packers had no interest or part. The public, how-
ever, picking up the first sensational headlines read-
ing “embalmed beef” jumped to the conclusion that
it was packer doings, and it stuck for years, although
in the investigation the embalmed beef charge was
passed quickly, and everything centered upon the
“canned roast beef scandal.” Before going into that
I should like to devote a minute to publicity, and
how it came about.
While I was at Tampa the journalistic world was
marking time. I do not suppose that a greater
aggregation has ever been together since that time
until the Paris treaty meet. Among them was one
Whelphly, who later sprang the interview with Gen.
Miles, in which the embalmed beef charge was made.
Whelphly had been a staff writer on The Kansas
City Star, and I had often come in contact with him
in connection with Armour publicity, due to my fol-
[64]
crear
wei
YIU ‘Ss ‘WW 5) ‘4240 f uo gnpunosy DvD Bu1aody
ma) RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
lowing out a consistent plan of helping writers in
general to a story in or out of my business when-
ever opportunity permitted. He was among the
ablest writers whom I have known, and had a keen
scent for news, never yellow and never a gorilla,
but having written stories in our plant in connection
with army rations he knew of my association with
supplies, and spotted me within an hour of my
arrival.
They were all waiting for the first move, and
restive; there was no material for a story, and I am
sure that only my long association with Whelphly
saved his jumping at a conclusion story. I think
that it was the most difficult interview that I have
ever had. I told him that my advent meant abso-
lutely nothing to any movement; that it was the
result of two things: First, to keep in touch with
things from our own standpoint; second, to get defi-
nite instructions from Gen. Weston to prepare sam-
ples of several products in various forms, which
meant nothing for immediate use. I said that I had
absolutely no lines on any plans that the Govern-
ment might have. He took me at my word, gave
the line to the journalistic fraternity, and not a single
item went out of Tampa as to my appearance there,
nor was there any justification for any.
I have devoted these paragraphs to Whelphly by
_ way of vindicating his eventful article. I am sure
that while he of course knew its value as a story
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
he had seen Daly’s report, and, not knowing that
the meats were hung up for a test, was convinced
of its correctness. I have always felt, too, that the
charge that Gen. Miles had a presidential bee in his
bonnet and gave the interview out for political pur-
poses was without foundation. I knew him from my
earliest boyhood at Fort Leavenworth, and have
always had the deepest respect for him as a soldier
and as an individual. He was a great sport. I
recall that in winter when the snow fell they closed
the main business street for three hours every after-
noon, giving it over to racing. Gen. Miles always
brought in several good horses, and was probably
the most popular officer ever in command at Ft.
Leavenworth.
Canned roast beef was put in by Gen. Weston
because it was available quickly. It was soon found
that so much of it was wanted that it took not only
the available canner cattle but good cutting cattle.
Canned beef usually is made from the lean parts of
thin cattle. The use of fatter cattle involved more
fat, which melted in hot climates. Roast beef was
used as a travel ration and, with the melted fats,
was unsightly; it was used excessively in camp, and
was not always mixed with vegetables. Packers
always let canned meats stand on the tables long
enough to detect leakers, but the Government was
pushing every packer in America for deliveries, and
did not allow enough time to detect leakers, the con-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
tents of which quickly spoil. A carload of canned
meats opened in Georgia, with a few burst leakers,
would convince any normal person who stuck his
nose in the car that the whole car was rotten. When
the investigation came there was plenty of testimony
from soldiers who had gone stale on roast beef
that it was not a wholesome ration. The fault was
not with the product but rather with its excessive
use. During the investigation I was asked whether
I had not discouraged the use of roast beef, and
urged the substitution of canned bacon. I replied
that I had followed Gen. Weston’s thought of canned
bacon and my own persistent attempts to introduce
it in both the American and English armies, with
great success in the latter, but at no time had I
ever urged against roast beef.
I shall not attempt to follow the detail of the
investigation, which resulted in a Scotch verdict,
and a firm imprint in the public mind that it was
unwholesome, with an automatic throw-out from
commissary supplies. ‘The startling thing which I
wish to record is that while I was in the office of
the commissary general, Gen. Weston, some months
after the investigation, I was shown a cablegram
from Gen. McArthur, then stationed in the Philip- ’
pines, ordering an appreciable quantity of canned
roast beef. Gen. Weston replied that, in view of
public opinion, he did not feel justified in filling the
order. Gen. McArthur replied that a canned, un-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
salted meat was vital in his work, and that he must
have it. The order was filled, and canned roast
beef or boiled beef came back permanently into the
ration of the American Army. ‘The only difference
in the product was that instead of meat boiled in
great quantities and compressed, it is packed in as
few pieces to the can as possible. It is the same
meat and represents the same general character of
preparation, but the public does not know it. There
have been no headlines of vindication and the taint
on the packers still stands, except in so far as it has
been forgotten.
The commissary of the United States Army began
to build upon its Spanish-American War experience.
The obsolete short, clear bacon side was supplanted
by bacon bellies, clear of seed, put down green under
inspection, examined several times in the process
of curing, shrunk specially when smoked, prime in
every respect, canned for warm climates. It is nota-
ble that no word of complaint has at any time been
voiced in the public press as to the commissary
work of the recent war, nor would this article be
complete without my speaking of the wonderful re-
sponse which packers, great and small, and the live
stock industry at large, gave to the country’s call
to feed not only our own boys but the armies and
peoples of the allied world. There is no regret; the
whole industry from producer to packer would re-
spond just as quickly again, but the whole industry
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
has had more or less of the hot end ever since, and
in the producer’s camp we are wondering to some
extent what we are going to do with all our she-
stuff. The shambles form the only present outlet.
The cost of production is increasing by leaps and
bounds; consumption is decreasing by the same stages.
Where are we “at”?
The “‘in-and-outers” in the industry have in all
probability not fared so well as those who have stayed
in, taking the lean years with the fat ones. Many
men on the producing side are pretty well discour-
aged, and will undoubtedly get out, or reduce their
operations; but there will be plenty to stick, and that
will be the S. M. S. policy.
[ 69]
CHAPTER VIII
THE “BABY’’ BEEF IDEA
OR many years the agricultural press has at
times, in a casual way, credited me with being
a pioneer in pushing range-bred calves to be matured
as finished beeves in the corn belt at an age not ex-
ceeding twenty months. While I have devoted twenty
years of my life to that work, the idea was in the
main obtained from T. F. B. Sotham long before I
had any thought of becoming identified with range
work, and while many feeders undoubtedly were try-
ing it in a small way, even before Mr. Sotham took it
up, he was the first to get behind it in any definite
way. While it was sure eventually to come, his initial
work brought its first impetus, introducing it as a
distinct phase of the feeding industry years before its
natural evolution could have been brought about.
When I began my work with the Armour herd
“Tom” Sotham was a “live wire’ in extending the
use of registered Hereford bulls into the range. He
made many visits to range herds, came in contact
with the big and little men of the range, recognized
the rapid improvement that had been made, initiated
some experiments as to the outcome and became con-
vinced that the market for registered bulls would
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increase directly in proportion to the benefits that
breeders received from their use. My attention
was first called to his work when he made an effort
to induce a number of ranchmen to contribute to a
public sale 100 good steer calves, or, say, two car-
loads each, to be placed by him, and developed into
“baby beef.”” He had every natural condition against
him. Tradition said that finished beef under three
years lacked flavor; feeders were skeptical about
blackleg, ticks, the cost of development, brands and
comparative market prices as against older cattle;
there was no export demand for that class; acclima-
tion was a deterrent factor, and, in fact, from every
angle it was a leap into the dark.
Producers naturally wanted to send their best, and
they knew the curse which is put on a topped herd,
no matter how small the cut. They had misgivings
as to the net result from the sale of calves as against
their spring clearances of yearlings to the northwest.
They were in the habit of selling their drop, less a
IO per cent cut, to one buyer, and did not cotton to
dividing up among several small buyers or selling
at public sale at some eastern center. Trails to the
railroad were often 50 to 100 miles, and according
to the old ranch code that meant trailing the cows to
the railroad with their calves, and the cows back
home. ‘“Tom” was “up against it’ on both sides;
progress was slow. The story is too long for all
the details.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Without really knowing it I brought Sotham’s
idea with me in the back of my head to Texas. A
year here developed it, and I sprang it on the Swen-
sons, who gave their consent, and in the second year
we brought all of our steer calves, born by June 1,
to Stamford in late October, classified them, put them
in feedlots on a maintenance ration, composed of cot-
tonseed cake, cottonseed hulls, sorghum hay, and
black-strap molasses, properly balanced and mixed
with mathematical precision by machinery, and sold
them as buyers wanted them, any time between
November 1 and April 1, adding the cost of main-
tenance to them; which, in the first year, was $1.50
per month. At that time it was thought that cot-
tonseed meal, except in a limited quantity, would
kill a calf.
I proposed to my people that we test it out and
kill 100 heifer calves by getting them up to a full-
feed, and feeding them until the following May.
The experiment was on; we got up to as much as
4 pounds of meal per day, 2 pounds of molasses, and
all the hulls and sorghum hay (about half-and-half)
that they would eat. On about May 1 we sold the
entire 100 head, fat, without any evidence of “meal
evil,” netting fairly well on them. We went out to
the cornbelt with the broad statement that well-bred
Texas calves were good enough for any cornbelt
feedlot. Many of our fellow producers joined in the
plan. In the meantime the Department of Agricul-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ture had been working on the economies of baby
beef, giving it much encouragement; feeders were
experimenting with good results; the cornbelt was
becoming interested; pilgrimages were being made,
and mail inquiry was becoming enormous, but few
producers were willing to sell less than their drop.
We were probably the advance guard selling any
considerable number, one or more cars, as wanted.
This was made possible by concentration, classifica-
tion, and straight cut-offs, which has since been
changed, to the extent of selling in advance, and ship-
ping all of one class from one ranch, at the same time,
first grading to a standard and loading by a straight
cut-off.
We soon found that our difficulty was in getting
feeders who wanted only one or two cars to come
down. This in turn evolved the mail order idea,
one which obtains to a much larger degree over the
whole range country than is generally known. There
were many headaches and some heartaches in the
pioneer work. I recall that John Camp, Harris-
town, Ill., a feeder himself, and acting as agent for
us, brought down a number of his neighbors. We
had concentrated 3,000 steer calves and 1,200 year-
ling steers in our pens. His men were slow, and
walked and walked, looking at the cattle in different
pens. Mr. Camp, E. P. Swenson and I sat on a
fence waiting for them to get through. The humor
of the work struck me, and I said: ‘John, I dreamed
i734
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
last night that conditions had changed; some fifty
cornbelt feeders were here, and I said, ‘Line up, gen-
tlemen, for your turn.’ The first man up and asked
the price, and whether I did not think it a little high;
to which I replied, ‘Get down, and give the next
man a chance.’ Then I woke up with a cold sweat
all over me.”
Many years after, during a season in which we
did not have half enough calves to go around, Mr.
Camp wrote me: ‘Your dream has about come
trues:
I shall not attempt to follow our own public sales
with C. C. Judy at Tallula, [ll., or “Tom” Sotham’s
attempt to build up a great public sale business at
Kankakee, Ill., except to speak with pride of ‘“Tom’s”
great come-back in recent years in handling public
sales of registered cattle, and one incident in our own
work which gave me the final stimulus to go on, in
the face of difficulties.
We announced a public sale in carlots for February
I, in 1905, at Tallula, Ill. Every one thought that
I was crazy to ship cattle in mid-winter for public
sale, but probably no one knew that we were get-
ting short of water in our feed pens, which were
supplied from the city supply, and were forced to
do something. We started 1,000 calves and year-
lings in a bad storm; they reached Tallula when there
was an 18-inch snow, on the level. Two days before
the sale the mercury dropped to 20 degrees below
[74]
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
zero. Wesold the cattle in a tent, when the weather
was 10 degrees below, shipped them over a wide
radius, did not lose a single head, and every carload
made a good market record that summer or fall.
After that I was sure that Texas had the goods to
stand any climate, and it was just a matter of stay-
ing with the enterprise.
A rather amusing incident occurred while we were
at Tallula. I had taken two outstanding cowboys
with me, men who simply had to know what was to
be done, and did it in spite of hell and high water.
They had been up there with me in the fall, when
the red apples hung on the trees, and the weather
was fine. They loved it, but with 20 degrees below
zero weather we cut holes in ice on ponds and drove
the cattle out, so that their weight would flood the
surface. , i
We were spelling each other cutting through the
two feet of ice, and I was resting, after my turn,
when the humor of the situation struck me, and I
began a rhapsody on the beauty of the north.
“Boys,” I said, “I was born in the north. I love
these snow-clad hills, this bounty of ice and the
splendid invigoration of zero temperature.” For
some minutes I did a good job in a grandiloquent
way. Finally one of them rested on his axe, and,
turning with a look of supreme disgust, said, ‘“You
can take your damned north and go to hell with it;
I wish I was there with you to warm up some.”
P75)
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
In the years during which the International classes
have dropped out the three-year-olds and the cham-
pionships gone to yearlings until a great feeder like
John G. Imboden asserts that there should be two
championships, one for two’s and one for yearlings,
because the two’s no longer have a look-in; when the
yearling markets are on the average higher than for
the heavier classes; when we no longer read that
flavor only comes with age; when the Department of
Agriculture is insistent that the economic production
of finished beef is in the yearling class, it would seem
that calves at weaning time, furnished in great num-
bers from the ranges, have come to stay. My own
part in the change has been much smaller than I am
often credited with; it has simply been the logical
result of a study made by feeders, abetted by the
splendid work of agricultural colleges, and the re-
search work of the United States Department of
Agriculture.
[76]
CHAPTER IX
SOME JOURNALISTS I HAVE KNOWN
OFTEN think that the law of contact has more
to do than any other factor with our lives. Ac-
cording to some notable opinions coming out of our
colleges the value of erudition is outweighed by the
human factor of contact with young men and women
from every part of America, each contributing some
developing influence. In my own life the look-back
over the journalists whom I have met seems to be
the greatest asset in my human savings bank. Father
Bigelow was the editor of The Notre Dame Scholas-
tic in 1876, while I was attending Notre Dame Uni-
versity. He told me that I had some inherent quali-
fications for journalism, but that I was rottenly crude,
being too much inclined to bombast and sentiment,
and needing a fine-tooth comb, which he presented
in the way of reading a chapter from Addison’s
Spectator every day, and reproducing it from mem-
ory the next day. I wish that I had been more per-
sistent, but it was like doing the “‘setting-up” exercises
every morning—good things, but how many stick to
them?
After I came out of Ann Arbor I loafed my off-
duty hours about newspaper offices, and rather drifted
[77]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
among newspapermen, some of whom have filled,
or are filling, high places. I have, however, made
it a consistent part of my life never to look up men
who have grown great. William Allen White was
a cub reporter on The Kansas City Star in my 30’s,
and I treasure in my scrapbook a generous review
by him of some work I did. George Horace Lori-
mer, the brilliant editor of The Saturday Evening
Post, was with the Chicago Armours while I was with
the Kansas City house. We were cordial friends.
The following lines by him have probably passed out
of his memory, but, after all, greatness is only a
discovery, and while I have been told that John Hay
was ashamed of his Pike County Ballads, it has never
seemed possible that the man who wrote Jim Bludso
or Little Breeches could possibly wish to disown them.
Mr. Lorimer may not feel the same way about his
verse, because while he rose to greatness in his book
The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son,
in which he has drawn a wonderful picture of the
late Philip D. Armour’s sound basic business philos-
ophy, he may shy at being credited with doggerel.
We were getting out the Christmas edition of our
weekly price list. It was elaborately decorated with
holly, Christmas bells and steaming plum pudding,
with a New Year’s poem (doggerel) from my pen.
The excuse for reproducing the three stanzas is to
permit a comparison of it with Mr. Lorimer’s clever
parody:
[78]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
A NEW YEAR’S THOUGHT.
A moan and the old year passes away;
A smile and the new one is born;
A world of hope for the coming day,
And a sigh for the one that is gone.
Here’s a cup of joy for every home,
With hearts full of happy love;
Another glass for those who roam,
And a blessing for all from above.
Here’s a word of regard and memories kind
For our patrons far and near:
A voice of thanks on every wind,
And for all a Happy New Year.
The reply follows:
A NEW YEAR’S THOUGHT.
(After the Kansas City Bard.) .
A grunt and the old hog passes away,
And along on the hooks he’s borne,
And it’s sausage he’ll be on the coming day,
And hams and sides and brawn.
Here’s a pail of lard for every home,
And a kit of pickled feet,
And regular tripe or honeycomb
And a thousand things to eat.
Here’s our business card and wholesale list
For our patrons far and near:
Don’t go to Missouri to get your grist—
You can buy it cheaper here.
—The Sweet Singer of the Chicago Stock Yards.
[79 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
The only other notice my verse received was from
an Arizona editor, who said:
“The Armours are out with a very touching New Year’s
poem to their customers, most of whom would have appre-
ciated more a reduction of %4 of a cent per pound on hams
and bacon.”
The late Wm. R. Nelson, familiarly known as
“Baron Bill Nelson of Brush Creek,’’ owner and
editor of The Kansas City Star, was the most remark-
able personality that I have ever known in the news-
paper world. He and Kirk B. Armour were close
friends. Mr. Nelson often accompanied us on our
herd inspections; in fact, he was a neighbor, having
developed, just beyond Meadow Park Farm, a beau-
tiful tract, stocked with registered Shorthorns, of
which breed he was a life-long and consistent cham-
pion. The improvements in the way of barns, gran-
aries and the like were the best that I have ever seen.
It was not a mere plaything, as his constructive work
with Shorthorns at Sni-A-Bar demonstrates. A per-
sonality which could develop, in my memory, in a
moderate-sized inland city, an evening paper from a
struggling initiative to one of the recognized best
dailies in the United States, naturally left lasting im-
pressions on me, even during my limited association
with him. He was a picker of men. I wish that I
had the space in which to review the brilliant galaxy
which functioned in his office.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
I obtained my first realization of the rapidly grow-
ing importance of the Argentine cattle industry from
comments which Mr. Nelson and Mr. Armour made
after seeing a ship’s cargo unloaded in England about
the time of the Paris exposition, and before England
put the ban on live cattle for immediate slaughter.
They were discussing it after their return, when Mr.
Armour turned to me and said, ‘‘We think we are
doing wonderful things on our ranges in the improve-
ment of cattle, but, mark my word, we have a real
competitor springing up in South America, and he is
pushing us close now.” Mr. Nelson put in a cross-
cut as to the preponderance of Shorthorn which Ar-
gentina was using, and yet both spoke of the excellent
whiteface steers in the shipment.
It was my thought in this sketch to review agricul-
tural writers, and while I could drift on for pages
concerning those near and dear, as well as brilliant
writers, with whom a casual association has occurred,
I have drifted as much perhaps as space will permit.
As I come to the men who have lived in my real
world, I sit for a moment with the ink drying on
my pen, trying to decide how I shall attempt to write
of one to whose memory every lover of God’s great
outdoors rises and stands at attention. There is a
little monument to that memory before which I want
to stand sometime before I die, and breathe a prayer
of gratitude to God who sends men of that sort to
work in the vineyard.
[81]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Dear old “Joe”? Wing!* There is a soft place in
my heart as I reach my word to his memory, and
the tear which stains the page seems sacred to an
association which was all beauty and joy. He sang
like the mocking bird that I hear all day long as |
drive over vast areas. Always on the topmost bough,
his heart flowing through his wonderful throat into
a never-ending song of love of the world and praise
to the Master. It is difficult to say anything of
“Joe” which has not been well said. He was a
dreamer of dreams, with the courage and industry
to make them come true, and when his time came his
train of mourners comprehended the whole agricul-
tural world, on which his impress has been deeper
and more permanent than that of any other writer
who loved the fields, herds and flocks, and punctu-
ated his stories with a love of mankind.
In the earliest days of my connection with the cat-
tle industry I came in contact with a modest, retiring
personality that I soon discovered was a tower of
strength and concentrated ability, whose application
to study and work as an editor for more than thirty
years, and whose writings on breeds, as well as ab-
stract thought, have instructed, guided and inspired
every live stock breeder. Alvin H. Sanders has done
so much constructive work outside of his journalistic
*The late Joseph E. Wing of Ohio was for many years and
until his death in 1915 a staff correspondent of The Breeder’s
Gazette.
[82]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
profession that an attempt to review it, except by
mere touches, would be to repeat what breeders and
stockmen are familiar with. My comments will there-
fore be confined to personal reminiscences, but I can-
not pass on without expressing the pride that I take
in the wonderful literature, both technical and philo-
sophic, which he has given us. I recall recently
having sent his In Winter Quarters to my daughter
in an eastern college, with the suggestion that it be
given to her instructor in English as a classic of
western literature, and a gem of descriptive and
philosophic English.
When Herefords began to come back in the early
*90’s the late Kirk B. Armour was better known indi-
vidually among rangemen than any other man, not
actually in the range industry. When in town he
always rode, a part of each market day, with his
buyers in the Kansas City yards. His advice as to
the policy of improvement was sought daily. His
verbal and public print universal statement was, “I
believe that only the best results can come from
introducing registered bulls, regardless of what beef
breed the buyer may select.”” The Hereford associa-
tion wanted to elect him president. Mr. Sanders,
anticipating that the members would do so, came to
me to get Mr. Armour’s photograph. The Armours
did not believe in that sort of publicity, but I did,
and, knowing how I would be “‘landed on,” I fur-
nished the photograph, which was reproduced on the
[83]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
front cover page of The Breeder's Gazette. ‘The
storm broke, as I had expected. I had never known
Mr. Armour to be so provoked as when he stood at
my desk and said: ‘This is some of your work, and
I do not like it.” Next S. B. Armour ‘‘landed,” and
then Herman O. Armour, who happened to be out
from New York, took a shot; and finally Philip D.
Armour gave me a “‘once-over.”’ All did a good job.
To all I made the reply that the name Armour was
on goods in most foodshops in America; that Kirk
Armour was personally the public sponsor for cattle
improvement, and had been honored with a great
office; that it was good general publicity to bring the
name pleasantly before the public; that they could
fire me, but that I would never lose an opportunity to
do the kind of thing that I had done. Of course, it
all blew over, in good nature, but it was years before
I could get Kirk Armour to “stand hitched.” Mr.
Sanders and he were great friends. Mr. Armour
valued his opinion higher than that of anyone in or
out of the industry.
During the Paris exposition Mr. Sanders became
very much interested in Limousine French cattle, and
in Normandie cattle of the milking strains. He wrote
us his impressions. Mr. Armour instructed me to
write to him to buy a string of both, and send them
to us, and added: ‘We shall buy some of the milk-
ing Shorthorns of England, some Ayrshires from
Scotland, and some Jerseys and Guernseys. Have
[84]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
them all tested before shipment, and they must be
tested in quarantine, giving us a certified dairy herd;
then we will start a dairy on the Jewett Farm with
up-to-date appointments, have our milkers disin-
fected and sell certified milk.”
It was only one of the many progressive things
that he wanted to do, but with his declining health I
had instructions to find some reason why they could
not be done. I shall not burden this sketch with par-
ticulars concerning what I did. It was a great sor-
row to have to find reasons for not doing things,
when I wanted him to do them all. I could fill pages
with accounts of the delightful visits that I have had
with Mr. Sanders on farms, when looking over cattle,
and chats in his office and at shows and sales which
have been my privilege with the gifted editor, and it
would probably surprise his modest estimate of him-
self if he knew how much of his wisdom that I have
utilized.
The late W. R. Goodwin, associate editor of The
Breeder’s Gazette, received so many deserved eulo-
gies following his death that I shall only pause to
add my personal opinion of his great work in mak-
ing The Breeder’s Gazette an acknowledged leader
of the world’s agricultural publications. My last
interview with him occurred when he was preparing
his great editorial review of the world war beef situ-
ation. He outlined much of it, and I carried away
the deepest impression of how carefully and analyt-
[85]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ically great questions were studied and weighed by
him before they found expression. In over thirty
years of our close association, when I wanted a pro-
found opinion I sought him. I recall that when in
Florida, in the winter of 1917, I met him casually in
a restaurant in Jacksonville. His and my time was
limited, but in talking an hour over the studies that I
had been making, everything that I wrote later about
Florida carried his impress.
Among the bright men whom I saw much of in the
early public sale days was Geo. P. Belows, an
unusually handsome man, of strong personal mag-
netism, grace of manner and decisive, courteous
speech. It was in every way logical that he should
drift into the live stock auctioneering business, in
which, but for his untimely accidental death, I am
confident that he would have become the premier,
and yet the agricultural press lost a great exponent
when he changed his vocation.
[ 86]
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CHAPTER X
KIRK B. ARMOUR AS I KNEW HIM
ANY references in this series have been made
to the late Kirk B. Armour. They are inter-
woven with his association with men and events in
preceding chapters. I shall therefore try to make
this sketch resemble an intimate personal portrait.
I came in contact with him by chance in 1889. It was
one of those chances which confirm the thought that
while it is every man’s province to figure his future,
as one would do a sum, the real influences in our lives
usually come from the most unexpected sources. ‘This
statement sounds fatalistic, but it is not so intended.
Senator Ingalls wrote that “opportunity knocks but
once and, passing, knocks no more’; but he was mis-
taken. It is knocking all the time; and intelligence,
intuition, or free moral agency decides what oppor-
tunity offers.
I had gone into the Kansas City Armour’s office
with a Government inspector, who had some business
there, while I had none. As I sat waiting, practically
without realizing why it was done, I walked into the
main office, and asked if the house needed anyone on
the trade-getting side. I then came for the first time
in contact with a personality which has had a domi-
[87 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
nant influence on my life. Kirk Armour stood 6 feet,
perhaps a trifle over; he was built in proportion; a
massive chest, broad shoulders, a square jaw and
laughing eyes. His face and hands were bronzed by
the great outdoors that he loved. Little waves of
magnetism seemed to radiate from him, even before
he spoke, and when he spoke a mental arm seemed to
come up to salute. In that initial interview I became
aware of qualities in him which I have heard com-
mented upon hundreds of times; as, for example, his
interest in individuals, his love of progress, and his
doing things worth while. He asked questions so
rapidly that they could hardly be answered, and be-
fore I knew it I was hired. I took away with me the
same impression that everyone took who ever talked
with him ten minutes: ‘This man is interested in
me.” It was true of all; he was interested in them
and their work; he had suggested something pro-
gressive. It was his interest in everyone, develop-
ment, progress, betterment in everything, which
proved a burden even greater than his Herculean
strength could carry. It sent him back to Mother
Earth at the age of 48. I still mourn some of the
things that he had planned; things which would have
been great community benefits, often of national
importance, if his life had been spared. I have often
felt that he would have become the world’s greatest
merchant.
Of all the incidents that I can recall which illus-
[ 88 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
trate his gentleness of heart, the one of the great
packer—“the daily spiller of tons of blood’’—and the
humble rabbit seems best. When we went to the
Excelsior Springs farm on Saturdays, Watson and
Lawrence Armour (Kirk’s sons, then mere children)
usually went with us, getting all the sport that boys
should out of a farm visit. Once, while driving in
the old spring wagon through the pastures, a young
cottontail ran out from its nest. The boys were out
in a minute, and we all joined in the pursuit, sprawl-
ing about in the grass until it was caught. ‘The boys
were of course for taking it home for a pet. Mr.
Armour, holding the frightened little fellow in his
hand, turned to his farm manager, ‘‘Charley” Wirt,
and asked, “Do rabbits cause much damage?”
“Charley” said, “Yes; they gnaw the young fruit
trees, and do lots of damage to the garden.” Mr.
Armour stroked it for a moment, put it down in the
grass, and, as it scampered off, said, ‘‘Well, I
guess this one will not make much difference.’ I
have always loved Bret Harte’s poem Luke, and this
came into my mind—
“And she looked me right in the eye—I’d seen sunthin’ like
it before
When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o’ the Clear
Lake shore,
And I had my knee on its neck, and I jist was raisin’ my
knife
When it give me a look like that, and—well, it got off with
its life.”
[ 89 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Mr. Armour came into the business very young.
He was put through all the various branches under
outstanding men who had instructions to give him
the “third degree’; but they worshipped him, as all
did, and the proudest boast of every one of these
men, when Mr. Armour had become the master, was,
“T taught Kirk that.” He spent part of each work
day in the saddle at the yards, and always looked
over some part of the plant with the superintendent
or some department manager, calling by name great
numbers of men, and stopping to chat with them,
often about their family affairs. His memory for
details was remarkable. I have often heard him re-
mark, as we were discussing something, “You had
different views some years ago,’ sometimes quoting
in detail. I recall, when we were out in the plant,
making a special investigation at the ham-testing
table, his saying to the ham-tryer, ‘“‘George, how is
the leg of that boy of yours doing?’ Some days
afterwards I was at the same table, and asked George
about the boy. He replied, “Oh, that was three
years ago, but Kirk never forgets anything.”
Mr. Armour loved trade. He did not bother us
much in the winter months on the provision side of
the house, because it was the dull time, and we were
all sent out on trade survey trips for an average of
six weeks; but when things began to open up in the
spring he was on our backs continuously. It was an
old saying in the office that a man who did not get
[ 90 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
roasted at least once a day never got his salary raised.
I recall an illustration of his conviction that trade
would always expand under effort, and had no limit.
I had been given charge of a product which had only
a moderate sale, and by taking advantage of some
favorable natural conditions had an unusual streak
of luck with it. A card showing the manufacture
and movement of the product in every class was
placed on Mr. Armour’s desk each morning. A
glance over it revealed to him the weak spots. In
glancing at my product card he got the wrong line;
that is, another product showing, say, 90,000 pounds
per day, while mine showed 180,000. He strode
over to my desk, and said, ‘“‘What’s the matter with
you? Going into a decline? We ought to be selling
100,000 pounds a day.”’ To which I replied, “Hell,
boss, we are selling 180,000 pounds,” but my raise of
80,000 pounds never touched him, and, without bat-
ting an eye, he said, ‘“That is not enough; we should
be selling 250,000 pounds. Shake yourself; you are
walking in your sleep.”
He always reminded me of a little negro boy who
told me of thinking that he saw a ghost on his way
home one night. Describing it in his own language,
he said: ‘‘When I come up on that ghost I lit out
as hard as I could, and every time my feet hit the
ground I says to myself, ‘Ed, you can do better than
this!)
Mr. Armour was an inspiration to every man under
[or]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
him. All caught his trade-getting instinct, and took
all the hurdles. It was fast company. He had that
most wonderful of all business faculties: the faculty
of eliminating jealousies and building team-work.
Behind it all there was a personal love, almost wor-
ship, and loyalty to the last ditch. In the twelve
years during which I was under him I never heard
a single employee criticise him. I meet men all over
the United States still in the business or in other
fields, and it is always with reverence that his name
is mentioned by them. Sometimes a number of us
have chanced to foregather and exchange recollec-
tions of the old days. There will be some individual
anecdote or beautiful memory; a voice will grow
husky; there will be a halting of speech, a choke,
and the story goes unfinished. Eyes will fill, some-
one will brush his cheek or hastily arise to get a
glass of water; then we talk of other things. But
out of the grave of it all comes the sweet peace of
memories, golden threads woven into life’s more som-
ber raiment.
Some twenty-five years ago an effort was made
to consolidate the great range industry into a cattle
trust. I do not recall its exact nature, but Mr.
Armour stood out at that time as having a broad,
personal acquaintance with rangemen, and [I shall
always think that no man has been so vital in his
relation to the improvement of cattle or the exten-
sion of meat products sales round the world. One
[92]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
afternoon we left the office to drive to Meadow Park
Farm. Mr. Armour stopped in front of the old Mid-
land Hotel, and told me to hold the team while he
went up to a meeting. When he came down he told
me the nature of the meeting, and added, ‘They
offered me a million dollars in stock for the use of
my name, but I told them that I did not want to
make a million dollars that way.”
I never knew Mr. Armour to be severe but once.
I shall not go into the details. Briefly, a man sitting
in the executive office, in charge of a department,
stole $45,000, and never handled a dollar. It was
of course a case of clever outside connivance, and
one of the things that led up to departmental book-
keeping. We all knew that the man was living
beyond his means, but that was accounted for
cleverly. It was during the days of open gambling;
there were faro lay-outs everywhere. Often after he
had got his ‘‘divvy”’ he would show, to enough people
to get the word about, a wad of big bills, and say,
“T hit them hard again.”’ An accident led to our
identifying the thief, but instead of prosecuting him
Mr. Armour made him handle his desk for six
months, isolated, despised, a Benedict Arnold, an
outcast. Once he said to a former intimate friend,
“I would much rather have gone to the pen for ten
years.”
Mr. Armour loved horses and the country. A
byroad in the wood always brought from him, ‘“Let’s
[93]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
see where this goes.’”’ The wilder and rougher it was
the greater his joy. He would stop to listen to a
brook or pluck some wild flower for his buttonhole.
No matter what flower it was, wild or cultivated, he
would always look at it a moment and say, ‘“‘That
is the most beautiful flower that grows.’”’ Once with
my wife I was in Chicago on New Year’s Day. We
went out to get what she loved best, a single Amer-
ican Beauty rose. The florist said that one could
not be found in town, and asked, “Do you know that
they are worth $30 to $40 a dozen?” I asked why.
He said that farmers all over the country had sent
in so many Christmas and New Year’s orders that
everything was cleaned up at enormous prices. I told
the story to Mr. Armour. In a flash he said, “‘Let
us build greenhouses out at the farm. We go out
there now and shiver around in the winter looking
at the cattle, but with a flower business we could
enjoy the cattle in the summer and the flowers in
winter.” His health, however, was failing fast, and
I had to find a delay for not going ahead.
He was a remarkable combination of gentleness,
aggressiveness and public-spiritedness, with much
of the far-sightedness of his uncle Philip D., by
whom he was loved as a son. He was easily Kansas
City’s greatest and most beloved citizen. The mourn-
ers who stood, tear-stained, as the last words were
said, ‘‘Dust to dust,’’ numbered as many of the lowly
as of the high, and in their hearts it was pure gold
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lying there under the flower-covered mound. One of
them who had worked with him, and bossed him as
a boy on the old New York State farm stood at my
side. I felt his hand grip mine as the others turned
to go, and heard him say, “Wait.”” Then, when we
were alone, he crossed himself as he knelt, and
sobbed a broken prayer, and I—well, that’s all.
[95 ]
CHAPTER XI
BRAHMIN CATTLE; CULLING A RANGE HERD
E have never used any Brahmin blood, but it
has a wide use in Texas as far north as the
Texas & Pacific Railroad. I do not know of any
Brahmin cattle in the Panhandle or in central-west
Texas, except steers, brought from south Texas for
development. Here it may be interesting to record
that a few years ago a large northwestern steer
buyer gave instructions to eliminate anything show-
ing the Brahmin cross, but before he did so some
had gone through. Several years later, when these
few had matured, and gone grass-fat to market, he
changed his instructions, taking everything with the
Brahmin cross on a par with the general offering,
because he saw that the samples had made fine
weights, and were extra fat, nor were they discrimi-
nated against in the market.
The history of the Brahmins may be briefly given
as that of the humped “sacred” cattle of India, im-
ported by the late ‘“‘Shanghai”’ Pierce. The develop-
ment of their use was made under the direction of
A. P. Borden on the Pierce estate, near Corpus
Christi in Texas. Very few purebreds were brought
over. The process of amalgamation has been mainly
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through %4, 34 and 7g-Brahmin crossed with all the
beef breeds but with Herefords predominant and
Shorthorns next.
The breeding process has been so varied and tech-
nical that I shall not attempt to dissect it any fur-
ther than to say that it is a widespread interest in
southern Texas, and has some of the best breeders
in the state for its practical champions, with results
which cannot be ridiculed. My attention was attracted
to this work by the operations of E. C. Lassater,
“Al” McFadden, “Tom” East and James Callan,
all in Texas. The judgment and ability of these men
as beef producers place them in the top row. All
that I know about the cross has come from these
men and from a visit to the McFadden Ranch, where
I saw many crosses and results, both from a breed-
ing and beefmaking angle. These to me proved to
be a revelation. There I met a man who had always
“cussed” the breed. I asked him why he did so,
and what were their limitations. I got a knockout
answer. He said that the Brahmins had no limi-
tations, from a moneymaking standpoint; and that
he just naturally hated them, but was going to breed
them from now on anyhow. In proportion to the
blood used, they are immune from ticks, flies and
other insect pests; they will go further for water,
lie out longer in the sun, when other breeds seek
shade, live on coarser grass and weeds, get rolling
fat earlier, and kill out better than our native cattle.
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A cowpuncher who worked on a ranch as far north
as Dryden, Tex., where a good deal of the Brahmin-
Hereford cross obtained, in talking of the early ship-
ments from that section in the spring of 1920, when
grass-fat yearling heifers and steers were netting
from $50 to $65, told me that the stock carrying
Brahmin blood was the biggest and fattest, and then
added, ‘‘We were short of water, but those scoun-
drels just got up and trotted ten miles for it, and
got fatter all the time.”
People who have learned how to handle them do
not have any trouble, but a little thing like a fence
or a corral does not seem to bother them at all. Mr.
Lassater asked me to locate a cornbelt feeder who
would full-feed a load of one-fourth-Brahmin and
three-fourths-Hereford calves, against a load of S.
M. S. calves, both lots to be billed at the same price
but under a protection of $10 per head that the
Brahmins would net as much money. I found some-
one, but he only kept them a short time. Even then,
however, they made him a small profit without the
$10 protection, which was of course only extended
for a full-feed. I have always regretted that the
experiment did not go to a conclusion. I do not
think that the Brahmins will invade the herds of
our section and the Panhandle as breeders for some
time, but I do think that they will keep on, and
that some day cornbelt feeders will use the best
crosses extensively in their feedlots.
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One distinct peculiarity of these cattle must be
recorded. ‘The bull will serve the same cow only
once; he is very sure and rivals the goat in capacity.
The quality of the meat, it is said, holds its own
against that of any of the beef breeds in comparative
finish. I can vouch for that, as I ate some from a
good, grass-fat carcass served by Mr. McFadden
when the executive committee of the Cattle Raisers’
Association of Texas met at Victoria, in June, 1919.
I am told that there is no discrimination in the market
against Brahmin cattle; in fact, at Fort Worth, where
the Brahmin cross is heavily marketed, it finds favor
because of its good kill.
While in Florida in 1917 I found Brahmin bulls
of strong grade being used on the run-down primi-
tive cows, with the thought of getting scale, con-
stitution and the beef instinct. It was the intention
of crossing the heifer progeny with the established
beef breeds. In theory it looks good to me, since
many of the Florida grasses are coarse, and, as |
told them in an address, Florida cattlemen should
try anything and everything, since they can’t breed
down.
The law of selection must be the natural basis
for bringing a herd to the highest production and
quality, but all breeders will agree, I think, that
individual merit must stand severe rivalry from “the
get.” I remember that in discussing breeding with
Marcus Daly the matter of “‘like begets like’ came
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up. He said, “That may work in cattle, but it makes
some strange misses in horse breeding.”’ ‘Then he
fell into a dissertation on maternal influence which
I wish I could reproduce, because “maternal influ-
ence’ is my pet hobby.
It is impossible to follow the bull in range breed-
ing. All we can do is to work largely toward indi-
vidual merit. We cut 35 per cent as yearlings, and
thereafter as often as development suggests. Bulls
can be bought, but a great cow herd only comes from
accumulation, persistently culled with “‘get’’ as the
prime factor. I recall that incidental to correspond-
ence in reference to the Armour Hereford importa-
tions in the ’90’s the late W. E. Britten, who selected
them for us, wrote that a celebrated English breeder
had a cow named Lady Fickle, which carried one of
the richest pedigrees in the English herdbook, but
was not much herself. He added, ‘But she has the
blood, can be bought reasonable, and has a good bull
calf at foot by a good bull.” We instructed him to
send her along. I met the shipment at quarantine,
and told “Bill” Searle, who brought them over, that
I wanted to see Lady Fickle first, and he remarked,
“You will not see much.”’ She was indeed a terror,
cat-hammed and flat-ribbed, with sprawling horns
and a long dished face, but very broad between the
eyes, and carried what John Gosling called ‘‘a brain-
box.” Her calf was fine, and sold for a good price.
Mr. Armour did not want her around. She sold as
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YIUny *S "WW “SS ‘sassvjg &q ajuwy yno Burm
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
a cull with another bull calf at foot which developed
into an outstanding show bull and sire: On the other
hand, we bought Beau Real’s Maid, one of the out-
standing show cows of her time, paying $2,200 for
her. She dropped a heifer calf by a great imported
bull, brought over by the late Chas. S. Cross. I have
rarely seen a poorer calf, and it sold at a trash price
in a general clean-up to go some distance. I was
never able to follow its progeny. So there you are:
two jolts, one on each side.
We follow both plans on the S. M. S. Ranch, and
try to save the good individual with a good get.
Our culling is done in the fall, when the cow with a
calf at foot may be seen, but invariably we leave
some cows which we do not like but which produce
calves in the top row. It is almost uncanny the way
in which foremen or cowpunchers generally will
speak of an individual cow among thousands of cows
as having had several good or bad calves. Without
attempting to explain this fact, I have checked against
it carefully enough to know that they know what
they are talking about.
In culling cows, threes and over, we always iry
to work to type. We throw out a cow, no matter
how good, if she goes too long without having a
calf, or appears to be a persistent misser—another
class which the men spot.
Nourishment is watched carefully. Poor “‘doers”’
in the winter are thrown into a small pasture in the
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
spring, as are many other classes, subject to a second
look-over in the fall for cows with one eye, spoiled
bags or other physical defects. Age of course is a
factor to which we give careful attention, but it does
not eliminate a cow if she is a “doer” and a “re-
peater” with no definite limit. A really ill-looking
cow is rarely kept. A rather old cow with an out-
standing calf is apt to be given another year as
against one of the same age with even an average
Calis
I was asked once where I placed ‘‘get’’ in the cull-
ing problem. I replied first, because it is the final
test in realization. We rarely cull anything in the
calf period except distinct ne’er-do-wells. All calves
from two-year-old heifers go out, as it is impossi-
ble to avoid having some yearling heifers get in
calf, and all calves at foot with culled cows not old
enough to winter go. An average term of years
will find about 5 per cent of the total drop going as
veal for these causes.
The main cut in the breeding herd is made in the
fall, in the yearling heifer class. It is about 10 per
cent. This is followed in the two-year-old period by
cutting anything missed as a yearling or not making
proper development, which brings the herd up to the
three-year-old or over class, when they take pot luck
in an annual cull, running rarely less than 7 nor
more than ro per cent. In steers the cut, running
through from calves to yearlings, will average about
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10 per cent, leaning toward 12 per cent, but varying
to some extent with the season, and veal shipments
not considered.
The methods of different ranchmen will naturally
vary, and the remarks that I have made are only
intended to cover our own methods, which will apply,
with small variations, to the general Texas industry,
with this exception: southern Texas frequently has
all classes fat early in the spring, when there is no
rule except the protection of maintenance by holding
back such top she-stuff as is needed, and marketing
the classes returning the best results. The year 1920
has shown the fattest cattle from southern Texas
in years. A good clearance has been made, including
heavy hold-overs from 1919.
[ 103 ]
CHAPTER XII
SOME WESTERN CHARACTERS
ORN in the historic old town of Leavenworth,
Kans., in 1860, I have vague memories of what
I now know as the Civil War, which, to a child’s
mind, meant only hanging over the gate to watch
soldiers march by or fill canteens at our well, to
hear the bugle call, or the hushed voice of my mother
and her friends as they speculated on the fortunes of
war and the threatened ‘‘Price’s raid,” or, as Bret
Harte puts it in Miss Blanche Says—
“Still it was stupid: Rat-a-tat-tat! ‘Those were the sounds
of a battle summer,
Till the earth seemed a parchment round and flat,
And every footfall the tap of a drummer.”
Kansas was abolition; Missouri, just across the
Missouri River, was Confederate and largely guer-
rilla. Col. Jennison’s celebrated abolition cavalry
regiment was stationed at Fort Leavenworth. His
men were “‘wildcats,” every one a picked horseman
and consummate daredevil. It was said of that regi-
ment that its men were on the guerrilla order and
especially careless about the title of a horse; in fact,
the usual pedigree of a horse was “‘by Jennison out of
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Missouri.” Years afterward, as ‘“‘Dan Quinn’s old
b)
cattlemen”’ put it, the colonel reformed and started a
saloon, with a faro bank attachment. His place be-
came a famous resort for old-timers, and as it was
more respectable in those days than now to drop into
such places, I often listened with mouth agape to
stories and reminiscences which would make a won-
derful history of the part ‘‘bleeding Kansas” played
in the Civil War, and the gateway to the west, which
Leavenworth formed for the years following.
Majors Russell and Waddell, with their hundreds
of ox teams and wagon trains transported overland
freight to all parts of the west. Scouts, guides, hunt-
ers, trappers, desperadoes and a great stream of for-
tune-seekers to the great unknown poured through
the gateway. Buffalo hunters marketed their hides,
which filled great warehouses. My grandfather shot
a wild turkey on our back fence. ‘“‘Kit’’? Carson,
“Wild Bill” and “Buffalo Bill” (Col. Wm. F. Cody)
were as familiar figures on the streets as ordinary
citizens. The Missouri River was another trail to
the great west, and was alive with fine boats carry-
ing their burden of human and commercial freight
to Fort Benton, Mont., the head of navigation, and
from that point freight was scattered by bull teams
over Montana and Utah.
Durfee & Peck, Indian traders, with frontier posts,
had their headquarters at Leavenworth. [I still have
some of the trade brass money which they issued
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
for furs, and only the other day in Chicago, as I
looked into a Michigan Avenue shop window, I ven-
tured to ask the price of a wonderful mink garment.
My mind harkened back to the absurd price at which
the skins could be bought in the early days. John
Bowles, at the Chicago stockyards, wore a beaver
coat for which some friend had paid $1,500 and
loaned him to wear while he auctioned off John
Hubly’s grand champion load of Aberdeen-Angus
steers at the 1919 International show. “Tom” Todd,
Fort Benton, Mont., showed me a coat forty years
ago made from selected Saskatchewan beaverskins
which cost him, including the making, $58. I slept
out in the snow between Great Falls and Belt, Mont.,
in a bewildering storm thirty years ago wrapped up
in a beaver coat, which the driver offered to sell
me the next day for $90. Still, look where sugar
has gone in two years! Perhaps furs are still cheap!
“Buffalo Bill” was born in Salt Creek Valley, 5
miles from Leavenworth. Romance has made him
almost everything that the west, in its wildest woolli-
ness, is capable of; but as a matter of fact his real
business was that of supplying the Union Pacific
Railroad building crews and camps with meat, which
was mainly buffalo, and from which he took the
name known all over America and Europe. WNat-
urally this pursuit gave him endless adventures. I
think I have said before that I never look up nota-
bles, but when ‘‘Buffalo Bill’? came to Stamford with
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a circus some time before the illness which resulted
in his death, my boy, who had heard me talk of Mr.
Cody’s early life, and had read numerous stories
about him, asked me to take a little bunch of boys
to call on him after the afternoon show.
I introduced myself from the Leavenworth stand-
point. Col. Cody exclaimed, “Why, I know your
father well! I bought guns and ammunition from
him; he used to sell the old Dupont powder.” Then
he had us all come into the wonderful shelter tent
kept for him between performances. ‘The boys will
never forget that visit, and Col. Cody’s kindly chat
with them. The hand that shook ‘‘Buffalo Bill’s” is
still a tradition in Stamford. I sought to go when
the boys went, but the colonel detained me for an
hour or so, asking about all the old friends whom he
had known in the early days, many of them dead,
and as those who had gone beyond were mentioned
a shadow of sadness would flit across his face, fol-
lowed perhaps by some story of such men as Levi
Wilson, Len Smith, Capt. Tough and Alexander
Caldwell—men of force and personality in the ’50’s
and ’60’s.
Col. Cody then made me tell him all I knew of
the Texas cattle industry, and in turn he told me
about his own ranch near Cody, Wyo., adding, “You
know I have been over this wonderful west until it
is just like going from one room in your own home
to another, and when I had seen it all I picked out
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the one outstanding spot. I believe it is the best
ranch property in America.”
We talked of the ‘Leavenworth man,” and the
bunch that scattered when the railroads came, and
moved on, with frontier restlessness, and then he
told me a remarkable thing: that while his wild west
show was in Paris during the exposition he made
it a habit to try to locate a ‘“Leavenworth man,” and
have him ride in the stage during the fight between ~
the cowboys and Indians. He said that it was re-
markable how often he found the man. When at
last he let me go he said, ‘“‘Well, this has been a won-
derful hour through you, living again with my friends
in those happy times. God, but they were happy,
happy times! Look me up any time you can. Iam
hungry for more of the long ago.”
I recall one striking thing that he said when, inad-
vertently, in speaking of the value of a buffalo’s hide
at the time of our chat, and of the slaughter for their
hides, he said: ‘‘People have the idea that I was a
crack shot, and used that talent to kill for the hide.
I never killed except for food, when the hide fol-
lowed as an auxiliary perquisite. I never have had
any patience with the vandals of the plains.”
“Buffalo Bill’ was not a “bad man,” but in the
early days he was sometimes confused with “Wild
Bill,” who was on that order. He was just a hunter,
scout and guide, who in after life was clever enough
to turn his remarkably picturesque figure, personality
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and talents into a fortune, which he did not know
how to keep, but in the making of which he has left
in the hearts of two continents the romance of the
prairies, now rapidly dying under the advance of the
hoe. Col. Cody had a heart as big as the story his
great wild west told. History will record him as its
most picturesque frontier type. Steeped as I am in
the love of the frontier, I read The Literary Digest’s
compilation of American press tributes to Col. Cody
after his death with the feeling that they were strew-
ing flowers on something of my own—the wonderful
west.
Capt. W. S. Tough was one of the outstanding—
I might almost say romantic—characters of those
stirring times, since the story of his life would make
fiction tame. He stood over six feet, built in propor-
tion, a born horseman, and a dead shot. He was
in the secret service of the Government during the
Civil War and a United States Marshal immediately
following, when the reaction from war and the great
flow westward brought him into action with outlaws
and bad men generally. He became one of the fa-
mous peace officers of the border through his cool,
picturesque courage. I saw much of him as a boy
on his breeding farm next to my father’s, and later
(in 1880) in Denver, where he owned a horse sale
barn, making a specialty of single and team road-
sters, much in demand at that time. I was lonely,
and he invited me to spend my spare time exercising
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his horses on the Denver speedway, under instruc-
tions not to let anything pass me. He had a genius
for mating teams with striking effects, producing
matched, mismatched, showy gaits and nobby turn-
outs. All his drivers dressed the part. When he
drove himself—and he often drove—it was worth
going to see. He was the best driver I have ever
known. Often when we spent the evening in his
office, he would grow reminiscent. I recall two of his
stories which may be of interest.
During the war he was on secret service on some
important mission in Missouri, near Bee Creek. He
was captured by a band of guerrillas. It was nearly
dusk when they reached camp. He was turned over
to a drumhead court-martial. The trial lasted a few
minutes; the verdict was “Spy; penalty, death.”
Turning to him, the leader said, “Yank, would you
rather be shot before or after supper?’ To which
the captain replied, “I always did think a lot of my
belly,” adding, ‘‘Say, ‘Reb,’ that dun hoss of yours
is the best I ever saw. Suppose you make it sunrise;
I'd like to die looking at him.” ‘‘All right,” said the
“Reb”; ‘“‘come eat.’’ At supper the talk drifted onto
horses, and the quality of the Missouri horse, then,
as now, their, ‘pride: Reb,’ said the captain, sa
you ever miss that dun hoss you can just figure my
spirit has got astride and gone with him.”
They tied the captain to a log, with the ‘‘Reb”
on guard; the fire burned down to the faint glimmer
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
of coals through ashes, and he fell asleep, awakening
to find his hands and feet free and the sentry nodding
over the smoldering fire. He crawled behind a bush,
took off his shoes, carrying them in his hand, and
made his get-away. Ten minutes later a shot rang
out in the woods, followed shortly by more shots.
When morning came he hid for the day. The next
morning found him at the Missouri River, which he
swam to the Kansas side. After the war the captain
hunted up the “Reb,” gave him a mighty good horse
and! big boot ‘for the dun. \)\"Yank,”’ «said ““Reb,
“that hoss talk of yours did the work; I thought it
was a damned shame to shoot a lad who loved a hoss
like you did, and, after all, you was only doing your
duty.’ As he ended his story, the captain said:
‘“They call me ‘nutty’ about a horse, but every time
I look at my wife and babies I think, after all, a
hoss gave them to me, and, next to them, a hoss comes
first.”
While commanding a band of cavalry scouts—nat-
urally all picked horsemen, and crack shots—they
took dinner, paying for it, at the house of a woman
whose husband was in the Confederate army. The
captain had given his men strict orders not to for-
age, except in cases of extreme necessity. A mag-
nificent mare of the distinct Missouri saddle-horse
type, and about six years old, was grazing in a
small paddock near the house. ‘The captain and all
the men admired her, and ‘‘Scotty,” a young dare-
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A RANCHMAN’S RE COLEE CP lONs
devil and sharpshooter, tried to make a trade for
her; but the captain told them all, “Hands off.”
They camped for the night some 20 miles away.
Shortly after daylight, “Scotty” rode in on the mare.
As their eyes met he said, ‘Well, Cap, I left a
damned good hoss for her, and she’s contraband,
anyway.” “Scotty,” the captain said, ‘‘my orders are
not contraband; get your breakfast, and ride back. —
We will wait for you here; and, Bill, you go back
with him.”
“Scotty” replied, “I'll be damned if I do.”
‘All right,” said the captain. ‘One of us has got
to be boss, and we can’t be that with the other around.
Ride to the other edge of this clearing, turn and I
will ride towards you; shoot whenever you get ready. -
I will do the same. You are at least as good as I
am on the trigger.”
“Scotty” sat for a minute in deep thought, and
then, with a smile, said, “‘O hell, Cap, there ain’t
no doubt about who’s boss here. I only traded for
this mare to keep you from getting her after the
war. So long; catch up with you by noon. I'll get
one good ride out of her.” Then a bright thought
striking him, he added, “Say, Cap, you ride her
back; maybe you can make an after-war trade for
her.’ His story ended, the captain was silent for a
moment, and then broke out into a hearty laugh.
“Scotty? was right; you have heard or known of
the good ones I bought and sold for twenty years
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after the war. Well, 1 spotted them or their dams
and sires during the war, and what Jennison didn’t
get during the war I tried to get afterwards.”
Another story may be added because it falls so
aptly in Missouri. During President Cleveland’s
first campaign I was sent over to Platte City, Mo.,
with several others to organize a regiment of cavalry
to participate in a big night rally, and parade in Leay-
enworth. Those were the days of the Flambeau
Clubs. All the “pep” has gone out of parades since
the use of fireworks has been prohibited. We had
three of them in line, a total of 200 expert Flambeau
men whirling pin wheels, and putting up rockets or
Roman candles as they marched. Nothing that I
have ever seen compares with that sort of display.
We chose a day when Gov. Thomas T. Critten-
den was billed to speak. Jesse James had been killed
by “Bob” Ford under a contract with Gov. Critten-
den. ‘The James boys had worlds of friends in Platte
county. Gov. Crittenden had been warned that he
could not speak at Platte City without being killed.
They were all there, and I asked the Governor to
give me a minute, before he spoke, to announce our
cavalry regiment, which, by the way, came 500 strong,
on probably as grand a bunch of horses of that
number as ever formed a regiment. When the Gov-
ernor rose to speak there was a tense silence; not a
single hand clapped; the dropping of a pin could
have been heard. He was calm and cool, as though
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shaking hands with a friend. Those who knew him
will remember his splendid presence, his wonderful
snow-white hair, his square jaw and his well-modu-
lated voice. For a moment he stood silent, his eyes
roving over the entire audience. Everyone seemed
to be holding his breath, and then the Governor
began:
‘Fellow citizens of Missouri: I am your Govy-
ernor. I am pledged to enforce your laws. I have
been warned that if I touch here today the subject
of the James Boys and the killing of Jesse James
I will pay for it with my life. I am here to talk
to you on that subject, to tell you the whole story,
and my final attitude, and then drift to national and
state issues. Bandit-ridden Missouri, your Missouri,
is the scorn of America. Your laws charge me with
responsibility. I am the guardian of Jesse James’
wife and children, and I intend to keep that trust to
the last ditch; but I did put a price on Jesse James’
head; I will put a price on the head of every bandit
and outlaw in Missouri, dead or alive, so long as I
am your Governor. I stand for law and order, and
I will follow relentlessly all violators until the fair
name of bandit-ridden Missouri is back where you
can stand in any company, and say, ‘My Missouri,’
without a blush, and if I did not have the moral
courage to come to you and tell you so I would not
be fit to be your Governor.”
Then he paused. Again an awful stillness ensued;
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it seemed to burn and hurt. Then, as though shot
from the mouth of a hidden cannon, the people rose
to him en masse, and cheered him to the echo. A
great, tall, grizzly-headed man, sitting in the front
row, walked up on the platform and took the Gov-
ernor by the hand, waving for silence with the other.
Like the shutting off of an electric current, it was
again still, The old man said: ‘By God, boys, we’ve
got a Governor. Let’s stay with him.” Bedlam
thereupon broke loose.
Then followed the regular speech, but probably the
shortest the Governor ever made—the once-over on
national issues and an appeal to send a real Platte
county regiment to the rally. That first few min-
utes in its dramatic tenseness had made everyone
weak, and the good old applejack, for which Platte
county was (and perhaps still is) famous, seemed
a beautiful refuge. I know it was.
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CHAPTER XIII
SOME COWBOY CHARACTERISTICS
SHALL write of cowboys as I found them in the
spring of 1902, when I came to the S.M.S. Ranch
in Texas. There were whole outfits of trained, sea-
soned men, almost born in the saddle. This situa-
tion obtained pretty well up to the war, when volun-
tary enlistment and the draft took the cream of cow-
boy material, leaving only the foremen and straw
bosses (second in command) to train the material
that ranchmen could find. Since then we have robbed
the cradle and old men’s homes with an ever-shifting
outfit, built up round a few old-timers. Yet it has
been wonderful how ranchmen have got along. It is
explained by the fact that the really skilled old-timers
are beyond the age for new ventures, can still handle
the technical work, and have infinite patience with
raw material.
After the war many of the cowpunchers came
back, but were restless; then a matrimonial epidemic
swept most of them into wanting camp jobs, and
there were not enough to go round. A working out-
fit must, in the main, be unmarried; otherwise it is
“busted” half the time by normal and legitimate de-
mands to call the boys home. Do not let these com-
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YIUDY “SPS GUondT, v yovg suisuug
a me tint ~ -- CES EEE EE TO EET
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ments bring an avalanche of applications from agri-
cultural schools or lads generally wishing to learn the
cow business. I shall not in this sketch elaborate the
reason why we must draw from local men who have
lived in the atmosphere through boyhood. ‘There is
of course a reason.
There is beginning to be a swing back from the
oilfields, the harvest fields and town jobs. Only a
few days ago a well-dressed city-complexioned young
man came into our office and applied for a “riding
job,” meaning in the cow outfit, as a fence or pas-
ture rider, as opposed to farm work. I said to him:
“Pardon me, but you don’t look the part. What
experience have you had?” ‘Then he told me that
he had been hurt by a falling horse about a year
ago, and been working “‘inside’” until his leg got
well. I told him that we did not pay “inside wages,”
but he got his keep. “I know that all right,” he
said, “but when I get through paying board and room
rent, buying cold drinks, good clothes and taking the
girls to the picture shows, wearing a clean shirt every
day, getting a bath and ‘dolled up’ at the barber shop,
and paying for the gas when a friend takes me for a
joy ride, me and the world is several bucks apart at
the end of the week, and feeling like hell, too; but
I can save money, eat good grub, ride good hosses,
shave myself, get one of the boys to cut my hair, and
take a runnin’ jump into the creek or tank from the
brandin’ pen; look up at the stars as I fall asleep
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out there on the ranch, and I'll stay hired a long time
if I get a chance.”’ He got it.
After all, he had it right: it is what you have at
the end of the month. Perhaps the reaction in favor
of farm and ranch may come through that channel;
there can be no question about the health end.
Cowboys are ultra-sensitive, difident and supersti-
tious about anything that they do not understand.
I do not mean the supernatural; I mean things out
of their own groove. They possess a quality that is
not necessarily courage, but rather the absence of
fear. They are not the lawless, gun-toting element
of the movies, or the long-ago frontier. They are
law-abiding, good, hard-working citizens, with a
greater respect for the chastity of a good woman
than any other class of men in America. I have
studied them for twenty years. I have asked hun-
dreds of cowmen and cowboys if they knew of a
single case of seduction, and have yet to hear of one.
I saw a line in one of the films recently disclosing
that some easterner had followed a girl whom he
was in love with to a ranch, where she was visiting.
Finding his case hopeless, he began to shine up to a
country girl. The girl whom he had followed had
caught the spirit of the country. She said to him:
“Ned, the things men do where we came from and
are dismissed as wild oats, they kill for out here.”
A country mother once said to me: “I would rather
trust my girl with one of these boys any distance alone
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in a car or buggy than have her go three blocks alone
ina City. |
When I take a bunch of cowboys with me to a
hotel or café, where the service is ‘“‘classy,”’ I do not
think of asking them what they will have, but look
over the bill of fare, and pick out what I think that
they like, ordering it for myself, and then, turning
to them, ask, “‘What will you boys have?” “Same
for me.” They will go back home and laugh about
the mistakes they made using the wrong silver, and
drinking out of finger bowls, but if one of them were
conscious of attracting attention he would die of
mortification.
As to superstition, an incident occurred in my first
year which will best illustrate it. We had carried
over some cattle, and had an unusual number to de-
liver, trailing them mainly to the Tongue River
Ranch, 100 miles distant, and thence 60 miles to
Estelline. I was in the field constantly, and often
stayed with the outfits weeks at a time. I had said
to them when I came, “Boys, I am soft, and I do
not know much about this big pasture game, but I
do know something about breeding and selling. Take
me on faith until I make good, and let’s do team-
work. Some day I will ride as fast and as far as
any of you.” It was a go, but they couldn’t help
having their fun. I got some pretty rough-gaited
horses and on the round was often sent with some
crazy rider. After an especially hard ride over rough
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country one morning, with an especially crazy rider,
I decided to stay at the chuck wagon, instead of
going on the afternoon round.
That evening after supper, around the campfire, ©
the chuck wagon “josh” commenced. There is noth-
ing funnier or sharper. I came in for the brunt of
it. Finally I said: ‘Boys, I told you I had lots to
learn about this riding game, but there are some
things I learned before I came down here. I am a
trained athlete (those who know my stature will be
amused). I will wrestle any one of you, catch-as-
catch-can, for $50. Now that does not mean to stand
up and take hold, but run in, catch by the head, or
leg, or any way. It is all sleight or trick work, and
that is where the little man may put it over the big
one—the comparatively weak man over the strong
one, just as the ‘Japs,’ trained in jiu-jutsu, can handle
several men not trained in strangle holds, arm twists
and stomach jams. So in catch-as-catch-can the man
with the sleight may hurt someone who does not
know it, and I want that understood.”
I had been taught a few tricks, and, reaching over,
caught a big fellow quickly by the back of his neck,
jerking it down, and almost unbalancing him, while
the others laughed. The “bluff” went; they had
never heard of catch-as-catch-can, and were all skilled
in the sleight of throwing a calf well enough to know
that some of the smaller men could beat the big ones.
They looked foolish; then one said, ‘You try him.”
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I saw I had them going, and remarked, “Pool your
money, and pick your man,”’ but it was the unknown,
the oe ’’ and we wound up by putting it off, but
they quit “joshing’’ my riding.
Some months later an inspector ot I had got
to know and love asked me, ‘‘Where in the hell did
you get to be such a wrestler?” I had really forgot
all about it, and asked, “Why?” ‘Then he told me
that my boys were offering to bet the other outfits
that I could throw any man they would put up catch-
as-catch-can, or, as they put it, ‘“You got to wrassel
his way; it’s all sleight and if anybudy gets hurt he
has to grin it out.”
I never had to wrestle, but some years afterwards
I ran a footrace with a lad, who was just a kid “‘hoss
wrangler”’ at the time of my “‘bluff,”’ and he beat me.
Thereupon, throwing his hat down, he said: “‘Now,
damn your soul, I’ll jes wrassel you catch-as-catch-
can.” I told him that he had been off somewhere
taking lessons, and I did not want to hurt a good
man, anyway, because they were getting too scarce.
To which he replied, ‘“‘Say, I believe you’ve been
runnin’ a sandy all the time.”’ I said, “O. K., kid,
but keep it dark.”
I have said that cowboys are difident and unemo-
tional; that is, on the surface. You can do things for
them, and while scrupulously polite in the etiquette
of the range they may not even say “thank you”;
but they never forget. Under that nonchalant ex-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
terior there is a heart of gold; a tenderness and re-
sponse to every human touch. The cowboy is indeed
a child of nature, and all its great emotions are in his
soul. I had this all come to me in the saddest experi-
ence of my life when one of our boys was killed
while we were sorting cattle in the feed-pens at Stam-
ford. He was riding his night horse Curlew. A
night horse is always the gentlest in a man’s mount,~
but any ranch-bred Texas horse will go out of his
head when anything goes wrong, often some very
little thing.
I remember riding this same horse on an all-day
so-mile jaunt over the Tongue River Ranch with
Henry Bonner of Indiana. The day was very warm.
I took my handkerchief out to put round my neck,
and gave it a flip. Curlew went into the air, and for
a minute jolted me pretty hard, and made me pull
leather. I said to the foreman, “What’s wrong with
this horse?’ He replied, “I guess he never saw a
white handkerchief before.”
“Johnnie”’ was sitting on Curlew, and several other
boys were on their horses, waiting for instructions.
I think that Curlew must have fallen asleep. The
foreman rode up and said, ‘Come on, boys.”’ Johnnie
was one of our best riders; he was always ‘‘cow-
boying.” Reaching over he gave Curlew a slap on
the neck. The horse must have jumped in the op-
posite direction. Johnnie was unbalanced and fell,
his foot catching in the stirrup. The horse then
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frightened, made several plunges, striking Johnnie
in the head with his hoof. The boy’s imprisoned
foot came clear, and in a few minutes Johnnie came
to, and seemed quite himself; but I sent him to camp
near by with one of the men, who soon sent back
word that Johnnie was acting queer. I sent a man
“riding for the doctor.’ That means riding. All
work was called off. We gave first aid, but it was
evident that a blood clot had formed. We put ina
long-distance call for the Pitch Fork Ranch, 80 miles
away; it sent a rider to the boy’s father and mother
20 miles away. It was then 3 o’clock in the after-
noon; relay teams were arranged along the line.
I knew the frontier dread of the knife. The doc-
tor told us that there was just one chance: trepanning
the skull. I called a council of the boys, and said,
‘Now if he were mine I would take the chance; but
I know how men on the frontier have seen their
comrades lie for days and weeks unconscious, and
get well, their rugged constitutions finally absorbing
blood clots, and they have seen death follow heroic
surgery. Dick (his father) should call us from As-
permont (40 miles away) by 2 o’clock in the morn-
ing. Shall we wait?” ‘There was no answer; then
I polled them one by one. ‘‘Wait’’ was the unani-
mous verdict.
At 2:30 a. m. Dick called. I told him just what
I had told them. Poor Dick! The agony in that
calm, restrained voice—‘‘Wait till mama and me
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come, Frank. I’ve seen so many of ’em in my fifty
years lay and lay and come through. Wait.”
I went over to my house across the street for a
short rest. [he boys had followed me about like
children; they would squat on their heels along the
hall while I was in the sickroom, and when I came
out there was that mute appeal, with never a word,
but just the anguish of soul, crying for a word, a
look of hope. I told “‘Mage’”’ to call me if there was
any change, and asked the doctor not to leave the
room.
I was just sinking into the sleep of exhaustion
when I heard Mage knock on the open window, and
heard him say, ‘Frank, come! Johnnie is about to
go.” Then we all gathered about the bedside, a band
of stoics, not a tear from hearts bursting with grief,
and Johnnie passed into the Great Beyond. Gentle
women were there to meet the father and mother
when they came, two hours later, and the boys, stand-
ing their silent guard of honor, moved out into the
hall, leaving them alone with their dead.
We arranged for starting back with the remains
on the following day, but along towards evening rain
began to fall. There were two sand rivers to cross
which were swollen torrents under a head rise, and
it might come down by morning. So it was decided
to start at once. Night was falling; there was no
time for a service, but the mother said, “I want my
boy to have a prayer’’; and I lifted up my voice to
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thank God for the refuge that He gives to all in the
great range of love and peace. Then, with Johnnie’s
riderless horse, saddled and bridled, with a slicker-
clad, slouched-hat guard of honor in front, behind
and on each side of the spring wagon, which held all
that was mortal, a weird and solemn procession
moved out into the slow drizzle, and gathering dark-
ness, on its 100-mile journey to the little spot on
the hill where the first sunbeams kiss the morning
dew, and the flickering shadows of dusk linger long-
est. There Johnnie dreams in the eternal sleep—
“Where the little grey hawk hangs aloof in the air,
And the sly coyote glides here and there;
Where the summer rains and the winter snows,
Where the wild flowers bloom and the Bob White goes.”
[125]
CHAPTER XIV
CATTLE WEIGHT COMPARISONS; TICKS
AM asked to make a comparison of the weights
of the Longhorn and his more modern brother,
raised under improved breeding. ‘This is a task
which I fear can not be satisfactorily performed;
first, because the comparative ages of marketing
varies too widely, and, second, because the data of
early-day weights are meager. I have found in my
reading only one definite reference to weights (this
was in about 1870), and that was unaccompanied
by any data as to age or sex. It recorded a drove of
1,200 head, original Longhorns, cut from 3,700
head, and showing at the market 1,125 pounds. The
probability is that they were steers, and cut for
weights and from general data they were presumably
from four to six years old. I could perhaps get data
from some old-timers, but they are scarce, and would
require to work largely from memory. I shall there-
fore work from another angle.
In my own memory the ages at which cattle are
marketed have shown drastic changes. When the
International Live Stock Exposition in Chicago be-
gan twenty years ago, three-year-old steers were in
the favored class; export buyers were taking what
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are known now as “heavies.”’ Then twos were the
next step towards youth in the favored class, and
finally yearlings. I have never worked in the Chi-
cago yards, but venture to say that cattle from the
northwest developing ranges have in the meantime
shown a material drift in age. When I came to
Texas twenty years ago there were many threes; now,
under normal conditions, they are rare, except in the
extreme Panhandle, which has become more of a
developing than a breeding country. A well-posted
stockyards commission man once threw a bombshell
into my camp of theories by saying that improved
breeding was being done at the expense of weight,
citing a well-known brand with which he was espe-
cially familiar; but in going into the matter deeper
I was convinced that the marketing age had been
reduced, and that a year’s keep cut some figure. I
do not mean to say that he opposed improved breed-
ing; his point was that the price must be greater to
offset the loss in weight. I followed the matter fur-
ther into the question of what percentage of increase
in choice cuts resulted, with satisfactory testimony
that it was material. My final conclusion was that
improved breeding results in materially earlier ma-
turity, and a saving of from one to two years’ keep.
I have never been convinced that actual losses in
weight, year against year, have been against the im-
proved animal.
An illustration of much interest came under my
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own observation. The Spur Syndicate trailed
through our Tongue River Ranch on- the way to
Estelline. Its cattle were among the first in the state
materially to be bred up. When I came to Texas
one of the Spur steers had “outlawed”’ in our pasture
several years before. He was thrown into every
Spur herd which passed through for several years;
but he was a professional outlaw, and was back on
his range near the T-41 Windmill in our pasture in a
day or so. He must have been a two or three, when
he first located on us, and was still there five years
after I came. He looked like an elephant beside the
other cattle. Finally I had him thrown into one of
our own herds, got him to Estelline, and shipped him
for the Spur account.
As I recall it Fred Hosbrough told me that he
weighed between 1,800 and 1,900 pounds, off grass;
at any rate, he was very heavy. At another time I
sent one of Burk Burnett’s stray steers in. I think
that he was a five-year-old; he showed a very heavy
weight. I have talked with a number of rangemen
who have had similar experiences, bringing up the
matter of comparative weights, and in every instance
they have shared my conviction that improved Texas
cattle of today, age for age, will put the primitive
cattle to sleep in weight. My own observations are
purely from Texas experiences. A better compari-
son would be the cattle shipped from the northwest
ranges to the Chicago market, which has absorbed
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the supply for forty years or more. I should like to
see The Breeder’s Gazette put “Jim” Poole on this
job, to dig out data from the memories and records
of old-timers in the Chicago yards, still in the trade.
It must be remembered, however, that in the early
days of the Great Northern Railroad the late James
J. Hill spent a great deal of money putting out Aber-
deen-Angus bulls along that line, and quite a bit of
breeding was done in Montana. The Aberdeen-
Angus bulls were crossed on cows probably pretty
well graded. The comparison should probably be
made against Longhorns taken to the northwest in
the ’80’s and cattle in recent years, with cattle in both
instances fat.
The foregoing has been written more with a view
to ‘‘starting something” and bringing out informa-
tion from all sources than to claim any merit for
my own observations. The topic should be thor-
oughly discussed by rangemen and cornbelt cattle
feeders and breeders.
It is quite a jump from weights to ticks, and yet
the extended work of the Federal Bureau of Animal
Industry must have had a great influence on weights
when the drain of tick vampires on the early cattle
is considered. I am sure that immunity from ticks
within a few weeks after trail droves started north
had much to do with their weights in Montana. I
have often heard old trail drivers speak of starting
with droves of thin cattle, taking them from south
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Texas by easy stages to Montana, and arriving fat.
They were naturally free from ticks in.a few weeks.
When I came to Texas, Chicago had established a
free season, when cattle from below the line were
admitted to the regular yards, without prejudice, as
the result of definite knowledge that ticks dropped
from November on would succumb to northern win-
ters. The same practice applied to many northern
states, which admitted them in the open season with-
out inspection.
I have followed the quarantine map carefully dur-
ing the past twenty years, the last ten of which have
shown amazing changes. For five years after 1902
we had ticks in the S. M. S. Throckmorton pasture;
but we dipped and cleaned it several years before
the pastures across the road were clean. We drove
our calves to Stamford every fall, dipping them for
exposure, as they had to pass through infested terri-
tory. We did not lose a calf from infection, and
only a limited number from dipping—not twenty
head, all told, out of thousands dipped, and most of
those few got turned around in the vat and drowned.
Crude oil was the only dip that we ever shied at;
other dips apparently were an actual benefit, while
crude oil seemed to close up the pores in the hides.
Robert Kleberg, manager of the King Ranch, was
first among Texas cowmen to tie onto the tick theory,
and his constructive work in the early period brought
benefits which can never be estimated. For years it
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was a moot question in the Texas legislature, which
has in recent years got behind the work of eradica-
tion with both feet, cooperating with the Bureau of
Animal Industry splendidly, both by precept and ap-
propriation. ‘There was from the earliest discussion
one argument which never failed. Get a man who
rejected the tick theory to bring cattle into infested
territory, which had never been exposed to ticks. The
result was always the same, with this one exception:
a fever-tick which found a horse for host dropped
and laid its eggs, and the progeny hatched did not
carry the fever germ. Some pastures as far north as
King and Motley counties became infested by ticks
dropped from horses, and there was no bovine mor-
tality until they got onto cows brought from below
the line but clean when brought in. From such cows
the tick again took on her malignant nature, and her
progeny would cause fever. In these northern coun-
ties, however, ticks rarely carried over, on account
of the cold, but a story made up of scares would
make a book, and I had my share of them.
The quarantine line now, according to a Federal
bureau map (Dec. 1, 1918), is 90 miles south of
Stamford and the same east, with no unclean terri-
tory north, and due to the work of the past two years
the line is much further south. In five years, with
proper local and state codperation, the fever tick
could easily be cleaned out in America. I feel rea-
sonably sure that it will be in ten years, or, if not,
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then at least limited to portions of Florida. That
state, however, is getting a move on itself, and if the
fencing of open range there is rapid enough, it can
clean up easier than Texas. Some wonderful work
has been done in Florida by progressive individuals,
and the state has passed laws in which there has been
some confusion in interpretation.
The United States Department of Agriculture in
Washington, D. C., has issued a number of compre-
hensive pamphlets on ticks and tick eradication.
From these publications a few extracts, condensed
and unquoted, and some observations and data from
Chief Dr. John R. Mohler of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, and from Geo. M. Rommel, chief of the
Division of Animal Husbandry, may prove valuable
to those interested.
Texas fever was introduced into the United States
with importations by Spaniards during the early
colonization of Mexico and southern United States.
It seems to have been first discovered as a menace
by Dr. J. Pease, towards the close of the 18th cen-
tury in Lancaster Co., Pa., where a severe outbreak
of the disease occurred following the importation of
some cattle from North Carolina. Pease ascribed the
cause directly to the cattle, without locating the tick
as the cause. Experience soon showed the invariable
result of the importation of southern cattle in great
mortality among northern cattle. Years followed
before any tangible cause could be located. Smith of
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the Bureau of Animal Industry in 1889 was the first
to locate the tick as the carrying cause, while Kil-
boune of the same bureau in 1889-1890, by conclu-
sive field experiments, suggested by Chief Salmon,
proved the presence of the tick to be essential in the
transmission of the fever. In 1891 Dr. Salmon es-
tablished the Texas fever quarantine line, but for
ten years he had been working on the theory, and
was probably its actual discoverer.
The Texas fever tick is continually confused with
a number of other ticks, occasionally found on cattle,
which, so far as the transmission of Texas fever is
concerned, are entirely harmless, and which one of
the department’s earliest problems was to define and
demonstrate as harmless. Farmers’ Bulletin 569 by
Dr. John R. Mohler is the most comprehensive
pamphlet on the subject that I have read, and an
historical address by Dr. U. G. Houck of the
Federal Bureau of Animal Industry is probably the
best thing of its kind.
The ear tick, while harmless as to fever, is a
menace at times in the northern parts of the Shinnery
country of Texas. Coal oil or gasoline, injected by
hand into the beast’s ear, is the only practical remedy.
Ordinary cattle dips do not penetrate far enough.
Fever ticks claim the short-haired parts, and are
rarely found on the head, and never in the ears. Often
in winter the ear ticks will form a perfect cement in
a cow’s ear. We keep a lookout for cows of this
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class, which are usually in low condition, finding their
way to the feed grounds. One year ear ticks were so
bad that we put the whole feeding bunch through a
chute, and squirted coal oil into their ears, with good
results.
In closing this chapter I am constrained to pay a
tribute to the splendid work done by the Federal Bu-
reau of Animal Industry, through trying circum-
- stances and against much opposition, in the matter
of obtaining individual and state cooperation. Its
painstaking, patient methods are saving the world
many times the cost of the whole bureau every year.
Eventually, due to the bureau’s initiative and per-
sistent, constructive work, America will be free from
fever ticks.
[ 134 ]
LX
The late G. F. Swi;
CEVA EE Re Xov)
SOME PACKERS I HAVE KNOWN
HROUGHOUT this series my reference to
packers has been largely to the Kansas City
Armours, with whom I spent twelve years. During
that time I came and have since come into contact
incidentally with the most of the other packers. It is
my thought to review them from the standpoint of
their influence in rescuing the cattle industry from
chaos in the late ’60’s. I shall limit myself to those
who have passed over the Great Divide.
At the time I went into the service the packing
industry was emerging from a comparatively small
business to the spread-out stage. Refrigeration was
being improved by leaps and bounds. Branch houses,
making the local distribution of fresh meat at great
distances possible, were increasing rapidly; circuit
cars were in their infancy, and men were being sent
into every part of the world on trips of survey.
Swift & Co. had recently built in Kansas, but were
killing cattle only. One of my most thrilling mem-
ories is that of creating new by-products, following
up the investigations of our scouts, and of the intense
rivalry among the men on the sales end, with packers
to put over a new one or get general business.
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Packers were large intertraders on long or short
lines, as the flow of trade or specialization suggested.
For instance, my house had an immense trade in pigs’
feet. We bought the rough product, uncleaned, from
several packers, who did not clean a hoof, but sold
just as few in finished form as possible, and to fill
orders bought them in tierces from us, filling smaller
packages under their own labels. This intertrading
gave us all an inter-acquaintance. Some of my warm-
est friends today were strong trade rivals, while my
work in Herefords took me much about the yards,
and in close contact with packinghouse general yards
buyers, and in turn I came at times into contact with
the high bosses.
I once heard “Johnny” Bowles at an International
Live Stock Exposition auction sale speak of Nelson
Morris as “that grand old Trojan.” I think it covers
my own estimate of him. My own association with
him was casual, but he knew me whenever we met,
and from the earliest days of the International always
had a kindly word and ‘How are those S. M. S.’s
coming along? You got some good cattle, and you
got a good boss.”’ It happened that when the senior
member of our firm, E. P. Swenson, was coming to
Texas for ranch visits, Mr. Morris would be making
a similar trip to see his black cattle near Midland.
It was a wonderful herd, and its dispersion left grand
footprints in many parts of Texas. Quite often Mr.
Morris and Mr. Swenson met on the trains. ‘They
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were great friends. Mr. Swenson has often reviewed
his chats with Mr. Morris, pausing here and there
to place special emphasis on some unusual bit of wis-
dom or practical thought of value to us. They were
always making plans for visiting each other’s prop-
erties, and I was to share in the treat; but something
always happened to prevent the visits. I know how
much Mr. Swenson regrets it, and to me it was a
personal loss) Mr. Morris particularly wanted to
see our system of calf winter maintenance in the days
when we maintained in pens to sell and ship any
month between November 1 and May 1. From the
earliest day of knowing Mr. Morris until the present
moment I have thought of him as one of the strong
elements for good in the live stock industry. He was
an inspiration to good, clean trading.
No American institution of commerce has had
more wonders for me than the house of Swift & Co.
While not detracting one iota from the splendid
“carry on” work of his sons, until the house stands
among the first commercial American achievements
—and that means the world—everything can be re-
duced to one great personality, G. F. Swift. What
is perhaps an equally great achievement is that of
the perpetuation of a great business, handed down
from father to son, in which we have three para-
mount illustrations in the packer world: the Swift
boys, J. Ogden Armour and Edward Morris, who
died and passed the work to Edward Morris, Jr.
a3 7a)
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Rich boys often enter into succession with the handi-
cap of great accomplishments by their fathers. These
young men go up through fewer opportunities to
fight out great problems. Their environment is one
of comparative luxury. They are plunged into re-
sponsibility. But all these men have shouldered their
heritage and carried the flag of American commerce
on and on, in spite of the criticism, baiting and often
persecution which have come to them, doing as
much as their progenitors in widening the avenues
of trade and saving waste to the world.
The early story of G. F. Swift is well known. He
was a peddler of meats in New England. Due to
thrift and good business, he became a packer in Chi-
cago in 1875, and extended his operations to Kansas
City and Omaha in 1888—about the time that I went
with the Kansas City Armours. His struggle for
growth probably represents the most wonderful
financing in earlier years ever done by an American
firm. I shall not attempt to describe what I know
about the details except to say that he was a heavy
borrower from country banks, always met his obli-
gations promptly, and had a perfect system of “‘kiting
drafts.’ He finally arriving at his great system of
thousands of stockholders—a credit as good as the
best—and a business equal to his greatest competitor.
I know G. F. Swift slightly, but his characteristics
and methods, as they have come to me by observa-
tion and from many of his own men, have always
[ 138 ]
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The late Philip D. Armour, founder of the house of Armour & Co.
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
fascinated me. ‘They were basically sound and con-
sistently followed. Once when I happened to be in
Denver I dropped in on the manager of the Denver
Swift branch house. He was an old Kansas City
friend. In the course of our chat I asked if ‘‘G. F.”
had been around lately. (Packinghouse men almost
invariably refer to the “higher-ups”’ by their initials
only.) ‘I should say he had,” replied my friend;
“he caught me napping, and he sure landed on me.
The bookkeeper went to lunch. I happened to think
of something in the railroad office about half a block
away, and wasn’t gone over fifteen minutes; but when
I came back I found ‘G. F.’ sitting at the desk,
counting the number of pencils we had in use at the
same time. He said: ‘This must be a safe com-
munity if you can all go to lunch at once and leave
the doors open.’ Then, looking out at the wagons,
which were all in by that hour, and lined for loading
in the morning, he said: ‘Is that just your idea of
how Swift & Co. wagons should look?’ I said, ‘No,
Mr. Swift; they need retouching, and I wrote Chi- |
cago last week for permission to have them painted.’
Then I got my knock-out. He turned to me, and,
with a little smile, said, ‘Did you ask them if you
could have them washed?’ ”
After all it is the little thing which makes the
big ones, and I took the story back to the hotel that
night, giving myself a good mental survey, and found
that I had asked to have several wagons painted, but
[ 139 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
had overlooked having them washed. One of the
most far-reaching works of the house of Swift & Co.,
done by the great mind of G. F. Swift, consisted in
establishing the reputation for being “‘a good house
to do business with.”” That meant high standards in
products, fairness in adjusting claims, courtesy in
every individual, or, putting it another way, to quote
Marshall Field, ‘“The customer is always right, even
when he is wrong.”
Mr. Swift’s was the achievement of plodding per-
sistence, gained by inches rather than by brilliant
strokes, and the name of G. F. Swift will always be
enrolled among the greatest captains of American
industry.
The greatest individuality that I have ever come
into contact with was that of Philip D. Armour. He
was a partner in the Kansas City house, but the two
houses were not consolidated until about the time I
came to Texas. My association was purely a busi-
ness one as against my intimate personal relation with
his nephew Kirk B. Armour; but the two houses en-
couraged a close relation between themen in Chicago
and those in Kansas City, resulting in frequent in-
terchanging visits. Philip D. Armour always had
the Kansas City men come into his office, and they
usually left it with their conceit pretty well abstracted,
and some very wise things to recollect. I know that
it sounds harsh to read of the persistent policy of the
Armours to ‘roast’? their men, but as a matter of
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
fact it was only the old Irish trick of whipping up
the free horse. The men loved it because they knew
it was a sort of pat on the back, and an admission
that a fellow had something in him.
I have rarely known a more lovable man than Mr.
Armour. He was the sort who loved those whom he
chastened. His men worth while loved him, and
realized that after they came out from a “‘once over,”’
or even after getting the “third degree,’’ they did so
with new fighting power. They were nicely cleaned
up, like men getting out of the barber’s chair after
a round-trip. No commercial eye in American trade
history has had the vision, with the quick-action
executive ability behind it, that Mr. Armour had.
His was the kind of vision which has been behind all
great trades. It was this vision which took him from
the York State farm to the goldfields, and made a
fortune in pork after the Civil War. This character-
istic came under my own observation several times,
notably before the panic, I think in 1893; but I am
not where I can look up the year. For months before
it struck he was accumulating gold in his Chicago
vaults, and shipping gold to Kansas City. When
the evil day came both the Chicago and Kansas City
Armours bought live stock every day, paying for it
in gold instead of the usual check clearance. Again
in 1893 an attempt to break him was made. He had
bought wheat heavily in the northwest. The sellers
planned to deliver him the actual product largely in
[141]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
excess of Chicago wheat storage capacity. Reviews
of this incident speak of it as the “‘crisis of his life.”
Architects told him that it would take six months to
build the capacity needed. He brushed them aside, be-
gan work in a few hours, and in forty-two days was
receiving wheat in the new elevator. Of the curing
cellars in Kansas City old ‘‘Matt” Harris had charge.
He was a wizard in his work, but could hardly read
or write. He could figure, however. Often he was
given some unusual problem to handle, and his in-
variable reply to K. B. Armour was “It is ‘wnpossible,’
Mr. Armour, but we will do it.” If I were to cast
about for some phrase to illustrate the life of Philip
D. Armour I should use ‘‘Matt’s” words “It is ‘un-
possible,’ but we will do it.”’
I recall a personal incident which I might run into
pages, and leave it still uncovered. I was in the
Armour branch house office in Los Angeles on one
of my western trips, when ‘‘P. D.,’’ as we spoke of
him, came in with a party of Chicago friends. Among
them was Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, with whom Mr.
Armour had close association in his extended philan-
thropic work. There began a friendship which has
been more than a joy, rather a refuge, to me ever
since, and I think of him as America’s greatest di-
vine. I was asked to go with the Armour party to
visit the Cudahy killing plant. In parting “P. D.”
said: ‘‘We are touring California and the north
coast. Whenever you find our car on your train come
[ 142 ]
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
in and stay with us.’’ About a week later I crawled
onto a train at Sacramento at 5 a. m. I noticed his
car on the train, but thought that I would wait until
after breakfast before making a call. His personal
attendant came through the train about 6:30 and
recognized me. He returned shortly to say that Mr.
Armour (always an early riser) wanted me to come
back to breakfast and remain with them, as they were
going to be run “‘special.’’ I wish I might have space
to describe that wonderful trip via Mt. Shasta,
Rogue River Valley, and the Willamette Valley.
The train consisted of an engine and the private ob-
servation car. Peach trees were in bloom, and
spring’s charm was upon the landscape and in the air.
After breakfast Mr. Armour took me into the back
end of the car and asked, ‘‘Well, what have you been
doing?’ I was pretty well fixed; luck had been com-
ing my way, and I replied that I had sold eighteen
cars of hams the day before. ‘‘That’s fine,” he said;
then came that vision in the remark: ‘You don’t
have to go any higher up than me for instructions,
and I tell you to sell this stuff and never stop selling.
We are going to be smothered with hogs this fall,
and I want a clean house. You will of course con-
fer with your house, but if you get in a tight place,
and haven’t time, sell; you know enough about value
not to go wild.”
I never knew what he wired my house, if any-
thing; but the house evidently had his ideas in con-
[ 143 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
firming my sales, and working on the basis of his
instructions I had a lucky day in Portland, Ore., sell-
ing 500 tierces of lard, and closing the deal just ten
minutes before I had the house’s confirmation, as
the buyer had put a time limit on his offer. He was
right; we were smothered that fall, but we met the
situation with our general products up to cure.
It was more than a year before I saw him again.
I was called into his office for the “third degree.”
I believe that he would have made a good boxer,
for as quickly as a fellow could get in a word in sup-
port of his position Mr. Armour side-stepped and
landed in a new place, until one was over the ropes
and dizzy. He began by saying, “I have been itch-
ing to get hold of you ever since we were on the coast.
You were doing fairly well then, but you have gone
plumb to the bad since.’ Then it came so fast that
even Babe ‘Ruth could not have hit one. When he
had me on the mat, and I had taken the count, I
said, ‘Mr. Armour, there is one thing I can’t under-
stand, and that is why a man of your wonderful
business judgment should keep on paying wages to a
fellow as rotten as I am.”
He chuckled, shook himself, and said, ‘Why, that
is just pure philanthropy,” and then added, “Come
on out and see the boys.”’ He put his arm over my
shoulder and, walking out into the old main office
on La Salle Street, said, “Boys, I want you to be
mighty good to Frank, because the ‘old man’ has
[144]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
been mighty mean to him.” His face beamed with
good nature, and I wondered whether, after all, I had
not just dreamed that third degree, and yet I knew
that a great mind had either wasted an hour on me or
had given me some of its great wealth for my life’s
capital.
By a strange coincidence I knew Michael Cudahy
better from a personal standpoint than any of the
packers, apart from those in my own house, and
yet I knew less of him from a business standpoint
than of the others. I was very fond of him. He
had a charm of manner, a gentleness and a polish
which appealed to me. Many of my frequent chats
with him were full of pleasant memories. I recall
passing a part of an afternoon and an evening with
him on the train. I was impressed by his comprehen-
sive general knowledge, but I cannot recall a char-
acteristic story. He was for years general superin-
tendent in the Armour Chicago plant before my time.
He was an astute judge and handler of men. Every
contact I had with him left its impress of force of
character, keenness of judgment and trade instinct.
When he died I felt the keenness of a personal loss.
[145]
CHAPTER XVI
THE LONG TRAIL
T IS not my thought to attempt to treat the trail-
ing of cattle over long distances from ‘Texas to
Montana and the general northwest, or from Texas
to Kansas, from a personal standpoint, because these
movements preceded my advent into the range indus-
try. My memories are of association with men who
were active in that epoch, and in turn have given
me their own backward vision, or I have obtained it
from a careful study of what has been published in
random reviews. For those who wish the story in
detail I recommend a book just published by the trail
drivers of Texas. It may be had of Geo. W. Saund-
ers, San Antonio, Tex., president of the Old Trail
Drivers’ Association, at a price which he will quote on
request. “wo books written by Andy Adams, an old
trail boss, furnish in fascinating detail all the inci-
dents of a dozen trails crowded into a composite
story of one trail. One of his books is The Log of
a Cowboy. It tells of trailing from Texas to the
northwest, while Wells Bros., his other book, contains
the story of trails to Kansas, and of the men who
built up a business along the line buying sore-footed
cattle. These volumes may be had through gen-
[146]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
eral booksellers. I have had several letters asking
me if I can locate copies of the out-of-print McCoy
book, to which I have referred previously in this
series, and two men have written that they were com-
ing to Texas to see the volume!
One of my fellow-townsmen made five trips on the
trail, and many cowmen still in the range country
made at least one trip while they were youngsters.
There is rarely a convention of the cattle raisers of
Texas which does not bring forward a series of rem-
iniscent talks from some old-time trail boss. ‘These
talks recall that the freemasonry of the industry
stood in those days for considerable latitude. I re-
member a story which illustrates it. A drove of
2,000 head was started on the trail from south Texas
to Montana. The drivers arrived with 2,000 head,
but about half of them were then in other brands
than those with which they had started. The drivers
had lost cattle in stampedes and had gathered their
number, regardless of brands, as they went along.
That was their code, but it must be remembered that
beef had so small a value that, as Saunders records
in the old trail drivers’ book, ‘‘to be had for the
asking.”’ It was, too, all of the same general qual-
ity. “The Longhorn was in the heyday of his glory,”
and was practically on a par with wild game. I re-
member Ike Pryor’s telling in one of his reminiscent
speeches of an immense drove of aged cattle, bought
at $6 per head on the Rio Grande, on which he lost
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
money. The freemasonry then had its logic, and the
scramble for the maverick was more of a game than
anything else.
The same basic motive which started Texas herds
north in 1868, or even earlier, applies today, in the
fact that cattle taken from the south to. the north
make wonderful gains. A fat cow which will weigh
~ 1,000 pounds on grass in Texas today will at the
same age show from 200 to 300 pounds more on the
bunch grass of Montana, perhaps not so much in
Kansas or on cornbelt bluegrass, but certainly an
appreciable increase. That is why the Texas feeder
of today is popular. It is simply its instinct to put
on heavy gains when taken north. I have heard
cowboys tell of their horses which were sold at the
end of the Montana trail. On returning the next
year it was difficult for them to recognize even pet
horses, which appeared to them to have grown taller
and spread out, giving them the appearance of en-
tirely different animals. Upon a casual glance at a
Texas “‘remuda” (the range name for a bunch of
cow ponies) after a year on Montana bunch grass,
the boys said that they would not have recognized
them as the same lot brought up the preceding season.
One of the difficult things that I have encountered
in this chapter is an attempt to divide into epochs
the trail industry to Kansas and the Kansas City
market, and that to the northwest. “Joe”? McCoy in
his book published in 1874 records a small move-
[148 ]
Ay ROAUN © EE MEAING Si) RECOLLECTIONS
ment to the northwest, while scattered through the
individual sketches of the old trail drivers’ book I
find records of trails to Cheyenne and even Utah in
1870 or earlier. After a good deal of reading on the
subject, I think it fair to divide the trail industry
into two sections: First to Kansas and Nebraska
(1866 to 1880) and, second, to the northwest (1874
to 1889). ‘There were undoubtedly interlocking trails
and trails subsequent to 1888. Odgallala, Neb., per-
haps comes in for the widest range of dates. It
is spoken of in the data which I have been studying
as ‘“‘the northern market.” I find in individual cases
many records of cattle taken on from Ogallala to
northwestern points, but usually sold there, and dif-
ferent outfits taking them on. In a general way,
I think all trails to Ogallala must be thought of as
reaching a point for distribution. In compiling what
follows I have gone carefully over more than 1,000
pages of various early histories, mostly made up of
individual experiences. It must be remembered that
Indian troubles occurred more or less all the time,
and that they were naturally worse on the north-
west trail. Many trail bosses record keeping peace
with the Indians by giving them a beef every day.
I have not, however, attempted to portray the thrill-
ing incidents of trails over eighteen years. Through-
out my study of records, and in the course of talks
with old trail drivers, dates have been the most dif-
ficult to obtain. Alvin H. Sanders in his chapter
[149]
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entitled “The Long Trail” in The Story of the Here-
fords evidently encountered the same diffculty, be-
cause he used no dates, and Andy Adams devotes
himself to incidents, without giving dates. With this
handicap I must beg the indulgence of my readers
if apparent or real inaccuracies should occur, because
it has been a tedious and time-consuming task to pre-
sent the result of my research.
Jerry M. Nance in his reminiscences records that
the trail to the northwest was drawing to a close in
1889. In random data I find the comment that the
trail to New Mexico was closed in 1895, after having
been used twenty-seven years, but from other data
I find that the trail to the northwest diminished
gradually from 1885 to 1889. I was in Colorado
several times from 1880 to 1895, and had occasion
to notice the rapid encroachments of fences during
that period.
Texas was fencing rapidly; herds could of course
trail through big pastures, but the old open range
days were passing by leaps and bounds. The S. M.S.
people built their first wire fences in 1882, and were
among the pioneers. Saunders, in his introductory
chapter entitled ‘Old Trail Drivers,” says:
In 1867 and for some subsequent years there were no
wire fence or material enclosures from the Gulf of Mexico to
Kansas; grass was knee-high, and beef was to be had for the
asking. In Texas there was no demand for the longhorn or
his hide, but in other states, where the population was
[ 150 |
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
greater, both were needed. Trail drives were through
regions infested with hostile Indians, who many times car-
ried off the scalps of cowboys.
I find that the great preponderance of trail driv-
ers, particularly the owners—trail bosses and straw-
bosses—originated in south Texas. This was quite
natural, however, because it is the oldest part of the
state, from a cattle industry standpoint. The great
bulk of the drivers seem to have made their homes at
Lockhart, in Caldwell Co., Tex., about 70 miles
northeast of San Antonio. It is estimated by Saun-
ders that in twenty-eight years, beginning with 1866,
an average of 350,000 cattle per year went up the
trail from Texas or 9,800,000 all told, at an aver-
age of $10 per head at home; and 1,000,000 horses
at an average of $10 per head at home, or, in money,
$1,008,000,000 in twenty-eight years. Had these old
trail drivers not sought out the northern market, cat-
tle must have died at home, and the range been so
overstocked as to cause much of it to become worth-
less. ‘Too generous a tribute therefore cannot be paid
to the few fearless men who took up the trail vigor-
ously in 1867. Saunders concludes his thought by
showing the influence on its followers in reaching high
places by adding:
The ranks of the old-time trail drivers are getting thin-
ner. They are scattered from Texas to the Canadian
border, and from California to New York. Some are rated
in Dun’s and Bradstreet’s in the seven-figure column; many
[151]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
are at the head of Texas banks or owners of goodly herds of
well-bred cattle, while some are the result of the human
average and ending their days in humble circumstances.
The Old Trail Drivers’ Association now has its
annual meeting at the same time and place as the
Cattle Raisers’ Association of Texas. It is a joy to
see them together, and if one can get into the sacred
circle where a knot of them is living stirring events
over again in reminiscent exchanges, it beats all the
fiction of the day.
To Saunders’ comment about the overstocking of
the range without the trail industry should be added
a line on the American buffalo, which wintered
largely in Texas. Chas. A. Siringo in his book 4
Lone Star Cowboy writes of having visited Amarillo
in 1912, when a buffalo bull bought from Capt. Chas.
Goodnight was hung up to sell at $1 per pound on
New Year’s eve. The author reflects that in 1877
he saw near Amarillo a herd that was estimated to
comprise 1,000,000 buffaloes in one black mass.
At this point I must digress for a moment. Saun-
ders comments that at the close of the Civil War the
soldiers came back home “broke.’’ Old men, boys
and Negroes had taken care of the cattle, many of
which were unbranded; the range was overstocked,
but there was no market. I find, however, in other
records that two cattle-killing plants were located at
Lockhart, Tex., in 1861, and it may be of some inter-
est to interpolate some personal Swenson history.
[ 152]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
The elder Swenson was a pioneer ‘Texas country
merchant. He first located at Richmond, Tex., on
the Brazos River, about 40 miles above its mouth in
Fort Bend county, and by a strange coincidence his
sons, the owners of the S. M. S. Ranch, now manage
a sulphur syndicate at Freeport at the mouth of the~ Le
Brazos, acquired in the last ten years. This prop-
erty, with the Louisiana sulphur mines, furnished all
the sulphur for the Allies during the World War, the
Freeport company furnishing between 1,500 and
2,500 tons daily. The elder Swenson moved to
Austin, and before the war to New York, where he
started a bank, and also functioned as a sort of clear-
ing house for Texas products shipped by boat, such
as hides, tallow and barreled beef. The Swensons
were also agents for all the cotton ties used in Amer-
ica, and for years carried 90 per cent of the Texas
banks’ eastern exchanges. It will be seen, therefore,
that Texas beef and by-products were being marketed
to some extent many years before the advent of the
Kansas City packing houses.
I find records of venturesome spirits that took
trail herds into Louisiana and other Confederate
states during the war for use in the Confederate
Army, and sold them at profitable prices, but were
paid in Confederate money, most of which eventu-
ally was worthless, although it was current for the
purchase of general products for a time.
J. N. Boyles in 1866 drove a herd from Texas to
[153]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
central Iowa for Monroe Choate and Borroum. M.
A. Withers drove a herd in 1859 from Lockhart,
Tex., to Fredericksburg, Tex., and in 1862 to Shreve-
port, La., selling the cattle at $20 per head, delivered.
In 1870 W. E. Cureton took 1,500 head to a point
near Los Angeles, Cal., wintered them there, and
took them on to Reno, Nev., in 1871. E. A. Roe-
buck went with a herd to North Dakota in 1876,
and made a trip soon after to Utah. L. B. Anderson
records that he was eighteen years on the trail, with-
out exact range as to dates. A. N. Eustace made eight
trips (1879 to 1887), comprehending both Kansas
and the northwest. W. B. Hardeman refers to a
trail to the northwest in 1886 with Blocker, Davis
and Driscoll. ‘The stock comprised 40,000 cattle and
1,400 horses. ‘R. McCoy mentions 260,000 cattle as
crossing Red River in 1866. He speaks of 35,000
cattle reaching Abilene, Kans., in 1867 or I per cent
of the then estimated cattle in the United States, as
calculated on the basis of probably meager Govern-
mental data. Siringo records that in 1880 the “Old
Chisholm” trail was impassable for large herds, as
with plows the ‘‘fool hoe men” were turning its
packed surface into ribbons. He also states that in
July of that year he reached Tascosa, Tex., with a
trail herd of 3,700 head for the northwest, and that
during their rest at Tascosa the first cowboy, Cape
Willingham, was killed, the incident forming the
basis for the afterwards famous “Boot Hill Ceme-
[154]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
tery,” in which only men who died with their boots
on were buried. I wish I might pause to give more of
its history, gleaned from printed facts and word-of-
mouth stories told by old-timers.
In 1882 Jack Potter took a herd to Little Big
Horn in Wyoming. R. D. Hunter in 1867 drove
1,200 head from Texas to Omaha, and sold the stock
to Government contractors at a good profit; he also
sold 2,500 head in Chicago in 1869 at a profit. In
1879 S. D. Houston took a herd to Ogallala, Neb.,
as also did “Jeff.” D. Harris in 1881, which, in a
way, defines the movement into the Dakotas through
Ogallala as a northern market. I could fill pages
with dates falling into my arbitrary epochs, but I
have only sought to show their individual variation.
In 1873 the panic almost wiped trailmen to Kan-
sas off the map, but in 1874, while the drives were
lighter, the year was quite generally profitable. 1871
was a bad year, while 1872 proved successful. Mc-
Coy says that 450,000 cattle entered Kansas in 1873,
besides 50,000 turned eastward at Coffeyville, Kans.,
for a Missouri Pacific Railway connection. The
Kansas trail is confusing to some extent, as herds
went via Baxter Springs, Kans., thence into south-
ern Missouri in 1867 to 1869 to make a connection
with the Missouri Pacific. In the same years trail
herds went from southern Texas into New Orleans.
These were in the main small, and the great mass
went to Abilene, Kans., or to some other Union Pa-
[155]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
cific point, until the Santa Fe began to take them
at Dodge City, Kans. Herds along the line were be-
ginning to form, but from 1867 to well along in the
*70’s Kansas and Nebraska were the great objectives.
During that period it was not so much a question of
making money as finding a market for surplus stock
at some price. Very little money was available for
financing, so that buying on credit in Texas, the sums
to be paid upon the return of the drivers, who gave
no other security than their word and a list of brands,
with the amount due, was the rule. There are many
stories of the sharpers who operated at Abilene.
Bogus checks were used, and cattle were bought to be
paid for in Chicago. Every conceivable scheme
known to the trickster was worked on credulous stock-
men, whose word at home was better than a bond.
According to W. P. Anderson the Old Chisholm
Trail was named after a half-breed called Jesse Chis-
holm, who ranched in the Indian Territory. In the
early ’60’s he had driven a herd of cattle to the Gov-
ernment forts on the Arkansas River. The name
has often been abbreviated and used as ‘“‘Chism.”
Siringo in A Lone Star Cowboy gives the following
as the origin of the Chisholm trail. It was furnished
him by David M. Sutherland, Alamogordo, N. M.
In about 1867 the United States Government decided to
move some 3,000 Indians (Wichitas, Caddos, Wakos, Ana-
darkos) to a new reservation in Indian Territory. ‘Their
camp was located on the Arkansas River, where Chisholm
[156]
Ay IAN GENVEAIN’S) RECOLLECTIONS
and Cow Skin Creeks flow into that stream. They were
moved during the Civil War with Maj. Henry Shanklin in
charge. He had made a deal with a rich half-breed “‘squaw
man,” Jesse Chisholm, to open a trail, and establish supply
depots. Cow ponies were used to drive back and forth at
crossings in treacherous quicksand streams, such as the Dou-
ble Mountain and Salt Forks of the Brazos, Cimmaron and
North and South Canadian, settling the sand and permitting
the crossing of heavy wagons. [This process is still used in
Texas, and during my early years in the state when driving
across country we often unharnessed the horses when swollen
rivers were encountered, riding them back and forth, and in
later years I have taken off my shoes and tramped in the
sand, still ‘quicky” after a rise, in order to make crossing in
an auto safe.]} With the advent of the trail driving the
Chisholm trail was extended, and as nearly as exhaustive
research can determine in the somewhat conflicting accounts
by different authors it was as follows: C. H. Rust, San
Angelo, Tex., says the trail started at San Antonio and
ended at Abilene, Kans. ‘The route was San Antonio to
New Braunfels, thence to San Marcos, Austin, Right Round
Rock, Georgetown, Salado and Belton to old Fort Graham
near Waco; thence to Cleburne and Fort Worth, and on to
Bolivar, where the trail forked out, most trails going up
Elm to St. Joe on Red River; thence to Nation, Beaver
Creek, Monument Rocks, Washita Crossing and Canadian
River to the north Fork, Prairie Creek and King Fisher
Creek; thence to Caldwell, Solomon and Abilene, Kans.,
crossing Cow Skin Creek and the Arkansas River and pass-
ing via Brookville.
The trail varied in width at river crossings from 50 to
100 yards to from I mile to 2 miles at the widest points.
The average drive per day was from 8 to 12 miles, and the
time on the trail was 60 to 90 days from points in Texas to
Abilene, Kans. ‘The other trail from Bolivar crossed the
[157]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Red River below Gainesville on to Fort Arbuckle, and in-
tersected the main trail at the south fork of the Canadian.
The last main western trail ran by Coleman, Tex., Bell
Plain, Baird, Albany, Fort Grifin and Double Mountain
Fork, crossing Red River at Doan’s Store.
Saunders records another trail known as the Mc-
Coy trail, which started at Corpus Christi, Tex., and
ran to Austin, Georgetown, Buchanan, Decatur and
Red River Station, all in Texas, and thence to Abi-
lene in Kansas.
McCoy relates that in 1870 1,400 selected beeves
sold in Chicago at 414 to 6% cents, netting $20 per
head to the producer, and that in 1867 a buyer bought
from a herd of 3,500 head his choice at $6 for 600
head, and a second cut, his choice, of 600 head at
$3 per head, or an average of $4.50 for 1,125-pound
beeves or 40 cents per 100 pounds. ‘They were prob-
ably fours, fives and sixes. ‘This is the only refer-
ence to weights during the early period found so far
in my reading.
[ 158]
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PELE
CHAPTER XVII
TEXAS COW PONIES AND STUD HORSE LUCK
LARGE number of Texas cow outfits have
had their notions about cow-pony crosses, the
word ‘‘pony”’ being applied to all sizes of horses, and
many breeders have succeeded in producing some
good ones; but, in the main, cow horse breeding has
been a pure case of “‘scrambled eggs.” It would seem
to be hopeless to try to classify or try to get any-
thing definite or rational in the way of distinct lines
of breeding beyond the basis which can usually be
traced to pure Spanish origin in Texas breeding. I
am told that Colorado and the northwestern states
trace their cow horses to the Mustang. Texas draws
many cow horses from Colorado, but they are not
liked so well as the Texas-bred horse by Texas cow
people. My own ‘investigations deal with Texas-
bred horses.
Many ranch outfits do not breed horses, but depend
upon purchases, as needed, usually picking up odd
young horses, here and there, as anything suitable
is found. In the main, however, they buy bunches
from a trader or commission some one to put up a
band under certain specifications. ‘These outfits do
not often have so satisfactory a ramuda as outfits
raising their own horses.
[159]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
I often think that old Steel Dust must turn over
in his grave when his blood is made responsible for
some of the broom-tails tacked onto him. It is still a
name to conjure with, but almost every horse trader
who has not recently joined the church or been
rescued from backsliding will declare that his line of
equine stock is largely Steel Dust in its breeding.
There have been some outstanding Steel Dust stal-
lions used in Texas, but for the most that blood has
gone into cow bunch outfits through grade stallions.
From one standpoint it seems incredible that with
so much depending upon the cow pony the whole plan
of producing him should apparently have been badly
neglected; and yet until ten years ago his value lay
entirely in having him educated, or developed into a
cow horse.
I recall that when I came to Texas in 1902 the
S. M. S. outfit sold 200 mares at $7.50 per head,
giving the buyer his pick; but it was really more a
surplus than a cull sale. Value, therefore, in the
early days had its influence upon neglect.
Talking with men in outfits that bred their own
horses, I am convinced that the whole problem of
breeding cow horses has been saved by “the law of
selection” in sires—not registered or purebred stal-
lions, the early-day sires being selected by men who
knew a good horse, and used him because he was a
good horse. I know of only one Texas ramuda which
can be called a “‘type’”—the 6666 outfit, owned by
[ 160 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
S. B. Burnett of Forth Worth. It is the result of a
carefully thought-out and followed line of breeding.
Mr. Burnett and the Indian chief Quanah Parker
formed a close friendship in early days, which lasted
until that Indian’s death not long ago. Mr. Burnett
had something like an Indian’s love for a “paint”
horse, as he is known on the range, or pinto or calico
or circus horse, as most know him. Quanah Parker
furnished the basis, and Mr. Burnett has lived to
gratify his dearest wish—‘To drive a purebred herd
of cattle to market with a paint ramuda;” but the
paint ramuda is a story in itself, which I may tell as
such at another time.
Every other Texas ramuda that I know contains
all colors and classes: Horses that will weigh 1,100
pounds, others that look like schoolboy’s ponies, and
some of the best horses in the ramuda in both classes.
A brief history of the S. M. S. cow ponies will
probably typify the haphazard methods of cow pony
breeding. Perhaps some cowmen and cowboys of
other outfits may smile when I classify the 8. M. 8.
ramuda as “good.” It has more size than the aver-
age ramuda, but is, I think, regarded as above the
\
\
average, from a cow horse standpoint. In 1882, ~
when the S. M. S. Ranch was started, a horse trader
came through the country with what was called a
good bunch of Spanish mares. Fifty of these were
bought to start the S. M. S. breeding band. Spanish
horses, as I understand them, were a pure Mexican
[ 161 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
breed—small, mean, tough, quick as a cat, and had
the ‘“‘cow instinct,” which suggests that it may be well
to say what a cow pony should be. His first qualifi-
cations are speed and endurance. Nevertheless, one-
may have these and still not have much of a cow
horse. He may be all right for ordinary rounding
or line work, but he is not a cow horse unless he have
“cow sense’’ as a dominant characteristic. Training
has much to do with it, but he must have the instinct
for holding a roped animal, ‘turning on a half-dol-
lar,” and countering every move of an animal that is
being cut out. The old Spanish horses had this in-
stinct as true as the bird dog has the bird instinct,
and that is why Spanish blood is the basis of most
Texas ramudas. Practically no producer of cow
horses, however, appears to have been satisfied to stay
with the Spanish blood, in its purity. The difficulty
of getting satisfactory Spanish sires may largely ex-
plain this fact, but probably meanness had much to do
with the popular desire to breed the strain up with-
out losing the cow instinct.
To go back to the fifty Spanish mares bought to
found the S. M. S. breeding bunch, a sire was needed,
and as the early employees of the ranch had come
from Williamson county they went back home for a
stallion. I have their statement that he was Arabian.
Certain it is that he possessed nerve, endurance, style
and action, was “‘a horse all over,”’ and pure white.
Many of his get were still in use when I came to the
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
S. M. S. Ranch twenty years later, and from them I
formed my early ideals of great cow ponies.
The Arabian sire, regardless of what he really was,
illustrates what has probably saved the cow pony—
“the law of selection.’”? Some man with good horse
sense had picked the right sort of sire.
For years the S. M. S. Ranch ramuda could be
identified at a great distance by the predominance of
white horses in it, and even today, when some spe-
cial occasion demands, the entire outfit will come out
mounted on white horses.
Several Missouri saddle horses were crossed on
the daughters of Arab; also a high-strung Standard-
bred horse. A good Thoroughbred followed. In
Ig0I pure Spanish-bred stallions from the King
Ranch were put in, followed by some grade Per-
cheron and Clydesdale strains from native mares.
Many of the best horses in the ramuda are from these
latter stallions, crossed on mares which represented
Spanish, Standard-bred, Arabian, Thoroughbred and
Missouri saddle stock, mixed beyond all hope of ac-
curate classification. ‘Then followed more Missouri
saddle stock and Standard-breds, and a race horse
from a Standard-bred and pure Thoroughbred cross,
which had a mark of 2:14 in his first year, but went
lame and came to us at a bargain.
A German Coacher, bred from the halter to mares
selected for their fitness to mate with him for driv-
ers, for work horses, and some experiments with cow
[ 163 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ponies in view, has produced some excellent horses in
all classes; but his chief value from a cow standpoint,
will be in the cross of some of the Morgan strains,
or the race horse on his daughters.
During the past five years, nine registered Morgan —
“horses from the Richard Sellman Farm, Rochelle,
Tex., have been added. ‘They weigh 1,000 to 1,150
pounds, naked.
A constant culling of mares occurs in all ages. No
mares are used in any of the ranch work, but a grad-
ing of geldings, suitable for farm work for drivers
and for cow horses, is made, which helps wonderfully
in concentrating in the ramuda the best cow horses.
Probably 60 per cent of the horses cut out for cow
work make fair cow horses, 20 percent really good
ones, and Io percent “‘crackerjacks.”’
The S. M. S. Ranch horse total is 1,100 head for
all purposes; 500 head are used in distinct cattle
work, and 100 for farm, freighting or team work.
There are about 275 breeding mares, the remaining
225 being in various classes and ages coming on. The
capacity of one jack is used for mule production.
The cow horse contingent takes care of 400,000
acres of pasture, conservatively stocked with cattle.
Cow horses are broken as threes in the spring. ‘Their
average use in cow work is 12 years, and it is no ex-
ception to find horses 18 to 20 years old still doing
good work, notably cutting horses, saved for that
work, and not used for general riding. ‘These fig-
[ 164 ]
CO a” ,
Photo by Vinson
“OP Cabby” — 22 years old and still in service on S. M. S. Ranch
(See poem opposite page)
A) RANCHMAN’S, RECOLLECTIONS
THE OL’ COW HOSS
When it comes to saddle hosses, there’s a difference in steeds ;
There is fancy-gaited critters that will suit some feller’s needs,
There is nags high-bred an’ tony with a smooth and shiny skin,
That will capture all the races that you want to run ’em in.
But for one that never tires; one that’s faithful, tried an’ true;
One that allus is a “‘stayer’” when you want to slam him
through,
There is but one breed o’ critters that I ever come across,
That will allus stand the racket—’tis the Ol’ Cow Hoss!
No, he ain’t so much fer beauty, fer he’s scrubby an’ he’s
rough,
An’ his temper’s sort 0’ sassy, but you bet he’s good enough!
Fer he’ll take the trail o’ mornings, be it up or be it down,
On the range a-huntin’ cattle or a lopin’ into town,
An’ he'll leave the miles behind him an’ he’ll never sweat
a hair,
’Cuz he is a willing critter when he’s goin’ anywhere.
Oh, your thoroughbred at runnin’ in a race may be the boss,
But fer all-day ridin’ lemme have the Ol’ Cow Hoss.
When my soul seeks peace an’ quiet on the home ranch of
the blest,
Where no storms nor stampedes bother, an’ the trails are
trails o’ rest;
When my brand has been inspected an’ pronounced to be
O. K,
An’ the boss has looked me over an’ has told me I kin stay,
Oh, I’m hopin’ when I’m lopin’ off across that blessed range,
That I won’t be in a saddle on a critter new an’ strange;
But I’m prayin’ ev’ry minnit that up there I’ll ride across
That big heaven range o’ glory on an Ol’ Cow Hoss.
—A. A. Brininstool, in Los Angeles Express.
[ 165 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ures are based on horses which live, and do not com-
prise the fools or outlaws, which are cut out and sold
in what is known as the ‘‘scalawag bunch.”
At one time the demand for polo ponies, and the
idea that Texas cutting horses filled the bill, threat-
ened to make a serious drain on our cow horse stock,
because the required qualifications took the best cow
horses; but the situation was saved by the specifica-
tion for height, and the fact that most outfits would
not part with their best horses at any price.
~~ The demand for war horses used up much of the
good floating cowboy stock to be picked up young and
untrained. It was usually raised by young country
boys. If an outfit had to go out and buy a ramuda
of 100 horses, the units would be difficult to pick up
at any price in the country.
An outstanding cow horse is worth what he will
bring, and it is inadvisable to quote a price which is
thought too high for the other fellow to pay. I have
seen more than one man who priced a horse too high
back clean down, rather than let his horse go. There
are more buyers for a $300 cow horse than there are
horses good enough to realize that price or owners
willing to sell.
I have been hearing all my life about “stud horse
luck,” but with never a thought of its origin. It
comes home to me now as I think of S. M. S. luck
in getting that first good horse Old Arab, and that
leads to the conclusion that, after all, “‘stud horse
[ 166 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
luck”” may mean that instinct has much to do with
what we commonly call luck, and that the instinct in
knowing a good horse may have been a definite plan
of breeding in the production of many good Texas
cow ponies by many outfits.
[167]
CHAPTER XVIII
THE STORM: A ‘‘MAGE”’ STORY
T WAS late in October. We were going through
the unusual experience of delivering late in the
season to a Dakota buyer some goo yearlings. He
had made his cut, and driven off to look at some
other stuff, while I started to town to see that every-
thing was ready for the shipment next day. The out-
fit trailed with the herd to throw into a hold pasture
at headquarters for the night. ‘The afternoon had
been sultry, and I noticed great thundercaps piling
up in the northeast, but wind and weather do not
count much in west Texas when one has something
to do.
Summer had been rather on the yellow order, and
the old Indian sign, ‘“‘clouds all around and rain fall-
ing down in the middle,” formed about the only
weather bureau that we took much stock in. So I
did not pay much attention to the kindly warnings as
I passed headquarters. I rode the chestnut mare
Beauty, a handsome, wilful beast, the fastest in the
country for a long-distance run. She had her own
ideas about who should run things, but she always
responded to the call of duty, and her endurance was
a wonder. We had made many a hard ride to see
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
the baby go to bed, and the hour of daylight seemed
ample in which to make 12 miles to town. I did not
care to get caught in the mesquites after dark on a
bad night. Things did look pretty bad, though. The
atmosphere was sullen; scarcely any air stirred.
There was a sort of oppressive hush. Greenish and
yellowish tints hung like veils of vapor about the
clouds. The dying day sent its flickering shadows
like a ghastly smile, as if to say, “You and the night
for it. I’m off.” I gave Beauty the word, and we
hit the trail at a strong distance-covering gait, which
I knew she could keep.
A mile traveled, and she was sweating; the air
seemed almost hot. Half a mile further we passed a
settler’s house which looked mighty good in the deep-
ening gloom, but we had started, and the storm
might go around. A quarter further and we shot
into a cool current of air, as if it were out of a hot
bath into a cold room. The mare shivered; then
we met a distinctly cold breeze, and on came the
storm. Beauty turned as it struck, but responded
promptly to the rein, faced it for a few yards, and
then reared and turned. Again she took it, this time
with the bit in her teeth, and went at it as though try-
ing to jerk a load through a mud bog, her blood up,
and fighting hard. My head was almost on my
breast; the rain beat with fierce force, and I was glad
after ten yards of fight to have her turn again. We
seemed to be in one glare of electricity and a roar as
[ 169 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
of a battle. We made for the settler’s house. The
horse lot was open and lightning struck one end of
the house gallery as we dodged under the shed.
I waited for a lull, and rode back to headquarters.
The boys were just getting in; the storm had struck
them just after throwing the cattle into the hold pas-
ture, and all they could do was to turn their backs
and take it. During supper the storm came back
from another direction; for an hour the winds blew;
the heavens seemed one immense water bag, with the
stopper out; lightning sizzed, thunder roared. We
all sat around the fire drying our clothes. Most of
the boys did not say anything, but one spoke of the
big revival down at Fairview and ‘’lowed” that the
outfit should all go down on Sunday. Another spoke
of how much good Sam Jones had done in Texas, and
that he was glad to see so many new churches in the
county. Sam Sawyer told how he never had felt so
good as when he helped pull a “‘nester”’ out of Double
Mountain Fork when he got bogged down.
With occasional shots as from a retreating battery
the storm passed. One of the boys asked another for
some paper and tobacco; several took a chew, and
“Abilene” remarked, “That was a pretty doggoned
hard storm.’’ Somehow a weight seemed to have
been lifted, and a sort of “‘come alive’ feeling was
apparent as opposed to the “drop a nickel in the
contribution box’’ look that everyone had been wear-
ing for an hour.
[170]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Mage got up from a “hot roll,” whereon he had
been resting, and stretched himself, and when Mage
stretches it means six feet five inches of all cowman
grinding his bones.
“Fellers,” he said, ‘‘as far as thet’s consarn, I’ve
allus noticed thet there’s nothin’ like a stampede in
the skies to rope a cow camp down into a sort of
revival meetin’, an’ I don’t recall hearin’ anything
stronger than ‘doggone’ or ‘dad gum,’ come up dur-
ing the millin’ of a bad storm, ’cept onct, an’ thet
was the time we lost a herd on the Jane Wilson
League.”
Everyone settled down for a story. Few men in
west Texas have so much material or can put per-
sonal reminiscence into so vivid and charming a form
as Mage. The writer can only attempt vaguely to
convey the theme; the sidelights of personality, in-
tensity and humor, deep humanity and unconscious
dramatic force can only be had when one hears Mage
tell his own stories.
‘fAs far as thet’s consarn,”’ he went on, ‘‘I’ve been
thinkin’ about it ever since this here storm com-
menced to round. I have never seed two days more
alike, an’ it was jest about this time o’ year. We
had a steer herd—threes and fours—takin’ to Sey-
mour to ship to K. C., about a thousin’, all wild as a
snake, an’ some rank outlaws among ’em, too. I was
only a kid then—the ‘S. M. S. Kid’ they called me, but
I could ride some, and they took me along. But the
[171 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
outfit—thet was an outfit, all of ’em foremen now—
there never was no better, an’ them was the days
of outfits, too. But when enyone tells you ’bout a
foreman thet never lost a herd I’m a-goin’ to show
you a foreman thet never trailed much or throwed
in with Providence on fair weather.
“We got an early start; the steers traveled off
brisk; the outfit was feelin’ good an’ the ‘cussy’ put
up a regular Thanksgivin’ dinner. The mornin’ was
fine, but about two in the evenin’ the breeze layed
*em down an’ thundercaps begin to pile up like high
pinnacles. The steers seemed to sniff somethin’; the
air got thick. We watered at the lake on the edge
of the Jane Wilson League, and give ’em a long, loose
herd up to the bed ground, jest as the sun was makin’
camp—and sech a sunset! There was somethin’ creep-
in’ about it; made you think of cities on fire an’ big
clouds o’ smoke, with the red o’ the flames showin’
through, an’ then it died into a sick-like yaller, with
green trimmin’s. The thunder was a moanin’ and
mutterin’ like a sick hound off in the mesquites. There
was a stiddy flashin’, and now and then them forked
boys would work out like a crazy man throwin’ a
rope. It was dead-still, like waitin’ at a funeral for
the preacher to begin’ and everybody was quiet, too,
cept Obe Hogan. If anybody ever starts a school
to teach cussin’ and swearin’ Obe sure gits the high
job. He kept commentin’ an’ remarkin’ about things
in general an’ the clouds in particular in a way thet
[172]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
I didn’t take kindly to, hearin’ an’ lookin’ at thet
sky at the same time.
“But the storm didn’t break like it did tonight;
jest kept a hangin’. The foreman ‘lowed we better Si
a
catch our best night hosses and sleep without much~
undoin’. I ain’t lost no cyclones, an’ all the boys
cept Obe was about the same mind; so we jest sits
aroun’ and drinks coffee an’ eats tea cakes till the
cook druv us off. The first guard seemed to be gittin’
on all right, an’ we fell asleep. “Bout an hour ’fore
midnight the foreman calls us an’ says the cattle was
gettin’ restless, an’ all hands went on duty. The air
was still hot, and no stir. The lightnin’ had about
quit after sunset, ’cept flashin’ some. :
“We hadn’t much more’n got to the herd when
the air freshened an’ things was gettin’ right. Then
it got cold, an’ we could hear it comin’. Thunder
and lightnin’ seemed to spring out of the mesquites.
The foreman passed the word: ‘Hold ’em till they
git wet,’ an’ we began to circle. The cattle was on
their feet in a second, with the first cold air; but we
got the mill started by the time the storm hit. I’ve
seen lighnin’, an’ this little show tonight was a purty
good imitation, but thet was lightnin’ right. As far
as thet’s consarn’, I’ve seen balls o’ fire on the end
of a steer’s horn many a time, but there was a ball
o’ fire on the end of both horns on every one of them
thousin’ steers, an’ the light in the balls of their eyes
looked like two thousin’ more. Talk about a mon-
[173 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
key wrench fallin’ from a windmill an’ givin’ you
a sight o’ the stars, or one of them Andy Jackson
fireworks clubs puttin’ off Roman candles at a Fort
Worth parade! They’re jest sensations; this here
show I’m telling about was real experience. We seen
things.
“Obe Hogan hit the herd a cussin’, and was cir-
clin’ between me and Sam Conroy, an’ the way he
turned out new ideas in advanced profanity made my
blood creep. I was sure if lightnin’ was goin’ to hit
it would be purty close to where Obe was, so, bein’
in front, I kept movin’; an’ Sam, havin’ about the
same notions, tried to hole back, but somehow we
kept bunchin’, and Obe kept rippin’ out an’ gettin’
better all the time.
“Fold "em? Well, we tried. We circled with
the drift, and when they broke we tried to slick ’em,
but the storm kept getting worse an’ when one of
them hot-off-the-griddle boys come they was off an’
we was flounderin’ over unknown ground, trustin’ to
heaven more than enything else. It was either black
as pitch or the lightnin’ blinded you so you couldn’t
see. I rode old Blutcher, an’ when one of them out-
law shocks would come he’d squat till my feet trailed.
Three of us tried to head a big bunch an’ I knew
one of us was Obe. He hadn’t got tongue-tied none
during the storm; seemed like he’d caught his second
wind. Onct for a while I didn’t hear him, an’ I sez
to myself: ‘Mage, it’s lucky you didn’t git hit, too.’
74
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
‘‘Purty soon it was no use; they was gone. A mes-
quite limb brushed me off, an’ when I lit Sam Conroy
was squattin’ on the other side. I squatted, too.
Lightnin’ hit a mesquite close by an’ we moved out
some, an’ set takin’ the storm for a long time with-
out sayin’ a word.
‘A storm reminds me of an ole cow on the prod.
She’ll fight for a while, but she loads, an’ the storm
was gettin’ ready to load. It quit howlin’, and begin
to groan, an’ was passin’. Sam turns to me an’ sez,
‘Mage, I’ve been tellin’ the Ole Marster that if He’ll
jest take me through this all right I’d try to make it
up to Him in the way I lived from now on,’ an’ I
sez, ‘Sam, I’d a’ liked to throwed in with you on thet,’
an’ Sam sez, ‘Mage, I knowed you would from the
way you was dodgin’ Obe durin’ his storm conversa-
tion, so I jest put your name in the pot.’ An’ I sez,
‘Thank you, Sam.’
‘The next day after we got the herd together, me
an Sam was trailin’ together, an’ his hoss stepped into
a badger hole, givin’ Sam a fall, an’ he lets out a few
that wasn’t jest parson talk, an’ then he thinks an’
sez, ‘Mage, I’m a-goin’ to make it up to Him all
right, but I guess I’ll have to hobble myself and put
on a hackamore.’ ”
[175]
CHAPTER XIX
SOME HUMBLE WESTERN CHARACTERS
VERY once in a while I pick up a literary
review which takes a shot at Bret Harte. All
reviewers credit him with the production of real
literature, but some charge him with a gross exag-
geration of his western types, which they charac-
terize as unreal, and the creatures of a romantic
mind. ‘Then I know that the reviewer has probably
looked out of a Pullman window on his way across
the continent, been wined and dined in some of the
western clubs, wherein he has probably met the
very types that Bret Harte described, but did not
recognize them in their dress clothes, or know of
their earlier lives. Bret Harte wrote of the long
ago, when one could squat in any mining camp, and
find his characters. ‘The west is probably becom-
ing the east very rapidly, but it still has its ‘John
Oakhursts,” as real today as then, but harder to
find, and the average book-reviewer could not get
in touch with them.
It has been a felony for many years to gamble
in Texas. I think it is so in most western states,
but the west is still the west in most of the traits
and characteristics which dominate the frontier. I
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recall an incident in Montana—just a little thing
which illustrates what John Oakhurst did in a big-
ger way. He had the trait of sacrificing himself to
protect others, if necessary; it was not courage but
just a plain inherent willingness to do one’s whole
duty in a pinch, and take a chance. Perhaps it
is not fair to call it western but rather American
as our boys who “‘went across” have told the story
in their deeds. Perhaps it is just because the west
offers more hazards. I had gone with some friends
over a high divide to an interior town near Mis-
soula, Mont. Part of the road was along a canyon
where one could look down a sheer thousand feet
or more. The road in places was very narrow.
There were cut-outs for passing. It was not bad
in the daytime, but our business detained us, and
nightfall overtook us before we reached the divide.
There were four of us in an uncovered hack, a sort
of spring wagon. The moon would not rise until
late. I suppose that we were careless, laughing and
talking, and telling stories, but we came to a sharp
silence when our driver, an old mountaineer, stopped
the team suddenly. We were well up on the divide,
but some distance from a passing place. Out of the
darkness came a voice, ‘‘Hello!’’ Our driver replied,
“That you, Hank?” ‘Then from the darkness came
this: “Hello, Billy; unharness; lead your hosses by
me; take off your wheels; throw your old cart up agin
the side of the mountain, and I’ll go round you.” All
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Hank did was to come and look at the space with a
lighted match or two and tell our driver to stand on
our upturned wagon and whistle. Then, with the
aid of a little starlight, he drove his four-horse team
and freight wagon around us, death yawning a thou-
sand feet below, and only inches to spare. It was
a chance, but Hank had the guts to take it.
When I first saw ‘‘Joe”’ Bradley we were all lined
up at the old Florence House Bar, drinking near-
beer, or what was then perhaps nearer than now.
I say we, but Joe took a cigar. He was a small
man, both short and slight, and if one were looking
for protection Joe would be one’s last likely choice.
We chatted together quite a while. He was mild-
spoken and unassuming; there was a sort of gentle-
ness about him, particularly in his eyes, which gave
one the impression that he was just an every-day,
modest good fellow. As we walked away, my friend
said: “I am glad you met Joe. He is the ‘nerviest’
man in Montana. He runs a train into the Coeur
D’Alene district, with a tough gang all along the
run, and they all eat out of his hand.”
A few days later I had occasion to go up into the
Coeur D’Alene country on Joe’s train, which made
the round trip daily. It was through that wonder-
ful St. Regis River country, wilder than nature itself,
where the trout leap in the white waters, and hide
in dark pools. As we came into the wilder parts
the only stations were mining camps. ‘There had
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
been a strike in the mines; the men were visiting the
different camps, in which “booze” flowed pretty
freely. Between stations Joe and I had been sitting
in a double seat, smoking and chatting. I faced
the front of the car. He came into the front door
after leaving a station, and was about half-way down
the aisle taking his fares when a shot rang out a few
seats in front of him. I happened to be looking at
him. The change in him was incredible. He seemed
to lengthen and broaden, and those gentle eyes had
a gleam in them like that of a tiger cat. Joe moved
so rapidly that he seemed to be at the seat where the
shot was fired without moving. He was calm as
death itself. His voice was steady and unraised,
but there was a chill in it as he said, ‘What are you
shooting at?” ‘‘Nothin’,” came the reply; ‘‘just see-
ing if I could shoot through the roof and make you.
jump.” “Ticket,” said Joe. The shooter passed up
to him the ace of spades. Again I didn’t see Joe
move, but the tough straightened out: the butt-end
of a forty-four had stunned him. Then, backing
himself up against the car, Joe said: ‘“‘This is Joe
Bradley’s train; is there anyone else here wants to
try to run it?”
I am not going to believe in mild eyes again.
Joe’s were searchlights, and by some sort of fas-
cination every eye in the car looked into his, and
there were no takers. Joe called for a cup of water,
a little of which he dashed into the stunned man’s
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
face; then, as he came too, carefully washed the
ugly wound. Joe’s eyes had gone soft again, a
little smile played about his mouth as he propped
the hurt man up into a comfortable position, and
said, ‘“‘Partner, you must be a new-comer; one of
those hellraisers from the Leadville trouble. This
is Joe Bradley’s train—‘the Bradley special’ for
everybody who wants to behave hisself, and it’s the
Bradley funeral train for them that don’t. ‘Tickets!”’
and they came up promptly.
When we were chatting again I said, “Joe, how
often do these things occur?” He smiled that mild-
mannered smile again as the answer came, ‘Not
often—just when trouble-makers come in; but that’s
the first one I ever really hurt; I usually just break
an arm with the butt of my gun. I have never had
to fire a shot.”
Going across the continent thirty years ago, as
I reached Spokane, friends began to ask if I had
met Fred R. Reed. For a week or more on my
way up the coast friends asked the same question.
At Tacoma I got in about 10 p. m. As I walked
up to the register in a hotel a tall, muscular fellow
was chatting with the clerk. The register was slightly
turned as I wrote, and the big fellow said, “For
God’s sake, are you Frank Hastings? All of our
friends have been trying to get us together; I am
Fred Reed.”’ A friendship thereupon began which
has lasted through the years. He was then work-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ing on a great irrigation scheme at Prosser, Wash.,
now a town of several thousand, but then just a
wide place in the road. He was fifteen or twenty
years before his time. The whole Yakima district
is now a great wheatfield or fruit orchard. Reed
was in every way an unusual man; a brilliant writer,
a forceful speaker, a ready wit, and a charming com-
panion. He had worked as commissariat in the
railroad camps of the Northern Pacific during the
building of the line. Later, when the Prosser bub-
ble burst, he took to the mountains, and two stories
that he told me when we last met some years ago are
so typical of the west that I wish to make them a
part of my sketch.
In all former frontier types I have touched upon
men widely known. ‘This chapter deals only with
those known but little, and it is to the thought of
what the frontier does in moulding types that I want
to lead my readers. Zane Grey in a vivid story of
the U. P. Trail has made a composite picture of
early-day railroad camps, which in these days it is
dificult to believe possible, and yet in all its lurid
detail it was probably toned down to be printable.
Fred ‘Reed saw the drama during the building of
the Northern Pacific, and I have seen it in the new
mining camps, just as Bret Harte, saw it in the gold
rushes of his day, and Jack London saw it in the
Yukon. Fred called his story, ‘“Our Funeral,” and
told it as follows, in his graphic way:
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
In addition to my camp duties I occupied the exalted
job of justice of the peace. Now a J. P. in those days in
Montana was a bigger man than the Chief Justice of the
United States today. He had a perpetual variety entertain-
ment. He married people, buried the dead, put out fires,
took a drink with everybody, refereed dog, rooster and prize
fights, and settled family rows. In fact, he did everything
but stork work. He was called judge, but if he made a
wrong decision his name was Dennis. One cold morning a
bunch of gamblers waited on me, and said one of the girls
in the red-light district had died in the night. Her’s was a
pitiful story. She was an educated, refined girl, who had
married a scoundrel, who in turn deserted her in a mining
camp, and the rest followed, even to the empty morphine
bottle clasped in her cold, dead hand. I don’t want to
uphold the gambler, but you know the west, and that some
of the best men in it are or have been straight gamblers. I
have never been more touched than by the appeal of these
men. One of them said, “Judge, you know it wasn’t her
fault; she just got her money on a dead card, and a crooked
dealer took it down. Help us give her a funeral just like
what she’d have at home, and, judge, we want yeu to say
a prayer.”
I shall never forget that gathering. ‘The clean and the
unclean, the bad man and the good man all stood together
by that little grave in the frozen ground, and seemed to
huddle together as by some human impulse, caste forgotten.
A single white geranium had been pinned upon her breast
by some Christ-loving woman, and it seemed to say to all,
“Her sins shall be made white as snow.” I choked on the
first few words, and then it seemed as though a voice in my
heart was speaking, and I heard it say: “Oh, God, here, amid
the rocks and the pines, with the awful stillness of the moun-
tains until the last day, we are laying away all that is mortal
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
of a poor, tired little girl. Her soul is on its way to kneel
at mercy’s feet. Take her, O Lord, into Your arms; wash
away the scars and bruises of a child more sinned against
than sinning. Teach us Thy mercy; forgive her, and help us,
for Jesus’ sake.”
Through my own blurred eyes I could see that they were
all weeping, and one by one they dropped on their knees to
the last man in silent prayer; then, without a word, they
filed away. It was a quiet night in camp; every place of
business, every saloon, every gambling house, every brothel
being closed.
Another Reed story illustrates so vividly the lone-
liness of the mountains in which many men have
lived alone, or with a dog, that I am sure it is worth
reproduction. During one of our meetings I said,
“Fred, don’t you get awful lonely sometimes?”
“Lonely?” he replied, “I avoid it all I can, though
sometimes it has to be done; but the most terrible
experience that I ever had was after my dog Prunes
went out. I was camping near the Snake River
in Idaho, in charge of a bunch of cattle. My camp
was remote, and the only companion I had was a
cayuse dog, an ugly brindle, white-eye cur; but he
was loyal and true blue. I loved him and he loved
me. I called him Prunes, because once, when I went
for chuck and left him to guard camp, I was detained
by a storm, and he ate all the prunes. He had his
choice between salt and prunes, and he took prunes.
Anyone who has lived alone, miles from a settlement,
will understand why I loved Prunes. He slept with
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
me, ate with me, and for five months was my sole
chum and confidential friend. I told him all my hopes
and fears, my victories and failures; he would grin
and wag his tail as much as to say, ‘You are all right,
and I believe in you.’ Grub was getting scarce, that
is, fresh meat, and I decided with Prunes at my heels
to go out and kill a jack rabbit. We had not gone
more than 200 yards from the house when I got my
first rabbit, and then, walking along rapidly, as dusk
was coming on, I saw what I took to be another rab-
bit about forty feet away, and fired. I heard a howl
of pain and anguish, and Prunes was done for, and
I was alone. I lifted him in my arms, carried him
to the cabin, laid him down, sat down beside him, and
cried. How still it was! I have been lonely before
and since, but that night was the longest, most lone-
some and the dreariest that I have ever spent. I
dug a grave by the doorstep the next morning, but
I just couldn’t stay. I loved him, he loved me, and
trusted me, and I had killed him. I have been offered
lots of fine dogs since, but have never accepted one.
I guess my heart is out there in the sagebrush with
Prunes.”
[ 184 ]
CHAPTER XX
“GRUBB, THE POTATO KING”
N MY home we are never quite so happy as on
the days when we have baked potatoes, done to
a mealy nicety, broken open, treated with a great
chunk of butter, and served piping hot. Then my
wife says, ‘“That’s all we are going to have today
except pie, but there are plenty of pies.” On those
days we always add to our simple little grace, ‘And
O Lord, please bless Eugene Grubb.” I suppose that
most people think of Mr. Grubb immediately as “‘the
potato king’”—the man who knows more about pota-
toes and has done more for potatoes than any one
else in the world. When a man comes to be the best
authority in the world on anything, from picking
a time lock to saving a human soul, it means that he
has had lots of competition, done a lot of thinking
and hard work, and has not been in the vacuum class
as to brain. Most men, however, are specialists.
Perhaps Pope was right, as to the average, in his
lines—
One science only will one Genius fit,
So wide is art, so narrow human wit.
But Pope missed it as to the great big-brained men
whose lives have been broadened out into many ave-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
nues of achievement, and he missed Eugene H.
Grubb by a wide margin.
Ejibert Hubbard, who went down in the ill-fated
Lusitania, left from his gifted pen a sketch of Eugene
Grubb which is among the best biographical classics
of recent years. In it he reviews the crucible in
which the Grubb character was formed, the forge in
which it was hammered out from the humble Penn-
sylvania Dutch farm to the meeting of Kings and
Emperors, while making a report for the United
States Department of Agriculture upon the com-
parative farming of Europe and America. ‘The un-
dercurrent of the work in blacksmith shops, on canals,
rivers, derricks and farming was this: ‘This thing
can be done, and must be well done.”’
It is my purpose in this sketch to go into the more
intimate and human side of this outstanding Amer-
ican. I first met Mr. Grubb at the International in
Chicago in 1904. I had known of him and his work,
of his Colorado Shorthorns, and of his constructive
methods in everything that he undertook for years;
but this was my first personal contact with him. He
had been showing an unusual load of two-year-old
feeder Shorthorn steers at the St. Louis World’s Fair,
winning the grand championship at a time when there
was real competition in the feeder classes at all the
great cattle shows. I think that the highest compli-
ment that I can pay his load of steers is to say that
they looked like the sort of steers that Grubb would
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
produce; they were ‘“‘dandies.’’ We were showing
S. M.S. feeder calves. Since it was in the days when
we reserved the right to pick a show load, we had
gone the limit, and knew that they were good. I
took one of our men with me over the show pens to
look at what we had to go against in the sweep-
stakes if we won in our class. When we reached
the Grubb steers I said, ‘‘Here is where we die.”” A
man stepped up to me and said, “I think that we
know each other; I am ‘Gene’ Grubb.”
Personalities are dominant; this was a personality.
He was tall and well-made, with “‘the head and front
of Jove himself,” a face beaming with that quality
which made “Ben Adhem’s name lead all the rest,”
the love of his fellow-men was written like a scroll
upon his countenance, justice and fairness flowed
from eyes set wide below a high forehead, and the
square jaw told that this man would go to the last
ditch. His voice had the quality of magnetism; it
was soft and clear, and full of friendliness as he
invited us in to “‘feel”’ the steers.
From his pens we went to our own, and he did me
the compliment to talk more with my companion,
who, he realized, had been vital in handling them,
than he talked with me. So began a friendship
which has stood the test of time, and brought to me,
written on last Christmas day from his den in Butte
City, Calif., where he now spends most of his time,
a beautiful letter, graciously reviewing our first meet-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ing, and the turning of the tide to young feeders.
That was an historic event. John G. Imboden was
the judge. -He gave us first in our district over some
classy L. S. calves. He gave “Gene” Grubb first in
his district on the twos (Shorthorns), and gave us
the grand championship. It will be recalled that in
the fat classes only threes (steers) had a look-in for
the grand championship in the early days of the
International; then it fell to twos, and today only
yearlings seem to have much of a chance. I stood by
our pens almost stunned to have beaten the mag-
nificent Grubb two-year-olds, and looked up to see
their owner rapidly approaching. His face beamed;
he took my hand in a regular Methodist squeeze,
slapped me on the back with the other, and said,
“With all my heart, old man, I congratulate you. It
was a just decision and a deserved victory.” ‘There
was not a trace of disappointment in his attitude. To
all his friends he said, ‘They won on their merits.
If I had been judging the cattle myself I should have
placed the ribbon the same way.”
I do not think that John Imboden has ever been in
a harder place. He had two perfect loads in dif-
ferent classes to pass on, and I have always felt that
his decision was made on his early recognition of
the drift to younger cattle. But what of Grubb, who
lost in what seemed a foregone conclusion? A good
loser, a sport like that, is real, and he writes his own
character in letters that ‘he who runs may read.”
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Eric Swenson, my beloved young friend, who died
in Colorado Springs last February, visited Mr. Grubb
at Mt. Sopris many years ago. A story of that visit
is another sidelight on the simple traits of fairness
and humanity in the lives of these worth-while men.
They had been knocking about over the country, and
stopped at a little town. A crowd had gathered about
a blacksmith shop, and a justice of the peace was try-
ing for his life a dog suspected of sheep-killing. Eric
and ‘“‘Gene”’ were attracted, and found that it was a
case of strong circumstantial evidence, and that the
dog had neglected to retain an attorney; nor had the
judge appointed any one to defend him, and things
were going bad. ‘Gene’ asked to be permitted to
defend the dog. “Gene” does not know it himself,
but those who have heard him lecture or speak know
that when he unloosens himself he is eloquent, and
Eric said that “he sure unloosened”’ on this occasion.
His plea for humanity, his tribute to the dog in the
abstract as man’s companion and friend, rivaled the
late Senator George G. Vest’s classic. He carried the
house by storm, obtained another chance for the dog,
had a guardian appointed for him, and helped wash
up the crowd, which had melted into tears.
Is it not beautiful that really great men are simple
men, with the fear of God and the love of their
fellow-men and dogs in their hearts? Which would
you prefer, to have your name go down as the owner
of great riches, or to be remembered like that of
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Thoreau, or John Burroughs or Eugene Grubb, when
his day shall come? Somehow the memories of those
who have worked in the great outdoors will carry the
perfume of the flowers, the song of birds, the low
whispering of the breeze, the soft patter of the rain,
the rustle of the trees and the murmur of the brook
longer than those who have grown great and given
much to the world from within closed walls.
[ 190 ]
CHAPTER XxI
REFRIGERATION AND BY-PRODUCTS
HAVE received many interesting letters contain-
ing extended information on several subjects that
I have touched. I had intended to devote a chapter
to a sort of jack-pot condensation of this correspond-
ence, but the book is drawing to a close, and my ranch
work is coming so fast that I shall only take space for
refrigeration. In an early chapter I promised to try
to get data as to refrigeration at Denison, Tex., long
before it seems to have been used by what are now
the “great packers.”” Data have come to me through
Warren V. Galbreath, general live stock agent cf the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad. He began his
cattle experience as foreman of feeding stations thirty
years ago. I have quoted from the best data that
Kingan & Co., Indianapolis, in 1885 used the first
mechanical refrigeration, and, so far as I know, that
stands as applied to the use of cold air pumped
through a plant. The use in packing houses of
mechanical ice, however, as a substitute for natural
ice antedates the cold air process by probably twelve
years, and apparently found its earliest use in the
south. Its first application to the packing industry
seems to have been at Denison, Tex.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
It is especially interesting to quote P. H. Tobin,
manager of the Crystal Ice Co., Denison, Tex., con-
cerning what appears to have been a well-defined
attempt to start a packinghouse near the source of
supply in 1874. With him I was put in touch by
Warren V. Galbreath. From several letters received
from Mr. Tobin I quote:
In the early ’70s—1874 or 1875—there was a packing-
house at Denison; there was also a number of refrigerator
cars, twenty-two, I think, numbered in the 6400’s of the
“Katy” (the Missouri, Kansas & Texas) railroad. ‘They
were all painted white, and had an icebox run in the middle
on the top of the cars. The railroad boys feared that the
seven crews running out of here would be reduced to one
run a week, as we were putting from 16 to 20 slim cattle,
all wearing horns, in a car, and the slaughtered product
would make a big reduction. ‘The business failed because
there were no re-icing stations until Kansas City or St. Louis
was reached. The packing business at Denison was started
by T. L. Rankin and a Mr. Bushnell, who were supplying
natural ice out of Hannibal, Mo. Mr. Rankin put in a
little four-ton ice machine in 1876 in the Compress Building,
and I was leased with the building. We sold ice at 5 cents
a pound at the plant, and went “broke.” Mr. Rankin was
persistent, and came back to Denison in 1880 to erect an
ice plant.
Mr. Tobin also sends me a letter, written to him
by R. S. Legate, president of the National Bank of
Denison, from which I quote:
I came to Denison in the fall of 1874. The Atlantic and
Texas Refrigerator Car Co. was operating a slaughtering
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
plant here, and, for a brief period, seemed to be doing an
extensive business. I do not remember how long it con-
tinued, but my recollection is that it was short-lived, and the
“big idea” upon which it was founded did not materialize.
From the foregoing it will be seen that refrigera-
tion in natural ice or mechanical form is the under-
lying principle upon which the whole packinghouse
edifice has been built, and the failure to have a few
icing stations probably cost Texas the long wait until
Fort Worth came into the business. Who knows
what it may have meant to Denison and the cattle
industry ?
C. E. Clapp of the Pennsylvania Railroad writes
from Chicago as follows: |
I believe it is generally conceded that the first attempt to
transport perishable property under refrigeration was in
1865, or ten years before the date given in your article. In
Andreas’ History of Chicago, Vol. III, page 602, the story
is briefly told in the following language: “William W.
Chandler, general agent of the Star Union Line (the pioneer
of through freight business as now carried on), came to Chi-
cago in June, 1864, to assume the position he still holds.
He came from Cleveland, O., where he had been for nearly
twelve years previously connected with the Cleveland, Pitts-
burgh & Wheeling Railroad, nine years of that time as its
general freight agent. In March, 1865, Mr. Chandler ob-
tained permission of Wm. Thaw, the originator of the Star
Union Line, and its then president, to prepare thirty cars,
after a plan of his own, which he believed would prove suc-
cessful, and, if so, very valuable in the shipment of butter,
eggs, cheese, fresh meat, and other perishable commodities.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
He called these cars ice houses on wheels, and he is unques-
tionably the pioneer of the refrigerator car system. Mr.
Chandler had not the foresight to patent his idea, which was
eagerly seized upon by others.” ‘The first of the 30 cars
was loaded in Chicago May 16, 1865, with Io tons of butter,
consigned to Porter & Wetmore, New York City, who wrote
that the car was a success, and that they were delighted.
These first cars were simply box cars, which had put into
them an inside lining of boards, which left a space between
the new lining and the outside lining of the cars—sides, ends,
top and bottom—and this space was filled with sawdust and
shavings. At first a box or trough not permanently attached
to the car was placed in the middle of the car, and filled
with ice. A little later on troughs of this kind, or much
like them, were placed in the ends of the car. ‘The Penn-
sylvania System-is justly proud of its position as the pioneer
in the transportation of perishable property under refrigera-
tion, which has developed to an extent not even dreamed of
by its originator.
In my opening chapter I recorded the impression
made upon my ten-year-old mind of the initial use
of distinct waste or tankage from the packinghouse
of Whittaker & Ryan in Leavenworth, Kans., in the
early ’70’s, and, by the way, years afterwards, when
I met C. M. Favorite, one of P. D. Armour’s great
lieutenants in the Chicago office, he told me that
he had worked for Whittaker & Ryan in those early
days.
It is a story in itself to give in detail the re-
markable part which by-products have played in
the packinghouse business up to the present day. I
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
shall deal with them in only a general way. Suppose
we begin with bones.
Even in the earliest days with dried beef hams as
an important trade factor, bones of the most valu-
able character went into the general pot of refuse
to a great extent. Now they are used for keys on
the cheaper grades of organs and pianos, for knife
handles, buttons, ornaments and novelties of infinite
variety. In order to indicate how thoroughly the
whole product is used, I may say that thigh and
shin bones are sawed, and the knuckles are used
in glue, or crushed and ground for bonemeal, used
as a fertilizer, or as a poultry and stock food, and
also in the case-hardening of steel. The part be-
tween the knuckles is far-reaching. The marrow
is extracted and melted into an edible product; the
bones are then cooked for neatsfoot oil and tallow,
and then dried and sold to manufacturers for the
purposes mentioned.
The few fine hairs from the inside of a steer’s
ear are used to make “‘camel’s hair” brushes. ‘The
use of blood is well known, but how many know of
the product called “blood albumen’’? This is made
by allowing blood to coagulate, separating the serum
by centrifugal force. The liquid obtained is filtered,
decolorized, and evaporated into a dried serum. The
final product is used as a clarifying agent in the
manufacture of photographic paper, and to set colors
in textile printing. During the war blood albumen
[ 195 ]
1 |
)
|
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A) RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
was used on the wings of aeroplanes to strengthen
them, and to protect them from the elements. |
I have only used a few striking illustrations. To
follow the subject to its finality would be to call in
all the trades, all the sciences, and many of the
arts into a bewildering labyrinth of what the pack-
er’s art, for it is an art, has done in the way of
not only saving waste to the world, cheapening the
edible product to the consumer, but furnishing to
hundreds of other industries materials which have
made many other articles possible, and always of
such vital use as to cheapen them to the user or
consumer, |
[ 196]
CHAPTER XXII
ADVERTISING; PARTING REMARKS
UURING my old days in the packing industry I
often had occasion to write advertising pam-
phlets, with some rather odd results. I recall that
when preparing an insert folder descriptive of what
were then in their infancy ‘“‘fancy hams and break-
fast bacon,” such as all packers put out now, and
advertise freely in newspapers and magazines, I was
stumped for a headline quotation or strong catch-
phrase. In many instances during my publicity work
the same thing had occurred, and when I had ex-
hausted all resources in search of an apt quotation
I wrote something myself, crediting it to some dead
author or great man, who could not come back to
denounce me. I knew that a thing credited to some
notable would have more force than if used as
original, and I felt that St. Peter would not stop
me at the Gate for it, and, if I did get by, I could
square myself with the harp-player to whom it had
been credited and perhaps make him believe that he
really did write or say it. I know it was a low-down
trick, but glance back over your own life, brother,
and “cast the first stone” if you have never done
anything so bad. I heard Henry Ward Beecher
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
lecture several times, and I knew that he could not
keep tab on everything that he said, nor could any
of the quotation sharks, so I picked Henry, and for
my headline wrote:
There is no higher art than that which tends towards the
improvement of human food—HENRyY WaArpD BEECHER.
During the last few years, with spiritism and
occult stuff coming back strong among the unin-
formed, I have attended several seances, and had a
“‘catch-as-catch-can’’ with ouija, impelled by a guilty
conscience for this sort of ‘‘clep-to-quota’”’ of mine;
though none of those whose names have been bur-
dened with my liberties has ever peeped. But I made
Beecher famous in the food advertising line. Jevne
of Chicago and Los Angeles lifted my poor little
effort, and made it a business headline, but that was
not the climax. When we were married my wife and
I chose Yellowstone Park for our bridal trip, going
via Omaha, and to start things off right I took her
into the “‘swellest’”” restaurant for dinner. She always
sits facing the door, to watch humanity as it pours
in, bonnets and all. My face was towards the rear,
and I looked twice before I was sure, but there,
emblazoned on the back wall, in free relief above
the orchestra stand, in letters of gold, was—
There is no higher art than that which tends towards the
improvement of human food——HENRY WARD BEECHER.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
I called my wife’s attention to the lines, and asked,
“Do you know who wrote that?” She replied, “Why
of course; don’t you see Henry Ward Beecher under
it?” Then in my most modest way I explained how
it came about, but there was a funny little look in
her eyes, and I suppose that together we will have
to meet Henry to get the matter straightened out.
Another time I was getting up a catalog for a
sale of Herefords to be held by Kirk B. Armour,
James A. Funkhouser and John Sparks in Kansas
City, Mr. Sparks bringing his cattle from Nevada.
It will be recalled that Mr. Sparks bought his basic
stock in Missouri, and started a registered herd at
Reno, Nev. The herd was in a way forgotten for
a long time, until stories of Herefords all over Cali-
fornia, Nevada, Oregon and Washington began to
come in. There is no doubt that John Sparks’ work
was of major importance to improved breeding all
over the extreme west and northwest. I wanted to
convey the idea that the Missouri cattle had gone
forth into the wilderness, and after many years re-
turned to the land of their fathers. I felt sure that
I would find what I wanted in “Kings,” because I
especially wanted to credit it to some book in the
bible by chapter and verse. I searched in vain. I
would not, of course, credit anything I wrote to the
bible, because there was some shame left in me, but
I conceived a brilliant idea: it was to try to produce
something which would have the swing of Kings
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
and express my thought, and to put quotation marks
about it, without crediting it to anyone. I worked
several days on it, finally getting something which
sounded all right, and then I had another brilliant
idea: I would try it on some bible student, and see
if it would go by. I chose Mrs. Hastings’ mother,
a clever bible student, and one of the sweetest,
dearest women whom I have ever known. I loved
her next to my own mother, and felt a little guilty
about trying my product on her, but she was a good
sport, so I said, “I cannot find this in the bible;
can you tell me what book it is from?” Without any
hesitation she said, “It is from Kings; I will find it
for you.” I let it go at that, but she hunted Kings
and the concordance diligently before I ’fessed up
to the whole plot. John Reid, in charge of our
Foreign Department, was also a bible student, so I
tried it out on him, being careful to begin with,
“T cannot find this in the bible.” Offhand he re-
plied, “It is from Kings.” The next day he told me
that he had spent several hours trying to find it,
and again I had to ’fess up.
I have never consciously been guilty of plagiarism
and in writing I am careful in the use of quotation
marks, but it is strange how quotations, particularly
Iong ones, in the spoken word and properly credited
before being used, are accepted so often as original.
When the old National Live Stock Association held
a meeting in Kansas City about twenty-five years
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
ago its programme committee asked the packers to
select someone to reply to the toast, ‘““The Packers,”
at a wonderful banquet given at the Midland Hotel.
I was the victim. ‘That wonderfully gifted lawyer
Gardner Lathrop was to preside. The list of speak-
ers got me into a good deal faster company than I
needed, so I brushed up as best I could, and in
linking up the packing and range ends used Senator
Ingalls’ beautiful prose poem on “Grass,” distinctly
crediting him with its authorship. The next day
one of my friends said to me, “I liked your address,
particularly your wonderful tribute to grass.’ Here
comes your chance, dear reader, for a close decision.
Did I tell him whose it was or did I figure that he
ought to have known better—certainly should have
listened more closely—and let it go at that? There
are no prizes in this guessing contest. Suppose you
hold the glass up to human vanity, and tell what you
would have done.
With the Holiday Number of The Breeder's
Gazette, my wanderings in memory’s’ world
will come to an end in a little story which
would be marred by my adding personal com-
ment. I cannot go back to private life, however,
without thanking The Breeder’s Gazette’s read-
ers for their generous attention, as evidenced by a
mass of letters which I have received from unex-
pected sources, as well as from old friends, whom I
have not heard from for years. One of these letters
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
—it is from Henry Bonner of Indiana—establishes
my truthfulness. He writes: “I have just read your
story about old Curlew, the horse that killed Johnny
McDuff. I remember the day he pitched with you
when you tried to tie the white handkerchief round
your neck, when I was looking at cattle on the Tongue
River Ranch.”’ It seems odd that as I write of his
letter I am sitting in the shade of a Ford car on
Tongue River Ranch, near where Curlew pitched,
waiting for a bunch of cattle that the boys are bring-
ing up to the shipping pens. In fact, most of these
stories have been written on trains, or while waiting
about the ranches. It has been a great privilege to
write them for The Breeder's Gazette, because
the backward look has found many things not written
down which I have chatted about with men who have
long been with us, and, in turn, their own minds
take the backward vision, recalling some stirring
things that we have been through together. I have
a letter from F. D. Coburn, ‘‘Coburn of Kansas,”
which I am putting away in my treasure chest. It is
too generous to quote from, but if my little effort
had done no more than bring me Mr.. Coburn’s let-
ter I should feel that I had been richly repaid. I
am deeply grateful to the hundreds of others who by
spoken word or letter have indulged in kindly com-
ment. ‘There has always been for me the sweetest
sort of affection in James Whitcomb Riley’s words:
Good-bye, Jim; take keer o’ yourself.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
In waving my hand from the rear platform of
the train which is leaving my good friends in
The Breeder’s Gazette ‘‘family,” and taking me back
to the cattle, the horses, the boys, the birds, the flowers
and the silent vastness of the great pastures, I can
think of no sweeter thought than in paraphrasing
Riley—‘‘Good-bye, reader; take keer o’ yourself.”
[ 203 |
CHAPTER XXIII
THE LOST CHILD
VERYONE who has lived on the frontier has
probably taken part in hunting for lost chil-
dren. In my own experience and observation the
terror, the panic, the tireless zeal, the whole-hearted
participation by whole communities are vivid recol-
lections, and as a part of them the never-ceasing
wonder at the almost impossible distances children
will stray. The natural tendency of an exhausted
child to lie down and fall asleep, together with the
usual discovery about dusk that the child is missing,
and the natural profoundness of a child’s sleep, ex-
plain to some extent the difficulty of locating it in
vast areas, with a belated start, and no trail in the
darkness to indicate even the direction that it has
taken. Shouting by hunters until they are too hoarse
to shout is always a part of the hunt; dogs are always
used, and individual stories of their work are tra-
ditions over the whole frontier.
It is one thing for a child to stray in a city, where
its sobs attract quick attention; it is an entirely
different thing when one wanders off into a great
expanse, where there are no houses for miles. I
have never heard of a child in this country being
[ 204 ]
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
harmed by a coyote or bitten by a rattler when lost;
but those menaces, imagined or real, are the first to
come into the mind when a child has strayed, just
as a woman grabs her skirts or climbs upon a chair
with the first suggestion of a mouse. The people
and the incidents in this story are real, but in draw-
ing the sketch I have made it composite as to the
lost child terror in sparsely-settled districts, and no
amount of dressing can exaggerate instances which
have come to my personal notice; in fact, I have
toned down the dramatic tragicality which is a part
of every instance. The telephone, prevalent now in
rural districts, has helped the situation, but it is a
terror to operators who after the first alarm reply
to every ring, ‘“‘No, he has not been found;” or, “Yes,
they have found him.” It was strange how, before
the rural system was installed, that which all people
on the frontier know as the “grapevine” phone car-
ried the news of ‘“‘lost child” into great distances.
This method of communication, which no one has
been able to explain, carried news with startling
rapidity.
Little ‘“Curley’? McNutt is still a character with
us, now seven years old. His imagination is vivid.
His laugh and grin, and his habit of saying unex-
pected things at inopportune times are all still in
vogue. I saw him last Sunday, and we had our
usual big talk. He was much excited over an air
rifle; he has two wonderful ‘‘wolf” dogs (really
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
harmless Collies), and their combined kill of imagi-
nary coyotes promises to be big the coming winter.
He told me some fantastic tales, and at the close
added, “‘Every time one of us tells a big one, Mac
(the name by which he calls his father) tells one
a whole lot bigger. He sure is a windy.” So per-
haps Curley is a victim of heredity. It has just
struck me as amusing that local color is not wanting
as I scribble, because I am writing in the caboose
of a stock train moving through a big pasture coun-
try. Just now, while we stopped for water, the
‘ki-yi’? of the coyote’s discord sounded off in the
mesquite. I wonder whether the cry is striking
terror to the heart of some mother whose baby may
have strayed. There are no hoarse shouts, no
ghostly riders in the pale moonlight, and that strange
Providence that finds the lost ones when they stray
is watching over the tired little boys and girls, fast
asleep, straying perhaps with Peter Pan in his
frolics.
Curley McNutt was at the time of this incident
four years old, a round-faced, flaxen-haired, sturdy
little fellow, wearing a perpetual grin. He had a
habit of repeating what he heard one say, prefacing
it by a short laugh. All ranch children make warm
friendships, which often amount to idolatry among
cowboys, who in turn have an absorbing love for
children. This love sometimes drifts into a sort of
slavery.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
The “doghouse,” a classic title which the boys
have bestowed on their home, the bunkhouse, is a
point of absorbing interest for all ranch children.
Here they are teased and petted and properly
spoiled; no fence, latched door or set of material
regulations and no amount of punishment are effect-
ive in keeping children away from the ‘‘doghouse;”
after they begin to toddle, and commonly, long be-
fore that period they are carried there by the boys
to learn the delights, the privileges, and their own
power of tyranny.
I have said some pleasant things about cowboys
in this series, but candor and a desire to be truthful
force me to admit that often, in the moral and in-
tellectual environment of the ‘‘doghouse,” a child
may pick up some chance word or expression which
is not strictly good form. I have known of that
possibility, however, in more effete circles—after-
noon teas and ladies’ bridge clubs, for instance, and
even Sunday school. But I have never known a
cowboy deliberately to teach a child to “‘cuss.” Any
one who has had much to do with handling cattle
knows that at times there is no other outlet than a
little mild profanity. I have even fallen into it
myself, in distressing circumstances, and once I heard
a preacher swear.
Curley often had his mouth washed with good
clean home-made soap for bringing certain gems
into the family circle after prolonged visits to the
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
b)
“doghouse.”’ He had a habit, too, of repeating some
inoffensive phrases which, falling in the wrong place,
were sometimes disastrous. I recall an incident
which was only saved by the common-sense, the in;
finite good nature and sense of humor of the victim,
When Curley was allowed to help himself at the
ranch mess table one of the boys would say, “‘Don’t
take it all”—a comment which Curley soon learned
to make when cowboys took a helping. It was
sometimes a wise admonition, as any one who has
lived around a cowcamp knows. |
I took a buyer of goodly quantities and his wife
to the Tongue River Ranch. Both were charming.
They had brought their outdoor appetites with them.
Mrs. McNutt is one of the best cooks I have ever
known, on or off the ranch, and the supper that
night was one of her best triumphs. We had ridden
100 miles that day over rough country with Mr.
Ford, and were ready. The lady had “thrown in”
with Curley before supper, and he had to sit by her.
The first helping “got by,”’ but when the lady came
up for a second one Curley was primed, and out of
the stillness which prevails generally at an indoor
cowboy mess table came his high, clear voice with
“Don’t take it all.”” For a second the spoon poised
in mid-air; the cowboys, appalled by their tutor-
ship, were tense; then followed the merry, ringing
laugh of a splendid woman, as the spoon descended
to its mission and she said, ‘‘All right, Curley; but
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
you and I must get our share before the cowboys
itakei¢ all):
Curley’s father and mother had charge of the
S. M. S. headquarters messhouse on the Tongue
River Ranch. The great part of ‘Mac’s” time was
taken up with near-by line or pasture riding, leaving
the mother and boy often alone for much of the
day with the cow outfit off on its work. Curley
always thought of the “‘doghouse”’ as the objective
when he could make his “getaway’’; but when he
could find no one there he had a habit of striking
out straight into the pasture, in all its uninhabited
immensity, and several times had wandered some
distance, giving his mother much anxiety; but she
felt perfectly easy when any of the boys were about.
“Old Jack,” a cross between wolfhound and grey-
hound, has gone to his fathers; but he is still a
tradition on the S. M. S. Ranch. He followed the
Tongue River chuck wagon for ten years, with some
memorable coyote encounters. He was often away
with the wagon for weeks; sometimes he would let
it go away without him, and then unerringly locate
it in some remote part of the pasture or sometimes
he would leave it and come to headquarters, evidently
to see Curley. They were great “pals,” and so
close was the companionship between them that it
was hard to tell which had the more fleas. They
ate out of the same plate, when the chuck wagon was
at headquarters, and Jack always played fair.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Late one afternoon Mrs. McNutt saw some cow-
boys ride in, and supposed that they were at the
bunkhouse. Curley disappeared soon after. She
saw him making for the bunkhouse, and thought he
was safe for the rest of the day, but did not know
then the boys had passed through and gone on some
special mission. It was in May. Copious rains had
fallen all spring; the growth of vegetation was
prolific everywhere, almost rank. No one who has
not seen a west Texas landscape, after a wet spring,
can form any idea of how the growth would obscure
a child walking in it. While it is not a part of my
story, I should like to add that no one who has not
seen it can conceive of the wonderful floral beauty
of the country. ‘There are vast expanses of chrome-
yellow, clear to the horizon, variegated here and
there by acres of soft lavender, or brilliant purple,
looking in the great vista like a single vivid flower
of contrast pinned to a woman’s dress. As one
studies more intimately the carpet of color at one’s
feet, one sees a riot of white and yellow primroses
and daisies; the deep rich wine-tint of wild holly-
hock; the blue of larkspur and star daisy; and the
magenta of wild verbena. One is lost in the wonder
of nature’s flower show, held way off in the wilds,
with God’s love for its reward. I have never been
entirely in sympathy with the beautiful lines—
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
I watch the grass birds as they nest in the profu-
sion of beauty, and the bees as they gather honey.
The perfume of flowers and grass, as vagrant breezes
drift it here and there, must be a joy to every living
thing.
Supper on the ranch usually comes at dusk. ‘The
bell rang, and the boys in their silent way drifted
into the messroom, but there was no childish voice.
The mother appeared in the kitchen door with the
query, ‘‘Where is Curley?” No one knew; no one
had seen him. Then a face went white, followed by
solemn-visaged cowboy faces that through their
bronze grew even whiter. Supper was forgotten.
Every man dashed for his night horse. ‘The disci-
pline of the ranch came quickly; a silent mounted
group drew round the strawboss; there were quick,
clear orders as to districts and signals. Then “Molly”
O’Hare, the horse wrangler, Curley’s slave, said,
“Call Jack; he can find him.’’ Some one called, but
Jack did not answer. Then there was a shout of joy,
‘Jack is with him; he is safe.”
As the band rode off there came the first sharp,
shrill “‘ki-yi’’ of the coyotes. One makes enough
noise for a pack. To the lost child hunters there
seemed to be thousands of coyotes. From every di-
rection they seemed closing in. It was as if thou-
sands were sounding their hungry call on the night
air. Was Jack with Curley? Jack was getting old.
How long could he fight off the coyotes? Would
fp2rn]
A) RUAN CEIMEAINGS REC Ol EC i TONS
one get Curley while Jack fought the others? Would
Curley step on a rattler and be bitten?
All the frenzied fancy of human love alarmed
marched. in hideous phantasy before them as they
searched. From hill and dale came the peculiar
rounding cry of the cowboy, but there was no sig-
nal. ‘They rode carefully and closely covering the
ground. Hushed voices answered hushed voices as
they crossed on the hunt. ‘The night was clear, but
dark; the moon was not yet up. ‘The coyote chorus
grew louder; they seemed to be gathering from afar,
and “Molly” O’Hare, riding alone, cried in the
agony of his heart, ‘‘O God, if I only knowed how
to pray Id tell you to take me and let Curley stay;
I'd tell you that there ain’t nothing you could tell
me to do that would be too much; [’d—”
Then out of the stillness of the night came a dif-
ferent note; a note that said, “I am here;” a note
that said, “All is well; a note that said, “I do not
fear.” It was the long-drawn-out bay of the wolf-
hound’s answering call. It halted a dozen riders;
they waited to hear it once more, and it came clear
and sure, ‘All is well; we are here.’”’ It jarred the
stillness with its wave of triumph.
The moon came slowly up as a frenzied bunch of
riders on horses which knew something was wrong
broke into a killing run. ‘Molly’ O’Hare was the
first man in; Curley lay stretched out on a mat of
wild flowers, fast asleep. His little shoes were worn
{i219
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
through, his blouse and knickers ragged from contact
with catsclay bushes, his stockings hanging down,
showing angry scratches on his little legs. Beside
him, alert, head up, his muzzle to the wind, still
sounding his answering note, stood Old Jack.
With a bound “Molly” O’Hare was by their side.
One quick caress for Jack, and Curley was in his
arms; then, with characteristic cowboy nonchalance,
he turned to the bunch of riders, leaning forward on
their horses’ necks in a circle about him, silent and
indifferent as though nothing had happened, and said,
‘Oh, hell! I knowed he was all right all the time.”
Whereupon, Curley, half aroused for a moment and
trom’) long) force or habit, repeated, “Oh, shell, I
knowed he was all right all the time,” and fell into
another sound sleep.
The boys with great glee told his mother of Cur-
ley’s repeating “Molly’s” exclamation, but holding
him close to her breast, tears stealing down her
cheeks, and dropping on Curley’s torn raiment, she
said, ‘Poor tired baby, he was too sleepy to know
what he said; I guess we won’t wash his mouth out
with soap this time.”
[ 213 ]
CHAPTER XXIV
“OLD GRAN’PA”’: <A ‘‘MAGE”’ STORY
T WAS early in June, 1906. The “High Boss”
was out from New York, making his usual semi-
annual inspection of the S. M. S. Ranches. We had
already been over several of them, and were getting
into the buggies to drive from Stamford to Throck-
morton when The Breeder’s Gazette man showed up,
with only one day to give us. Those were the days
of Hynes Ranch buggies, and ‘Broom ‘ails.”
Throckmorton :Ranch was a full day’s drive away;
now Henry Ford takes us there in 2% hours. Flat
Top Mountain Ranch begins 5 miles west of Stam-
ford. ‘There was my only chance to show The Breed-
er’s Gazette man anything, so I told our party to go
without me, and I would drive through that night in
ample time to start on the Throckmorton inspection
trip next morning. On the way over to Flat Top
Ranch I stopped at headquarters, and asked Mage
the foreman to meet me in town at 7 p. m., and we
would drive Beauty and Black Dolly, two spanking
mares which he had bought for me. ‘They could take
their 10 miles an hour steadily for hours, and I threw
them in as a bait to tempt Mage against any local
duty which he might urge. Mage stood 6 feet 5
[ 214 ]
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
inches in his socks, every inch of it cowman and
horseman. He came to the ranches at thirteen years
of age—a much misunderstood kid. But he had
grown into a manhood of sweetness and strength,
which had surrounded him with the love and respect
of every man, woman, and child in the country. Mage
was a dead-game sport, a rider whose skill and dar-
ing are still traditions in the big-pasture country. His
stories and personal reminiscences, told with rare
humor and dramatic force, made a journey with him
a real entertainment. I always sparred for an open-
ing to get him going when we made drives together.
At 7 o'clock he was on hand to the minute, talking to
the mares as though they were human. We were
off—"‘heads up and tails over the dashboard.” As
we swung into the main thoroughfare the people on
the street turned round to watch Mage handle the
mares. They were having their little fun before set-
tling to the steady distance-killing gait, and they
were a pair to look at: Beauty a deep chestnut, both
wilful and beautiful, and Black Dolly, with her sleek
sable coat, still at the giddy age. Mage had the
stage driver’s trick of coming into town or going out
in style. The mares knew his voice and hand, and
the light that shone in his eyes told where his heart
was. For two hours we chatted or were silent by
spells, as is the habit on long drives. The moon
came up in her soft fullness—one of those southern
moons like the ripeness of love, a perfect heart full.
[215 ]
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
The cool night air was stirring caressingly, and we
were both under the spell of it all. The mares had
steadied down to normal. We were crossing a
prairie near Rice Springs, once a famous roundup
ground in the open range days. Mage raised his
six-feet-five up in the buggy, looked all around, and,
as he sat down, said: ‘This here’s the place; here’s
where me an’ Old Gran’pa won our first ditty.”
The moon had risen high enough to flood a great
flat until we could see a mile or more. I saw just a
beautiful expanse of curly mesquite grass, blending
its vivid green with the soft silver moonlight, but
Mage saw great crowds lined on either side of a
straight half-mile track; two riders; the one on a mid-
night black and the other on a speed-mad sorrel, in
deadly contest for supremacy. ‘The stillness of the
night—which to me was the calm benediction of peace
and rest—was broken for him by wild cheers as a
boy and a sorrel horse crossed the line, victors. His
face was tense, his eyes shone with the fire of strain
and excitement, and then slowly he came back to the
stillness and to the moonlight, and to me.
I waited a minute, and asked, ‘‘What was it
Mage?” He did not answer until we had crossed
the flat. Then, with a little short laugh, peculiar to
him before telling a story, he began: “As fur as
thet’s consarn it wus this away—”’
But here let me tell some true things I knew about
Old Gran’pa. He was a famous cow pony, originally
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known as Sorrel Stud. Mage broke him as a three-
year-old, and had ridden him some eighteen years.
The last few years of that time Stud had come to be
known as Old Gran’pa. He was still alive, but had
been turned out under good keep, winter and sum-
mer, to end his days in peace. He was very fast, and
was considered among the top cutting horses of his
time. Mage’s worship of this horse is only typical
of every cowboy’s love for his pet horse. But to his
story:
“Tt wus this away: We hed fenced some, but allus
hed lots o’ strays on the open range, an’ Shorty
Owen [who, by the way, stood 6 feet and 6 inches],
tole me early in the spring he would send me out to
gather strays when the big round-ups begin, an’ lowed
I best be gettin’ my plunder rounded up. That wus
fore you cum, but you know he wus the S. M. S.
range boss, an’ mighty nigh raised me. He tuk to
me the day [hit the ranch. ‘Kid,’ he says, ‘you ain’t
never hed no chanct an’ I’m agoin’ to giv you one.’
“Shorty taught me to ride—hobbled my feet unter a
three-year-ole steer onct, an’ turned him a-loose. We
hed it roun’ an roun’ with the hole outfit hollerin’,
‘Stay with ’im, Kid!’ I stayed all right, but when
he pitched into a bunch o’ mesquites I sure would ’a’
left im if these here preachers is right ’bout ‘free
~ moral agency,’ but them hobbles helt me back, and I
stayed fer the benediction. Since thet time I never
hev seed a hoss I wus scart to climb on.
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“Shorty cut Sorrel Stud out to me when he wus a
bronc, an’ said, ‘Break him right, Kid; i think you
got a cow hoss if he ain’t spoilt in the breakin.’ An’
I done it without ever hittin’ him a lick. As fur as
thet’s consarn, I never did hit him but onct, an’ thet
wus the time him an’ me both failed, only Shorty
said we didn’t fail; we jes’ went to the las’ ditch.
But thet’s another story.
“T wisht you could a-seed Sorrel Stud in his prime.
He wus a hoss! I thought ’bout it today when you
hed yore arms round his neck an’ a-talkin’ to him
*bout me, an’ I wondered if any body ’cept me could
understan’ thet Sorrel Stud and Ole Gran’pa wus the
same hoss. But when I got up an’ thumbed him, an’
made him pitch me off jest to show you what a twen-
ty-year-ole hoss could do, did you see the fire come
into them eyes, an’ them ears lay back? Hones’ to
God, Frank, he wus a hoss!
“T know I wus jest a tough kid when J come, but
a-tween Shorty Owen an’ maybe a little doin’ right fer
right’s sake I tried to live an’ hones’ life. But they’s
two things me and St. Peter may hev to chew ’bout
a little at the gate. You know what a fool I am ’bout
tomatoes? Well, onct I stole a dozen cans from the
chuck wagon and hid ’em out in the cedar brakes.
But the boys at the wagon hed me so plum scart ’bout
Injuns thet I never did git to them tomatoes. Well,
Ole Gran’pa is jest as plum a fool ’bout oats as I
be bout tomatoes. I’ll admit I stole this here outfit’s
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oats fer him ten years, till the High Boss wus out onct
from New York and seed Ole Gran’pa go to a fire.
Of course I wus up, an’ he sed he guessed he could
pay fer Gran’pa’s oats the rest o’ his days. Joe wus
mighty perticular bout company oats. We hed to
haul ’em 60 miles, but I think he slipped a mess to
White Pet onct in a while hisself. I used to wait ’til
the boys hed hit their hot rolls, then I'd slip out to
the barn, get my big John B. full o’ oats, steal to the
corner o’ the hoss pasture, an’ Ole Gran’pa wus allus
waitin’ fur me an’ he’d never leave a stray oat to
give us away.
“They called me ‘the S. M. S. Kid.’ I wus ’bout
sixteen. I could ride some an’ I allus hed a little
money back from my wages. So when Shorty Owen
tole me I wus agoin’ I used thet an’ all I made up
to goin’ time fer an outfit. I hed a good season sad-
dle, a Gallup; but I bought a bridle with plenty o’
do-dads on it. Then you know my Injun likin’ fer
color: I bought a yaller swet blanket, an’ a top red
Navajo blanket fer Gran’pa. He kinda leaned to
color too. I set up all night with Swartz an’ made
him finish a pair o’ top stitched boots, an’ I hed enuff
left fer new duckin’ pants, red flannel shirt, an’ a
plaid fer change, shop-made bit and spurs, both in-
laid, a yaller silk handkerchief, a new hot roll, an’ a
twelve-doller beaver John B. Then Shorty Owen cut
out my mount. In course I hed Sorrel Stud; he wus
six years old, right in his prime, an’ I kep’ him shinin’.
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Then there war nine more, all good ones—Blutcher,
Alma, Polecat, Tatterslip, Bead Eye, Louscage, Pos-
sum, Silver Dollar, an’ Badger, three of ’em from
Shorty’s own mount.
“* ‘Kid,’ says Shorty, ‘you got as good as the best o’
‘em. I wants fer you to mind thet on this here work
you’re representin’ this here outfit. Keep yore head,
an’ come back with it up. But I’d bet my life on you,
an’ this here outfit is trailin’ you to the las’ ditch’.”
Mage’s voice was getting low here, and he swal-
lowed on the last words, paused for a moment, then
with that laugh of his continued: “Well, I’m string-
in’ °em out a mile here, when I ought to have ’em
bunched. Thet wus a great summer. I worked in
the big outfit with men an’ hosses thet knowed how
to turn a cow, an’ the captain o’ the round-up got to
puttin’ me an’ Stud into the thick o’ it purty reg’ler.
It allus seemed thet when I rode Stud, Split Miller
rode a little hoss called Midnight, an’ he sure wus a
hoss; black as midnight, ’cept fer a white star in the
forehead, short-coupled an’ quicker then forked light-
nin’. He would cut with the bridle off, and fast? He
was a cyclone. Every night ’roun’ the camp fire
Split kep’ pickin’ a load in to me ’bout the Stud.
Onct it wus, ‘Well, Kid, I seed you hed the little
scrub out watchin’ Midnight work.’ Or, ‘Say, Kid,
I believe if you hed somethin’ to ride you'd be a
hand.’ I swelled up some, but I ’membered what
Shorty Owen sed, ‘Keep yore head an’ come back
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with it up.” An’ Split wusn’t mean. He jest luved
to josh. Two or three times the captain said, ‘Split,
let the Kid alone.’ But he’d shoot one at me as he
rode by in the work, and wus allus badgerin’ me fer
a race.
“Then I kinda fell into watchin’ Midnight run
somethin’; an’ I’d start Stud in the same direction to
pace him. An’ I cum alive; the Stud was full as fast.
I jest naturally supposed thet Midnight could beat
anything, but I kep’ a-tryin’ an’ my eyes kep’ a-open-
in’. One night Split got mighty raw, an’ finally says,
‘Kid, Pll jest give you twenty dollers to run a half-
mile race, standin’ start, saddle agin saddle.’ An’
then I fergot Shorty’s instructions an’ los’ my head.
** ‘Split,’ I ses, ‘you been pickin’ on me ever sinct
I cum to this here work. Me an’ Stud don’t need no
twenty dollars to run you. An’ even break’s good
enuff fer us, saddle fer saddle, bridle fer bridle, blan-
ket fer blanket, spur fer spur.’
‘Good enuf, Kid,’ ses Split, ‘got enything else—
eny money?”
‘*No,’ I ses, ‘I ain’t got no money, but I got sum
damned good rags an’ a new hot roll.’
“Then the captain o’ the roundup tuk a hand.
But my blood was up, an’ they put cash allowance
on all my plunder an’ I bet it ’gainst money. They
give me $12 fer my Swartz boots, $8 fer my John B.,
$5 fer my cordaroy coat, $4 fer my shirts, an’ $2
fer my duckin’s. It war Wednesday, an’ the race
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wus to be pulled off Saturday evenin’, straight half-
mile, standin’ start at the pop o’ a gun. The captain
tuk the thing in charge an’ sed he’d lick eny damned
puncher thet tried to run a sandy on the Kid. It
was all settled, but by the time I hed crawled into
my hot roll thet night I ’membered the talk Shorty
Owen give me. Stud wus kinda mine, but he war a
company hoss, arter all, to work on an’ not fer
racin’, an’ I sure wus in a jackpot fer losin’ my
head. Well, the nex day I tuk Stud off to practice fer
a standin’ start. You know how I say ‘Now!’ when
I’m workin’ on a hoss-and jest as I want him to do
somethin’. Well, Stud he’d been trained thet a-way,
with jest a little touch o’ the spur, an’ I figured to
say ‘Now!’ as the gun popped an’ touch him thet
a-way, an’ he got the idee.
“Thet night I tuk him to the track an’ put him
over it four or five times. An’ onct when we wus
restin’ a-tween heats I says to him, ‘Stud, if me an’
you loses this here race looks like we'd hev to steal
off home in the night an’ both o’ us mighty nigh
naked.’ Everybody knocked off work Saturday. You
know how even in them days word gits ’bout by the
grapevine. Well, by noon they wus ridin’ and
drivin’ in from all directions. The wimin folks
brought pies and cakes. ‘The cusey cooked up two
sacks o’ flour an’ we hed to kill two beeves. Every-
body et at the chuck wagon an’ it wus sum picnic.
I tol’ the fellers not to bet on me an’ Stud, but they
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wus plenty o’ money on both sides. An’ a girl with
black eyes an’ hair an’ jest as purty as a bran’ new
red wagon, ses, ‘Kid, if you win I’m agoin’ to knit
you sum hot roll socks.’ An’ Ole Pop Sellers ses,
‘Better look at them feet an’ begin figurin’ on yarn,
’cause the Kid’s agoin’ to win.’ But Split hed a girl,
too, an’ she up an’ ses, ‘If the Kid’s dependin’ on them
there socks to keep warm he’s mighty apt to git
frost-bit this winter.’ Well, you know the josh thet
goes ’round when a big bunch o’ cow people git
together. An’ they wus a plenty, until I wus plumb
flustrated. When the time cum, a starter on a good
hoss wus to see thet we got off fair an’ then ride with
us as sort o’ pace-maker an’ try an’ see the finish.
But his hoss wusn’t in Midnight’s an’ Stud’s class.
“Split hed seemed to figure thet Midnight didn’t
need no trainin’, he hed run so meny races an’ never
been beat. So all Split did wus saddle Midnight and
stan’ ’round an’ josh. But me an’ Stud was addled,
an’ I warmed him up a bit, talkin’ to him all the
time. I wus worited bout urgin’ him in a tight
place. I hed played with my spurs on him, but he
never hed been spurred in his life ’cept a signal touch
to turn or jump. I allus carried a quirt on the horn
o’ my saddle, but ’cept to tap him in a frenly way or
in work he hed never knowed its use. What wus I
a-goin’ to do ina pinch? I knowed he would use his
limit under my word, but what if he didn’t? Did I
hev to hit him? If I owned this here ranch I’d hev
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give it all to be out o’ the race an’ not look like a
quitter. Well, the time wus cum. Stud hed been
frettin’ an’ I wus stewin’, but when we toed the line
sumthin’ funny happened: We both seemed to settle
down an’ wus as cam as this here night. I jest hed
time to give him one pat an’ say, ‘God A’mighty,
Stud, I’m glad I got you,’ when the starter hollered,
‘Git ready!’ An’ the gun popped! I yelled, ‘Now!’
at the same time, an’ we wus off.
“Midnight wus a mite the quickest, but Stud
caught his neck in the third jump an’ I helt him
there. I wanted Midnight to lead, but kep’ pushin’
him. We didn’t change a yard in the fust quarter
an’ Split yelled, ‘Kid, yer holdin’ out well, but I got
to tell you farewell.’ An’ he hit Midnight a crack
with his quirt. Stud heard it singin’ through the air
an’ jumped like he wus hit hisself. In thirty yards
we wus nose an’ nose; ten more, a nose ahead. Then
I knowed we hed to go fer it. I wus ridin’ high
over his neck, spurs ready, my quirt helt high, an’
I kep’ talkin’ to him an’ saying, ‘Good boy, Stud!’
The crowd wus a-yellin’ like demons. We wus in the
last eighth, nose an’ nose, an’ I let out one o’ them
Injun yells an’, ‘Now, Stud! Now!’
“It seemed like he’d been waitin’ fer it. I could
feel his heart beatin’ faster. ‘There wus a quiver
wint through him like a man nervin’ hisself fer some
big shock. An’ I could see him gainin’—slow, but
gainin’. ‘The crowd hed stoppt yellin’. It cum sud-
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den. They wus so still you could hear ’em breathe.
I guess we must a-bin three feet ahead, with a hun-
dred yards to go. Split was a-cussin’ an’ spurrin’,
an’ whippin’. I didn’t hev no mind to yell in all thet
stillness, I wus ready to spur, ready to whip, an’ my
heart wus a-bleedin’. I don’t think now thet I could
a-done it to win, an’ I jest whispered, ‘Now, Stud!
Now! Now!’
‘'T thought he wus a-runnin’ a-fore, but he shot out
like a cry o’ joy when a los’ child is foun’; an’ we
crossed the line a length an’ a half ahead. I seed
the black-eyed girl with her arms ’round Pop Sellers’
neck an’ a-jumpin’ up an’ down. Pop wus jumpin’
too, like a yearlin’, an’ the crowd wus doin’ an Injun
dance generally. Stud didn’t seem to sense the race
wus over, an’ wus still hittin’ the breeze. I checked
him in slow, pattin’ him on the neck, an’ talkin’ to
him like a crazy man, ’til he stood still, all a-quiver,
his nostrils red as fire an’ eyes still blazin’. Then I
clum. down an’ throwed my arms ’roun’ his neck and
ses, ‘God A’mighty, Stud, I didn’t hev to hit you.’
Stud’s eyes seemed to softin’ an’ he laid his head
down over my shoulder. I wus cryin’ like a baby,
huggin’ him hard. The boys wus ridin’ to us an’
Stud raised his head an’ whinnied. I guess it wus
jest the other hosses comin’, but I thought he sed,
‘Didn’t we raise hell with ’em?’ An’ I ses, ‘You bet
we did, Stud, but it wus you done it.’
‘‘News travels fast, an’ long ’fore I got in with
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my strays they knowed all ’bout it at headquarters.
I kep’ thinkin’ ’bout what Shorty sed, ‘Come back
with yore head up,’ but I hed mine down when he met
me at the corral. I knowed we hadn’t no hosses te
race fer money. He looked kinda hard at my extra
saddled hoss an’ roll o’ plunder and ses, ‘Kid, this
ain’t no racin’ stable. ‘This here is a cow outfit, an’
our best hosses is fer cuttin’, not racin.’ I didn’t
say a word, jest unsaddled an’ started fer the dog-
house, when I herd him cumin’. He caught up with
me, grabbed me by both shoulders an’ turned me
’roun’. I saw a great big tear stealin’ down his cheek,
an’ he ses, ‘God A’mighty, Kid, I wisht you wus my
boy.’ Then he turned away quick an’ wus gone,
while I set down on the groun’ an’ blubbered in my
ole fool way thet I hev never got over. When pay
day cum Shorty handed me my wage check, which
had growed sum, an’ sed, ‘Kid, when a boy does a
man’s work he gits a man’s pay. You begin doin’ a
man’s work when you went to gather them strays, an’
you cum back the same way.’
‘Then he started to go on, but turned and sed,
‘Say, Kid, if I owned this here S. M.S. Ranch, hosses
an’ cattle, I’d a-give the whole damned outfit to a-
seed you an’ Stud cum over thet line’.”
[ 226 ]
CHAPTER XXV
THE SPECKLED YEARLIN’
PRIL and May rains, followed by good grow-
ing weather, had made everything beautiful in
the S. M. S. pastures. The turf of curly mesquite
grass was like a beautiful rug, painted here and there
with wild verbena, star daisies, white and yellow
primroses, and the myriad coloring of west Texas
flora. Branding time was on, and the S. M. S. Flat
Top Mountain outfit had gone into camp at Coon
Creek ‘Tank, to begin work the next day.
“Scandalous John,” the foreman and wagon boss,
had been through the aggravating experience of
getting an outfit together. It had been no trouble to
find riders—cowboys who knew the game from start
to finish—but to secure a cook, a “‘hoss wrangler”
and a hoodlum wagon driver was a problem. No one
wants to drive the hoodlum wagon, with the duties
of supplying wood and water for camp and branding,
helping the cook with his dishes or other odd jobs,
unprofessional, from a cowboy standpoint, except so
far as they lead to a “riding job,’”’ meaning regular
cowboy work. The “hoss wrangler’? was not hard
to find, but whoever takes the job aches all the time
to be promoted to a riding job, and is therefore dis-
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satisfied. The hoodlum driver had worked one day,
and quit. Scandalous was racking his brain to know
where to look for another, and was saddling his horse
to hunt for one when Four-Six, one of the cowboys,
exclaimed, ‘‘Look what’s comin’ !”’
Along the dim pasture road, miles from any dwell-
ing, a figure on foot was approaching—a sight which
always attracts attention in the big pasture country,
since it is associated in the public mind with suspicion,
if the footman is unknown. It often occurs that some
one’s horse will get away or give out. The rider then
makes for the nearest cow camp to borrow a horse;
but a man walking needs some explanation, although
he is always fed without question. The boys were all
quiet and indifferent, as they commonly are in a cow
camp when a stranger approaches.
A lad of sixteen, rather the worse for wear, clad
in a shirt and ducking trousers, badly frayed, a soft
felt hat, full of holes, shoes badly run-down at the
heels, and bare toes showing through the uppers,
stopped within ten feet of the wagon. Scandalous
paused in his saddling to say, ‘“‘Well, son, in trouble?”
The lad’s face, lit up by a broad grin, made an
appeal to the whole outfit, and all were at attention
for his answer. ‘‘No, I’m looking for the S. M. S.
boss. They told me at the ranch house that he was
here, and I’m looking for a job.”
“You look hungry, son; come eat, an’ then tell us
all about it,’”’ said Scandalous.
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As the lad ate, and refilled his plate and cup, the
cook ventured, ‘Son, you’re plumb welcome, but
when. did you eat last?”
“Night before last,” the boy replied. ‘The brakies
give me some bread and meat, but I sure was gittin
ready to eat when I smelt your sae cooking down
the road.”
“‘Where be you from, son?”
“’m from Virginia,’ came the reply, “and I’m
sure glad to get here, and get a job.”
“Virginia! A job?” exclaimed Scandalous. “How
did you get here, an’ how do you know you kin get a
jobe”
Again that good-natured grin appeared as the lad
told his story.
“I walked some, and rode with the brakies some;
they was mighty good to me, and give me a card to
other brakies; sometimes they’d give me food they
cooked in the caboose, and sometimes they took me
home. I told them I was coming to the big S. M. S.
Ranch to work. I worked on farms some, but hur-
ried as much as I could, to be here branding time.
Am I in time?”
The quiet assurance of the boy staggered Scan-
dalous, but he recovered to ask, ‘‘How did you know
about the S. M. S. Ranch? What made you think
you could git a job? Ever done any cow work?”
The lad’s grin broadened as he answered: “Well,
a feller I worked for down in Virginia had one of
feeol
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
them picture books about the S. M. S. Ranch, and I
read where it said, ‘No use to write for a job,’ so I
just cum. I kin do anything I start out to do; I
wanted to work on a ranch ever since I was a little
feller; I can learn to do anything you want done,
and I sure am going to work for you.”
Scandalous blinked again, and said, ‘“‘Why, son,
we would hev’ to hev’ permission from your pa and
ma, even if we had a job, ’cause you might git hurt.”
A shade of sadness swept for a moment over the
young face; then it shone again with a new light
of conviction.
“T ain’t got no pa or ma, I been in the orphan
asylum until two years ago, when a fine man, the
one with the book, took me on his farm to do chores.
I didn’t run away from him, neither; he said I was
so crazy about comin’ I'd better start. I been on
the road so long the things he give me wore out. I
guess I walked about a month. ‘They told me in
town to go to the office, but I was afraid they’d turn
me down, so I cum to camp, and I’m a-going to stay
and work for nothing.”
There is a straight path to the hearts of cowboys,
if one knows the way, and Scandalous was glad to
hear the chorus from the whole outfit, ‘‘Let him stay
Scandalous. We'll help him. Give the little boy a
job.”
“Reckon you kin drive the hoodlum wagon, ‘Little
91519:9,
Boy’,” said John, and, like a flash, came this re-
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
sponse: “I don’t know what a hoodlum wagon is,
but I kin drive it.”
It was settled. “Little Boy” was hired, and “made
good.” Every moment that he could get from his
work found him in the branding pen, and, as is the
custom with cowboys in their work, he often rode big
calves. The boys, watching his skill, would get him
to pull off ‘‘stunts” for visiting cowmen, until it began
to be noised about that “Little Boy” in the S. M. S.
outfit ‘“‘was sum calf-rider.”’ Then came the proud
day of his life, when an older man was found for the
hoodlum wagon. The horse wrangler was promoted
to a riding job, and “Little Boy” to horse wrangler.
The boys had from the outset contributed shirts
and socks; ducking trousers had been cut off for a
makeshift. ‘The first month’s wages had provided a
fair outfit, including the much-coveted white shirts
that cowboys love to have in their “war bags” for
special occasions. Succeeding months brought saddle,
bridle, spurs, horse blanket and a “‘hot roll.” “Little
Boy” was coming on, but had to content himself with
shoes until he had all the major necessities, and could
acquire the two grand luxuries: a $15 John B. hat
and $35 hand-made stitched top boots.
All through the summer “Little Boy” progressed,
first from calves to yearlings in his play time, and
then to outlaw broncs, until the boys in the outfit
would say, ‘“Thet kid sure kin ride; I'll bet he gets
inside the money this fall at the Stamford rodeo.”
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A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
Anything pertaining to an outlaw horse or steer
becomes current gossip in the big pasture country,
where horses and cattle form the basis of conversa-
tion about the wagon after working hours. Strange
stories drifted in about a certain outlaw speckled
yearling on the Lazy 7 Ranch—he had thrown every
boy with rodeo aspirations who had tried to ride him,
and seemed to be getting better all the time. The
‘Speckled Yearling” was tall, gaunt and quick as a
cat. He had a mixed jump and weave that got his
men about the third jump, but the boys on the Lazy
7 were keeping him to themselves, with a view to
pulling off a prize “‘stunt” at the Stamford rodeo in
September. All the little country towns held rodeos
during the summer, with calf and goat roping, bronc-
busting and steer riding, but the big event was to
come, and the boys were getting ready for it. “Little
Boy” had a heart-to-heart talk with his boss, and re-
ceived permission to ride steers, and tackle the
“Speckled Yearlin’,” if opportunity permitted.
At last the time for the great event came. Cow-
boys from 100 miles around were on hand. Profes-
sionals were barred. It was to be an event for boys
who were in actual service on ranches. The S. M. S.
headquarters office was thrown open for all, and the
Stamford Inn pulled off an old-time cowboy dance,
with old-fashioned “‘squares’ called by old-time
punchers, with old-time fiddlers doing the music. The
weatherman had done his best; some 2,000 people
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filled the grandstand, cheering the events of the
first day, with now and then a call for the
“Speckled Yearlin’,”’ which was not mentioned in the
programme.
Any one who has not seen an unprofessional
rodeo knows little of real cowboy sport, since it dif-
fers in its wild abandon, grace and skill from the
staged events. As each favored son came on for his
“stunt,” he was cheered to the echo, and usually
he pulled some original antic which sent the crowd
wild.
The announcer, riding before the grandstand,
waved for silence. ‘Listen, people: I want you to
hear this; it’s a surprise, and the big event. No one
has ever been able to stay ten jumps on the ‘Speckled
Yearlin’,’ from the Lazy 7 Ranch. Nig Clary will
now ‘ride at’ the Speckled Yearlin’ on his own risk:
A $60 prize if he stays on; a $25 forfeit if he gets
throwed. If he rides him down, a hat collection will
be took. If Nig can’t ride him some other feller
gets a chance tomorrow.”
“Tf Nig can’t nobody kin,” shouted the grand-
stand. ‘Turn him a-loose.” A wave from the
judges’ hands, and, like the cutting off of an electric
current, all was still and tense. Then from the
mounting chute shot the “Speckled Yearlin’,” with
Nig Clary up, clinging by two hand-holds to a sur-
cingle and riding bare-back. The yearling was dead-
red, with distinct white speckles about the size of
[ 233 |
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
one’s thumb distributed well over his body. He
carried long, sharp horns; his back was on the order
of an Arkansas razorback hog. When it came to
jumping and weaving his body at the same time, the
“Speckled Yearlin’”’ was the limit.
Nig sat straight for three jumps, began to wabble
in the fourth, and was on the ground at the fifth.
Still jumping, the yearlin’ turned and made for him,
giving Nig only time by a scratch to climb up behind
one of the judges.
The second day found “Little Boy” and Scandalous
with their heads together. “I know I kin ride him,
John, an’ I sure want that prize money for my boots
an’ my John B. They’s all I’m needin’ to be a real
cowboy.”
“Yes, I know,” said John, ‘‘but we’re needin’ live
cowboys, an’ | ain’t feelin’ right ’bout your tryin’ thet
yearlin’. I’ll hev to ask you to waive all blame fer
the company, an’ if you do git hurt they'll be blamin’
me; but if you be bound to ride, us boys will pay the
forfeit, if you get throwed.”
Again on the second day the announcer waved his
hand for silence. ‘Folks, yesterday the best rider
and cowpuncher in Texas rode at the speckled year-
lin’. Today ‘Little Boy’ from Flat Top Mountain
Ranch says he’s goin’ to ride him. We hates to let
a little orphan boy go agin this here steer, but he sez
he ain’t a-goin’ to git hurt, an’ if he does there ain’t
anybody but him. ‘The management hopes he wins.
[ 234 J
A RANCHMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS
If he does, git your change ready for a hat prize, an’
I am a-goin’ to start it with a five.”
As boy and steer came out of the chute, the stillness
fairly hurt. Every heart in that great crowd seemed
to stop for the first three jumps, but “Little Boy” was
sitting tight. From the crowd there came a mighty
roar: “Stay with him, ‘Little Boy’! He’s got a
booger on him. ‘Ride Him ‘Little Boy’!”
At the tenth jump “Little Boy” was still up, his
grin growing broader and his seat getting steadier,
while the yearling, maddened by his clinging burden,
pitched and weaved, but, like Sinbad’s ‘““Old Man of
the Sea,” “Little Boy”’ kept “‘a-ridin’.”’
The crowd went daft. Every one was standing
and shouting. The noise seemed to infuriate the
yearling, and, turning from the end of the enclosure,
he made straight for the grandstand, struck his head
against the protecting wire, stood stock still, and
glared, while ‘Little Boy” sat and grinned. Some
one cried ‘‘Speech!”’ and, as stillness came, ‘Little
Boy,” still sitting on the dazed steer, broadened his
grin and said, “I jest had to ride him. I needed them
boots and thet John B., so’s I could be a real cow-
boy, an’ this yere speckled yearlin’s done done it.”
[ 235 ]
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