a. mo ii^^H ^ES9 ^^^^HLHP'^ sit ..t..JLi "^ t!t;t;t:ts^iU^;t;!i-.;ii:;.,:,o a J . : .. c^ ■<-9 /- ~C^ JOHNA.SEAVERNS TUFTS UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 3 9090 014 561 647 Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine Cummings School c^ Votennary Medicine at Tufts University 200 Westboro Road North Grafton, MA 01536 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL THEODORE ROOSEVELT AUTHOR OF "hunting TRIPS OF A RANCHMAN," PRESIDENT OF THE BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB OF NEW-YORK, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE LONDON ALPINE CLUB, ETC., ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY FREDERIC REMINGTON l?r,.,a.. NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1899 Copyright, 1888, by The Century Co. The OeVihhe Press. TABLE OF CONTENTS Frontispiece, the round-up. I. The Cattle Country of the Far West Illustrations : a study from life— initial— an exploring outfit— the mid- day MEAL— THE OUTLYING CAMP— COWBOY FUN— IN A BOG-HOLE— TAIL-PIECE. II. Out on the Range 15 Illustrations: the branding chute— initial — pulling a coiv out of the MUD — A dispute OVER A BRAND — BRONCO-BUSTERS SADDLING.-TAIL-PIECE. III. The Home Ranch 25 Illustrations: ponies pawing in the snow— initial — elk horn ranch buildings — roping in a horse-corral — a deep ford — a hard trail— in with the horse herd — a bucking bronco — cruising for stock— tail- piece, old-style texan cowman. IV. The Round-Up 45 Illustrations: broncos and timber wolves — initial — driving to the round-up— saddling fresh horses —trailing cattle— the rope corral — cutting out a steer - branding a calf— branding a horse— the herd at night— in a stampede —tail-piece, roped.' — a texan pony. V. Winter Weather 73 Illustrations: line riding jn winter — initial — cattle drifting before the storm— tail-piece — horse of the canadian northwest. VI. Frontier Types Illustrations : the fugitive— initial, a Mexican vaquero—a french-cana- dian trapper — a fight in the street— making a tenderfoot dance - painting the town red — a row in a cattle town— the magic of the drop— tail-piece, which is the bad man? Vll. Red and White on the Border 10 1 Illustrations: sign language— initial, the peace sign— standing off In- dians—an EPISODE IN THE OPENING UP OF A CATTLE COUNTRY— TAIL-PIECE, one OF THE BOYS— THE INDIAN PONY. \'III. Sheriff's Work ox a Ranch III Illustrations: ax old-time mouxtain man with his ponies -initial — the caftcre of the german: -'hands up.'"— the capture of finnigan—" take off your boots.'" — doivn-stream— on guard at night— "a sharp prelim- inary tussle" — on the road to dickinson — tail-piece, a texan cowboy — an agenci' policeman. IX. The Ranchman's Rifle on Crag and Prairie 131 Illustrations: an elk— i-xitial — bringing home the game— a prong-horn buck risits camp— the buck overtaken— tail-piece, our camp — mountain lions at the deer cache. X. The Wapiti, or Round-Horned Elk 147 Illustrations: our elk outfit at the ford — i ail-piece — heralding the SUNRISE. XI. The Big-Horn Sheep 153 Illustrations : a mountain hunter— shot/— tail-piece, a Montana cowboy. XII. The Game of the High Peaks: The White Goat .... 171 Illustrations: a pony of the northern rockies — initial— in a canon of the CCEUR D'ALiNE — DOWN BRAKES/— THE INDIANS WE MET— THE FIRST SHOT — STALKING GOATS— THE WHITE GOAT AT HOME —TAIL-PIECE, ADIOS. 1 ,/-' '•Ob, our manhood's prime vigor ! No ^ir it feels Wcnte, Not a mwscle is stopped in its ptaying nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock. The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sleep in the dried river- channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man's life, the mere living." BROWNING. RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL A STUDY FROM LIFE. RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL V The Cattle Country of the Far West -■i^"i HE trreat prazine lands of the West lie in what is known -^ as the arid belt, which stretches from British America on the north to Mexico on the south, through the middle of the United States. It includes New Mexico, part of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the western portion of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota. It must not be understood by this that more cattle are to be found here than elsewhere, for the contrary is true, it being a fact often lost sight of that the number of cattle raised on the small, thick-lying farms of the fertile Eastern States is actually many times greater than that of those scattered over the vast, barren ranches of the far West; for stock will always be most plentiful in districts where corn and other winter food can be grown. But in this arid belt, and in this arid belt only, — save in a few similar tracts on the Pacific slope, — stock-raising is almost the sole industry, except in the mountain districts where there is mining. The whole region is one vast stretch of grazing country, with only here and there spots of farm-land, in most places there being nothing more like agriculture than is implied in the cutting of some tons of wild hay or the planting of a garden patch for home use. This is especially true of the northern portion of the region, which comprises the basin of the Upper Missouri, and with which alone I am familiar. Here there are no fences to speak of, and all the land north of the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains and between the Rockies and the Dakota wheat-fields might be spoken of as one gigantic, unbroken pasture, where cowboys and branding-irons take the place of fences. 2 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL The country throughout this great Upper Missouri basin has a won- derful sameness of character ; and the rest of the arid belt, lying to the southward, is closely akin to it in its main features. A traveler seeing it for the first time is especially struck by its look of parched, barren desola- tion ; he can with difhculty believe that it will support cattle at all. It is a region of light rainfall ; the grass is short and comparatively scanty; there is no timber except along the beds of the streams, and in many places there are alkali deserts where nothing grows but sage-brush and cactus. Xow the land stretches out into level, seemingly endless plains or into rolling prairies ; again it is broken by abrupt hills and deep, winding val- leys ; or else it is crossed by chains of buttes, usually bare, but often clad with a dense growth of dwarfed pines or gnarled, stunted cedars. The muddy rivers run in broad, shallow beds, which after heavy rainfalls are filled to the brim by the swollen torrents, while in droughts the larger streams dwindle into sluggish trickles of clearer water, and the smaller ones dry up entirely, save in occasional deep pools. All through the region, except on the great Indian reservations, there has been a scanty and sparse settlement, quite peculiar in its character. In the forest the woodchopper comes first; on the fertile prairies the granger is the pioneer ; but on the long, stretching uplands of the far West it is the men who guard and follow the horned herds that prepare the way for the settlers who come after. The high plains of the Upper Missouri and its tributary rivers were first opened, and are still held, by the stockmen, and the whole civilization of the region has received the stamp of their marked and individual characteristics. They were from the South, not from the East, although many men from the latter region came out along the great transcontinental railway lines and joined them in their northern migration. They were not dwellers in towns, and from the nature of their indus- try lived as far apart from each other as possible. In choosing new ranges, old cow-hands, who are also seasoned plainsmen, are invariably sent ahead, perhaps a year in advance, to spy out the land and pick the best places. One of these may go by himself, or more often, especially if they have to penetrate little known or entirely unknown tracts, two or three will go together, the owner or manager of the herd himself being one of them. Perhaps their herds may already be on the border of the wild and unin- habited country : in that case they may have to take but a few days' jour- ney before finding the stretches of sheltered, long-grass land that they seek. For instance, when I wished to move my own elkhorn steer brand on to a new ranch I had to spend barely a week in traveling north among THE CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE FAR WEST 3 the Little Missouri Bad Lands before finding what was then untrodden ground far outside the range of any of my neighbors' cattle. But if a large outfit is going to shift its quarters it must go much farther ; and both AN EXPLORING OUTFIT. the necessity and the chance for long wanderings were especially great when the final overthrow of the northern Horse Indians opened the whole Upper Missouri basin at one sweep to the stockmen. Then the advance- guards or explorers, each on one horse and leading another with food and bedding, were often absent months at a time, threading their way through the trackless wastes of plain, plateau, and river-bottom. If possible they would choose a country that would be good for winter and summer alike ; but often this could not be done, and then they would try to find a well- watered tract on which the cattle could be summered, and from which they 1 RANCH Lll'E AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL could be driven in tall to their sheltered winter range — for the cattle in winter eat snow, and an entirely waterless region, if broken, and with good pasturage, is often the best possible winter ground, as it is sure not to have been eaten off at all during the summer; while in the bottoms the grass is always cropped down soonest. Many outfits regularly shift their herds every spring and fall ; but with us in the Bad Lands all we do, when cold weather sets in, is to drive our beasts off the scantily grassed river- bottom back ten miles or more among the broken buttes and plateaus of the uplands to where the brown hay, cured on the stalk, stands thick in the winding coulees. These lookouts or forerunners having returned, the herds are set in motion as early in the spring as may be, so as to get on the ground in time to let the travel-worn beasts rest and tjain flesh before winter sets in. Each herd is accompanied by a dozen, or a score, or a couple of score, of cowboys, according to its size, and beside it rumble and jolt the heavy four-horse wagons that hold the food and bedding of the men and the few implements they will need at the end of their journey. As long as possi- ble they follow the trails made by the herds that have already traveled in the same direction, and when these end they strike out for themselves. In the Upper Missouri basin, the pioneer herds soon had to scatter out and each find its own way among the great dreary solitudes, creeping carefully along so that the cattle should not be overdriven and should have water at the halting-places. An outfit might thus be months on its lonely journey, slowly making its way over melancholy, pathless plains, or down the valleys of the lonely rivers. It was tedious, harassing work, as the weary cattle had to be driven carefully and quietly during the day and strictly guarded at night, with a perpetual watch kept for Indians or white horse-thieves. Often they would skirt the edges of the streams for days at a time, seeking for a ford or a good swimming crossing, and if the water was up and the quicksand deep the danger to the riders was serious and the risk of loss among the cattle very great. At last, after days of excitement and danger and after months of weary, monotonous toil, the chosen ground is reached and the final camp pitched. The footsore animals are turned loose to shift for themselves, outlying camps of two or three men each being established to hem them in. Meanwhile the primitive ranch-house, out-buildings, and corrals are built, the unhewn cottonwood logs being chinked with moss and mud, while the roofs are of branches covered with dirt, spades and axes being the only tools needed for the work. Bunks, chairs, and tables are all home-made, and as rough as the houses they are in. The supplies of coarse, rude food THE CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE FAR WEST THE MIDDAY MEAL. are carried perhaps two or three hundred miles from the nearest town, either in the ranch-wagons or else by some regular freighting outfit, the huge canvas-topped prairie schooners of which are each drawn by several yoke of oxen, or perhaps by six or eight mules. To guard against the numerous mishaps of prairie travel, two or three of these prairie schooners usually go together, the brawny teamsters, known either as "bull-whack- ers " or as " mule-skinners," stalking beside their slow-moving teams. The small outlying camps are often tents, or mere dug-outs in the ground. But at the main ranch there will be a cluster of log buildings, including a separate cabin for the foreman or ranchman ; often another in which to cook and eat ; a long house for the men to sleep in ; stables, sheds, a blacksmith's shop, etc., — the whole group forming quite a little settlement, with the corrals, the stacks of natural hay, and the patches of fenced land for gardens or horse pastures. This little settlement may be situated right out in the treeless, nearly level open, but much more often is placed in the partly wooded bottom of a creek or river, sheltered by the usual background of somber brown hills. 6 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL When the northern plains began to be settled, such a ranch would at first be absolutely alone in the wilderness, but others of the same sort were sure soon to be established within twenty or thirty miles on one side or the other. The lives of the men in such places were strangely cut off trom the outside world, and, indeed, the same is true to a hardly less extent at the present day. Sometimes the wagons are sent for provisions, and the beef-steers are at stated times driven off for shipment. Parties ot hunters and trappers call now and then. More rarely small bands of emigrants go by in search of new homes, impelled by the restless, aimless craving for change so deeply grafted in the breast of the American bor- derer: the white-topped wagons are loaded with domestic goods, with sallow, dispirited-looking women, and with tow-headed children; while the gaunt, moody frontiersmen slouch alongside, rifle on shoulder, lank, homely, uncouth, and yet with a curious suggestion of grim strength under- lying it all. Or cowboys from neighboring ranches will ride over, looking lor lost horses, or seeing if their cattle have strayed off the range. But this is all. Civilization seems as remote as if we were living in an age long past. The whole existence is patriarchal in character : it is the life of men who live in the open, who tend their herds on horseback, who go armed and ready to guard their lives by their own prowess, whose wants are very simple, and who call no man master. Ranching is an occupation like those of vigorous, primitive pastoral peoples, having little in common with the humdrum, workaday business world of the nineteenth century ; and the free ranchman in his manner of life shows more kinship to an Arab sheik than to a sleek city merchant or tradesman. By degrees the country becomes what in a stock-raising region passes tor well settled. In addition to the great ranches smaller ones are estab- lished, with a few hundred, or even a few score, head of cattle apiece ; and now and then miserable farmers straggle in to fight a losing and desperate battle with drought, cold, and grasshoppers. The wheels of the heavy wagons, driven always over the same course from one ranch to another, or to the remote frontier towns from which they get their goods, wear ruts in the soil, and roads are soon formed, perhaps originally follow- ing the deep trails made by the vanished buffalo. These roads lead down the river-bottoms or along the crests of the divides or else strike out fairly across the prairie, and a man may sometimes journey a hundred miles along one without coming to a house or a camp of any sort. If they lead to a shipping point whence the beeves are sent to market, the cattle, traveling in single file, will have worn many and deep paths on each side of the wheel-marks ; and the roads between important places which are THE CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE FAR WEST 7 regularly used either by the United States Government, by stage-coach lines, or by freight teams become deeply worn landmarks — as, for in- stance, near us, the Deadvvood and the old Fort Keogh trails. Cattle-ranching can only be carried on in its present form while the population is scanty; and so in stock-raising regions, pure and simple, there are usually few towns, and these are almost always at the shipping points for cattle. But, on the other hand, wealthy cattlemen, like miners who have done well, ahvays spend their money freely ; and accordingly towns like Denver, Cheyenne, and Helena, where these two classes are the most influential in the community, are far pleasanter places of residence than cities of five times their population in the exclusively agricultural States to the eastward. A true "cow town" is worth seeing, — such a one as Miles City, for instance, especially at the time of the annual meeting of the great Mon- tana Stock-raisers' Association. Then the whole place is full to over- flowing, the importance of the meeting and the fun of the attendant frolics, especially the horse-races, drawing from the surrounding ranch country many hundreds of men of every degree, from the rich stock-owner worth his millions to the ordinary cowboy who works for forty dollars a month. It would be impossible to imagine a more typically American assemblage, for although there are always a certain number of foreigners, usually English, Irish, or German, yet they have become completely American- ized; and on the whole it would be difficult to gather a finer body of men, in spite of their numerous shortcomings. The ranch-owners differ more from each other than do the cowboys ; and the former certainly compare very favorably with similar classes of capitalists in the East. Anything more foolish than the demagogic outcry against "cattle kings" it would be difficult to imagine. Indeed, there are very few businesses so abso- lutely legitimate as stock-raising and so beneficial to the nation at large ; and a successful stock-grower must not only be shrewd, thrifty, patient, and enterprising, but he must also possess qualities of personal bravery, hardihood, and self-reliance to a degree not demanded in the least by any mercantile occupation in a community long settled. Stockmen are in the West the pioneers of civilization, and their daring and adventurousness make the after settlement of the region possible. The w^hole country owes them a great debt. The most successful ranchmen are those, usually South-westerners, who have been bred to the business and have grown up with it; but many Eastern men, including not a few college graduates, have also done excellently by devoting their w^hole time and energy to their work, — 8 RANCH LIFE AND THK HUNTING-TRAIL although Easterners who invest their money in cattle without knowing anything of the business, or who trust all to their subordinates, are natu- rally enough likel)- to incur heavy losses. Stockmen are learning more THE OUTL\ i;,i. LAMl', and more to act together ; and certainly the meetings of their associations are conducted with a dignity and good sense that would do credit to any parliamentary body. But the cowboys resemble one another much more and outsiders much less than is the case even with their employers, the ranchmen. A town in the cattle country, when for some cause it is thronged with men from the neighborhood, always presents a picturesque sight. On the wooden sidewalks of the broad, dusty streets the men who ply the various industries known only to frontier existence jostle one another as they saunter to and fro or lounge lazily in front of the straggling, cheap-look- ing board houses. Hunters come in from the plains and the mountains, clad in buckskin shirts and fur caps, greasy and unkempt, but with resolute faces and sullen, watchful eyes, that are ever on the alert. The teamsters, surly and self-contained, wear slouch hats and great cowhide boots ; while the stage-drivers, their faces seamed by the hardship and exposure of their long drives with every kind of team, through every kind of THE CATTLE COUNIRY OF rilK FAR WEST n country, and in every kind of weather, proud of their really wonderful skill as reinsmen and conscious of their high standing in any frontier community, look down on and sneer at the "skin hunters" and the plodding drivers of the white-topped prairie schooners. Besides these there are trappers, and wolfers, whose business is to poison wolves, with shaggy, knock-kneed ponies to carry their small bales and bundles of furs — beaver, wolf, fox, and occasionally otter; and silent sheep-herders, with cast-down faces, never able to forget the absolute solitude and monotony of their dreary lives, nor to rid their minds of the thought of the woolly idiots they pass all their days in tending. Such are the men who have come to town, either on business or else to frequent the flaunting saloons and gaudy hells of all kinds in search of the coarse, vicious excitement that in the minds of many of them does duty as pleasure — the only form of pleasure they have ever had a chance to know. Indians too, wrapped in blankets, with stolid, emotionless faces, stalk silently round among the whites, or join in the gambling and horse- racing. If the town is on the borders of the mountain country, there will also be sinewy lumbermen, rough-looking miners, and packers, whose business it is to guide the long mule and pony trains that go where wagons can not and whose work in packing needs special and peculiar skill ; and mingled with and drawn from all these classes are desperadoes of every grade, from the gambler up through the horse-thief to the mur- derous professional bully, or, as he is locally called, ''bad man" — now, however, a much less conspicuous object than formerly. But everywhere among these plainsmen and mountain-men, and more important than any, are the cowboys, — the men who follow the calling that has brought such towns into being. Singly, or in twos or threes, they gallop their wiry little horses down the street, their lithe, supple fig- ures erect or swaying slightly as they sit loosely in the saddle; while their stirrups are so long that their knees are hardly bent, the bridles not taut enough to keep the chains from clanking. They are smaller and less muscular than the wielders of ax and pick ; but they are as hardy and self-reliant as any men who ever breathed — with bronzed, set faces, and keen eyes that look all the world straight in the face without flinch- ing as they flash out from under the broad-brimmed hats. Peril and hardship, and years of long toil broken by weeks of brutal dissipation, draw haggard lines across their eager faces, but never dim their reckless eyes nor break their bearing of defiant self-confidence. They do not walk well, partly because they so rarely do any work out of the saddle, partly because their chaperajos or leather overalls hamper them when on IQ RAXril LIFE AND THE HUNTING- TRAIL the ground ; but their appearance is striking for all that, and picturesque too, w ith their jingling spurs, the big revolvers stuck in their belts, and bright silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely round their necks over the open collars of the flannel shirts. When drunk on the villainous whisky of the frontier towns, they cut mad antics, riding their horses into the saloons, firing their pistols right and left, from boisterous light-heartedness rather than from any viciousness, and indulging too often in deadly shooting affrays, brought on either by the accidental contact of the moment or on account of some long-standing grudge, or perhaps because of bad blood between two ranches or localities ; but except while on such sprees they are quiet, rather self-contained men, perfectly frank and simple, and on their own ground treat a stranger with the most whole-souled hospitality, doing all in their power for him and scorning to take any reward in return. Although prompt to resent an injury, they are not at all apt to be rude to outsiders, treating them with what can almost be called a grave court- esy. They are much better fellow^s and pleasanter companions than small farmers or agricultural laborers ; nor are the mechanics and workmen of a great city to be mentioned in the same breath. The bulk of the cowboys themselves are South-westerners ; but there are also many from the Eastern and the Northern States, who, if they begin young, do quite as well as the Southerners. The best hands are fairly bred to the work and follow it from their youth up. Nothing can be more foolish than for an Easterner to think he can become a cowboy in a few months' time. Many a young fellow comes out hot with enthusiasm for life on the plains, only to learn that his clumsiness is greater than he could have believed possible ; that the cowboy business is like any other and has to be learned by serving a painful apprenticeship ; and that this apprenticeship implies the endurance of rough fare, hard living, dirt, exposure of every kind, no little toil, and month after month of the dull- est monotony. For cowboy work there is need of special traits and special training, and young Easterners should be sure of themselves before trying it: the struggle for existence is very keen in the far West, and it is no place for men who lack the ruder, coarser virtues and physical qualities, no matter how intellectual or how refined and delicate their sensibilities. Such are more likely to fail there than in older communities. Probably during the past few years more than half of the young Eastern- ers who have come West with a little money to learn the cattle business have failed signally and lost what they had in the beginning. The West, especially the far West, needs men who have been bred on the farm or in the workshop far more than it does clerks or college graduates. THE CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE FAR WEST I I COWBOY FUN. Some of the cowboys are Mexicans, who generally do the actual work well enough, but are not trustworthy ; moreover, they are always regarded with extreme disfavor by the Texans in an outfit, among whom the intol- erant caste spirit is very strong. Southern-born whites will never work under them, and look down upon all colored or half-caste races. One spring I had with my wagon a Pueblo Indian, an excellent rider and roper, but a drunken, worthless, lazy devil; and in the summer of 1886 there were with us a Sioux half-breed, a quiet, hard-working, faithful fellow, and a mulatto, who was one of the best cow-hands in the whole round-up. 12 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL Cowboys, like most Westerners, occasionally show remarkable versa- tilit)- in their tastes and pursuits. One whom I know has abandoned his regular occupation tor the past nine months, during which time he has been in succession a bartender, a school-teacher, and a probate judge ! Anodicr. wiioin 1 once employed for a short while, had passed through even more varied experiences, including those ot a barber, a sailor, an apothecary, and a buftalo-hunter. As a rule the cowboys are known to each other only by their first names, with, perhaps, as a prefix, the title of the brand for which they are working. Thus I remember once overhearing a casual remark to the effect that "Bar Y Harry" had married "the Seven Open A girl," the latter being the daughter of a neighboring ranchman. Often they receive IN A HUG-HuLK. nicknames, as, for instance, Dutch Wannigan, Windy Jack, and Kid Williams, all of whom are on the list of my personal acquaintances. No man traveling through or living in the country need fear molesta- tion from the cowboys unless he himself accompanies them on their drink- ing-bouts, or in other ways plays the fool, for they are, with us at any rate, very good fellows, and the most determined and effective foes of real law-breakers, such as horse and cattle thieves, murderers, etc. Few THE CATTLE COUNTRY OF THE FAR WEST 1 -. of the outrages quoted in Eastern papers as their handiwork are such in reahty, the average Easterner apparently considering every individual who wears a broad hat and carries a six-shooter a cowboy. These outrages are, as a rule, the work of the roughs and criminals who always gather on the outskirts of civilization, and who infest every frontier town until the decent citizens become sufficiently numerous and determined to take the law into their own hands and drive them out. The old buffalo- hunters, who formed a distinct class, became powerful forces for evil once they had destroyed the vast herds of mighty beasts the pursuit of which had been their means of livelihood. They were absolutely shiftless and improvident ; they had no settled habits ; they were inured to peril and hardship, but entirely unaccustomed to steady work ; and so they afforded just the ma- terials from which to make the bolder and more desperate kinds of crim- inals. When the game was gone they hung round the settlements for some little time, and then many of them naturally took to horse-stealing, cattle-killing, and highway robbery, although others, of course, went into honest pursuits. They were men who died off rapidly, however ; for it is curious to see how many of these plainsmen, in spite of their iron nerves and thews, have their constitutions completely undermined, as much by the terrible hardships they have endured as by the fits of prolonged and bestial revelry with which they have varied them. The "bad men," or professional fighters and man-killers, are of a different stamp, quite a number of them being, according to their light, perfectly honest. These are the men who do most of the killing in fron- tier communities ; yet it is a noteworthy fact that the men who are killed generally deserve their fate. These men are, of course, used to brawling, and are not only sure shots, but, what is equally important, able to "draw" their weapons with marvelous quickness. They think nothing whatever of murder, and are the dread and terror of their associates ; yet they are very chary of taking the life of a man of good standing, and will often weaken and back down at once if confronted fearlessly. With many of them their courage arises from confidence in their own powers and knowl- edge of the fear in which they are held ; and men of this type often show the white feather when they get in a tight place. Others, however, will face any odds without flinching; and I have known of these men fighting, when mortally wounded, with a cool, ferocious despair that was terrible. As elsewhere, so here, very quiet men are often those who in an emer- gency show themselves best able to hold their own. These despera- does always try to "get the drop" on a foe — that is, to take him at a disadvantage before he can use his own weapon. I have known more 14 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL men killed in this way, when the affair was wholly one-sided, than I have known to be shot in fair fight ; and I have known fijlly as many who were shot by accident. It is wonderfiil, in the event of a street fight, how few bullets seem to hit the men they are aimed at. During the last two or three years the stockmen have united to put down all these dangerous characters, often by the most summary exercise of lynch law. Notorious bullies and murderers have been taken out and hung, while the bands of horse and cattle thieves have been regularly hunted down and destroyed in pitched fights by parties of armed cowboys ; and as a consequence most of our territory is now perfectly law-abiding. One such fight occurred north of me early last spring. The horse-thieves were overtaken on the banks of the Missouri ; two of their number were slain, and the others were driven on the ice, which broke, and two more were drowned. A few months previously another gang, whose headquarters were near the Canadian line, were surprised in their hut ; two or three were shot down by the cowboys as they tried to come out, while the rest barricaded themselves in and fought until the great log-hut was set on fire, when they broke forth in a body, and nearly all were killed at once, only one or two making their escape. A little over two years ago one committee of vigilantes in eastern Mon- tana shot or hung nearly sixty — not, however, with the best judgment in all cases. OUT ON THE RANGE I' . ■ , I THE BRANDING CHUTK. II Out on the Range STRANGER in the North-western cattle country is especially struck by the resemblance the settlers show- in their pursuits and habits to the Southern people. Nebraska and Dakota, east of the Missouri, resem- ble Minnesota and Iowa and the States farther east, l)ut Montana and the Dakota cow country show more kinship with Texas ; for while elsewhere in America settlement has advanced along the paral- lels of latitude, on the great plains it has followed meridians of longitude and has gone northerly rather than westerly. The business is carried on as it is in the South. The rough-rider of the plains, the hero of rope and revolver, is first cousin to the backwoodsman of the south- ern Alleghanies, the man of the ax and the rifle; he is only a unique offshoot of the frontier stock of the South-west. The very term "round-up" is used by the cowboys in the exact sense in which it is employed by the hill people and mount- aineers of Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, with whom also labor is dear and poor land cheap, and whose few cattle are consequently branded and turned loose in the woods exactly as is done with the great herds on the plains. But the ranching industry itself was copied from the Mexicans, of whose land and herds the South-western frontiersmen of Texas took forcible possession; and the traveler in the North-west will see at a glance that the terms and practices of our business are largely of Spanish origin. The cruel curb-bit and heavy stock-saddle, with its high horn and cande, prove that we have adopted Spanish- American horse-gear; and the broad hat, huge blunt spurs, and leather chaperajos of the rider, as well as the corral in which the stock are penned, all alike show the same ancestry. Throughout the catde country east of the Rocky Mount- l6 RANCH LIFE AM) IHE HUNTING-TRAIL ains, from the Rio Grande to the Saskatchewan, the same terms are in use and the same system is followed ; but on the Pacific slope, in Califor- nia, there are certain small differences, even in nomenclature. Thus, we of the great plains all use the double cinch saddle, with one girth behind the horse's fore legs and another farther back, while Californians prefer one with a single cinch, which seems to us much inferior for stock-work. Again. Californians use the Spanish word "lasso," which with us has been entirely dropped, no plainsman with pretensions to the title thinking of anv word but "rope," either as noun or verb. The rope, whether leather lariat or made of grass, is the one essential feature of every cowboy's equipment. Loosely coiled, it hangs from the horn or is tied to one side of the saddle in front of the thigh, and is used for every conceivable emergency, a twist being taken round the stout saddle- horn the second the noose settles over the neck or around the legs of a chased animal. In helping pull a wagon up a steep pitch, in drag- ging an animal by the horns out of a bog-hole, in hauling logs for the fire, and in a hundred other ways aside from its legitimate purpose, the rope is of invaluable service, and dexterity with it is prized almost or quite as highly as good horsemanship, and is much rarer. Once a cow- boy is a good roper and rider, the only other accomplishment he values is skill with his great army revolver, it being taken for granted that he is already a thorough plainsman and has long mastered the details of cattle- work ; for the best roper and rider alive is of little use unless he is hard- working, honest, keenly alive to his employer's interest, and very careful in the management of the cattle. All cowboys can handle the rope with more or less ease and precision, but great skill in its use is only attained after long practice, and for its highest development needs that the man should have begun in earliest )Outh. Mexicans literally practice from infancy; the boy can hardly tod- dle before he gets a string and begins to render life a burden to the hens, goats, and pigs, A really first-class roper can command his own price, and is usually fit for little but his own special work. It is much the same with riding. The cowboy is an excellent rider in his own way, but his way differs from that of a trained school horseman or cross-country fox-hunter as much as it does from the horsemanship of an Arab or of a Sioux Indian, and, as with all these, it has its special merits and special defects — schoolman, fox-hunter, cowboy, Arab, and Indian being all alike admirable riders in their respective styles, and each cherishing the same profound and ignorant contempt for every method but his own. The flash riders, or horse-breakers, always called "bronco OUT ON THE RANGE busters," can perform really marvelous feats, riding with ease the most vicious and unbroken beasts, that no ordinary cowboy would dare to tackle. Although sitting seemingly so loose in the saddle, such a rider cannot be jarred out of it by the wildest plunges, it being a favorite feat to sit out the antics of a buck- ing horse with silver half-dollars under each knee or in the stirrups under each foot. But their method of breaking is very rough, consist- PULLING A COW OUT OF THE MUD. ing only in saddling and bridling a beast by main force and then riding him, also by main force, until he is exhausted, when he is turned over as "broken." Later on the cowboy himself may train his horse to stop or wheel instantly at a touch of the reins or bit, to start at top speed at a signal, and to stand motionless when left. An intelligent pony soon picks up a good deal of knowledge about the cow business on his own account. All cattle are branded, usually on the hip, shoulder, and side, or on any one of them, with letters, numbers, or figures, in every combination, the outfit being known by its brand. Near me, for instance, are the Three Sevens, the Thistle, the Bellows, the OX, the VI., the Seventy-six Bar (— ), and the Quarter Circle Diamond (^) outfits. The dew-lap and the ears may also be cut, notched, or slit. All brands are registered, and are thus protected against imitators, any man tampering with them being punished as severely as possible. Unbranded animals are called niavci'icks, l8 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL and when found on the round-up are either branded by the owner of the range on which they are, or else are sold for the benefit of the association. At every shipping point, as well as where the beef cattle are received, there are stock inspectors who jealously examine all the brands on the live ani- mals or on the hides of the slaughtered ones, so as to detect any foul pla\-, which is immediately reported to the association. It becomes sec- ond nature with a cowboy to inspect and note the brands of every bunch of animals he comes across. Perhaps the thing that seems strangest to the traveler who for the first time crosses the bleak plains of this Upper Missouri grazing country is the small number of cattle seen. He can hardly believe he is in the great stock region, where for miles upon miles he will not see a single head, and will then come only upon a straggling herd of a few score. As a matter of fact, where there is no artificial food put up for winter use cattle always need a good deal of ground per head ; and this is peculiarly the case with us in the North-west, where much of the ground is bare of vegetation and where what pasture there is is both short and sparse. It is a matter of absolute necessity, where beasts are left to shift for them- selves in the open during the bitter winter weather, that they then should have grass that they have not cropped too far down ; and to insure this it is necessary with us to allow on the average about twenty- five acres of ground to each animal. This means that a range of country ten miles square will keep between two and three thousand head of stock only, and if more are put on, it is at the risk of seeing a severe winter kill off half or three-quarters of the whole number. So a range may be in reality overstocked when to an Eastern and unpracticed eye it seems hardly to have on it a number worth taking into account. Overstocking is the great danger threatening the stock-raising indus- try on the plains. This industry has only risen to be of more than local consequence during the past score of years, as before that time it was confined to Texas and California; but during these two decades of its existence the stockmen in different localities have again and again suffered the most ruinous losses, usually with overstocking as the ultimate cause. In the south the drought, and in the north the deep snows, and everywhere unusually bad winters, do immense damage ; still, if the land is fitted tor stock at all, they will, averaging one year with another, do very well so long as the feed is not cropped down too close. But, of course, no amount of feed will make some countries worth any- thing for cattle that are not housed during the winter ; and stockmen in choosing new ranges for their herds pay almost as much attention to the OUT ON THE RANGE ig capacity of the land for yielding shelter as they do to the abundant and good quality of the grass. High up among the foot-hills of the moun- tains cattle will not live through the winter ; and an open, rolling prairie land of heavy rainfall, where in consequence the snow lies deep and there is no protection from the furious cold winds, is useless for winter grazing, no matter how thick and high the feed. The three essentials for a range are grass, water, and shelter : the water is only needed in summer and the shelter in winter, while it may be doubted if drought during the hot months has ever killed off more cattle than have died of exposure on shelterless ground to the icy weather, lasting from November to April. The finest summer range may be valueless either on account of its lack of shelter or because it is in a region of heavy snowfall — portions of territory lying in the same latitude and not very far apart often differing widely in this respect, or extraordinarily severe weather may cause a heavy death-rate utterly unconnected with overstocking. This was true of the loss that visited the few herds which spent the very hard winter of 1880 on the northern cattle plains. These were the pioneers of their kind, and the grass was all that could be desired ; yet the extraordinary severity of the weather proved too much for the cattle. This was especially the case with those herds consisting of " pilgrims," as they are called — that is, of animals driven up on to the range from the south, and therefore in poor condition. One such herd of pilgrims on the Powder River suffered a loss of thirty-six hundred out of a total of four thousand, and the sur- vivors kept alive only by browsing on the tops of cottonwoods felled for them. Even seasoned animals fared very badly. One great herd in the Yellowstone Valley lost about a fourth of its number, the loss falling mainly on the breeding cows, calves, and bulls, — always the chief sufferers, as the steers, and also the dry cows, will get through almost anything. The loss here would have been far heavier than it was had it not been for a curious trait shown by the cattle. They kept in bands of several hundred each, and during the time of the deep snows a band would make a start and travel several miles in a straight line, plowing their way through the drifts and beating out a broad track ; then, when stopped by a frozen water-course or chain of buttes, they would turn back and graze over the trail thus made, the only place where they could get at the grass. A drenching rain, followed by a severe snap of cold, is even more destructive than deep snow, for the saturated coats of the poor beasts are turned into sheets of icy mail, and the grass-blades, frozen at the roots as well as above, change into sheaves of brittle spears as uneatable as so 20 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUiNTING-TRAH. many icicles. Entire herds have perished in consequence of such a storm. Mere cold, however, will kill only very weak animals, which is fortunate for us, as the spirit in the thermometer during winter often sinks to fifty degrees below zero, the cold being literally arctic ; yet though the cattle become thin during such a snap of weather, and sometimes have their ears, tails, and even horns frozen off, they nevertheless rarely die from the cold alone. But if there is a blizzard blowing at such a time, the cattle A DISPUTE OVER A BRAND. need shelter, and if caught in the open, will travel for scores of miles before the storm, until they reach a break in the ground, or some stretch of dense woodland, which will shield them from the blasts. If cattle trav- eling in this manner come to some obstacle that they cannot pass, as, for instance, a wire fence or a steep railway embankment, they will not try to make their way back against the storm, but will simply stand with their tails to it until they drop dead in their tracks ; and, accordingly, in some parts of the country — but luckily far to the south of us — the railways are fringed with countless skeletons of beasts that have thus perished, while many of the long wire fences make an almost equally bad showing. OUT ON THE RANGE 21 In some of the very open country of Kansas and Indian Territory, many of the herds during the past two years have suffered a loss of from sixty to eighty per cent., although this was from a variety of causes, including drought as well as severe wuiter weather. Too much rain is quite as bad as too little, especially if it falls after the ist of August, for then, though the growth of grass is very rank and luxuriant, it yet has little strength and does not cure well on the stalk ; and it is only possible to winter cattle at large at all because of the way in which the grass turns into natural hay by this curing on the stalk. But scantiness of food, due to overstocking, is the one really great danger to us in the north, who do not have to fear the droughts that occasionally devastate portions of the southern ranges. In a fairly good country, if the feed is plenty, the natural increase of a herd is sure shortly to repair any damage that may be done by an unusually severe winter — unless, indeed, the latter should be one such as occurs but two or three times in a century. When, however, the grass becomes cropped down, then the loss in even an ordinary year is heavy among the weaker animals, and if the winter is at all severe it becomes simply appalling. The snow covers the shorter grass much quicker, and even when there is enough, the cattle, weak and unfit to travel around, have to work hard to get it; their exertions tending to enfeeble them and to render them less able to cope with the exposure and cold. The large patches of brushwood, into which the cattle crowd and which to a small number afford ample shelter and some food, become trodden down and yield neither when the beasts become too plentiful. Again, the grass is, of course, soonest eaten off where there is shelter; and, accordingly, the broken ground to which the animals cling during winter may be grazed bare of vegetation though the open plains, to which only the hardiest will at this season stray, may have plenty ; and insufficiency of food, although not such as actually to starve them, weak- ens them so that they succumb readily to the cold or to one of the numerous accidents to which they are liable — as slipping off an icy butte or getting cast in a frozen washout. The cows in calf are those that suffer most, and so heavy is the loss among these and so light the calf crop that it is yet an open question whether our northern ranges are as a whole fitted for breeding. When the animals get weak they will huddle into some nook or corner and simply stay there till they die. An empty hut, for instance, will often in the spring be found to contain the carcasses of a dozen weak cows or poor steers that have craw'led into it for protection from the cold, and once in have never moved out. Overstocking may cause little or no harm for two or three years, but 22 RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL sooner or later there comes a winter which means ruin to the ranches that have too many cattle on them ; and in our country, which is even now getting" crowded, it is merely a question of time as to when a winter will come that will understock the ranges by the summary process of killing oft' about half of all the cattle throughout the North-west.* The herds that have just been put on suffer most in such a case; if they have come on late and are composed of weak animals, very few indeed, perhaps not ten per cent., will survive. The cattle that have been double or single wintered do better; while a range-raised steer is almost as tough as a buffalo. In our northern country we have "free grass"; that is, the stockmen rarely own more than small portions of the land over which their cattle range, the bulk of it being unsurveyed and still the property of the Na- tional Government — for the latter refuses to sell the soil except in small lots, acting on the wise principle of distributing it among as many owners as possible. Here and there some ranchman has acquired title to narrow strips of territory peculiarly valuable as giving water-right ; but the amount of land thus occupied is small with us, — although the reverse is the case farther south, — and there is practically no fencing to speak ol. As a consequence, the land is one vast pasture, and the man who over- stocks his own range damages his neighbors as much as himself. These huge northern pastures are too dry and the soil too poor to be used lor agriculture until the rich, wet lands to the east and west are occupied ; and at present we have little to fear from grangers. Of course, in the end much of the ground will be taken up for small farms, but the farmers that so far have come in have absolutely failed to make even a living, except now and then by raising a few vegetables for the use of the stockmen ; and we are inclined to welcome the incoming of an occasional settler, if he is a decent man, especially as, by the laws of the Territories in which the great grazing plains lie, he is obliged to fence in his own patch of cleared ground, and we do not have to keep our cattle out of it. At present we are far more afraid of each other. There are always plenty of men who for the sake of the chance of gain they themselves run are willing to jeopardize the interests of their neighbors by putting on more cattle than the land will support — for the loss, of course, falls as heavily on the man who has put on the right number as on him who has put on too many; and it is against these individuals that we have to guard so far as we are able. To protect ourselves completely is impossi- ble, but the very identity of interest that renders all of us liable to suffer * Written in the fall of 18H6; the ensuing winter exactly fulfilled the prophecy. 24 RANCH LibE AM) I'HE HU Nl'lNG -TRAIL for the fault of a few also renders us as a whole able to take some rough measures to guard against the wrong-doing of a portion of our number ; for the fact that the cattle wander intermixed over the rangfes forces all the ranchmen of a locality to combine if they wish to do their work effectively. Accordingl)-, the stockmen of a neighborhood, when it holds as many cattle as it safely can, usually unitedly refuse to work with any one who puts in another herd. In the cow country a man is peculiarly dependent upon his neighbors, and a small outfit is wholly unable to work without their assistance when once the cattle have mingled completely with those of other brands. A large outfit is much more master of its destiny, and can do its own work quite by itself; but even such a one can be injured in countless ways if the hostility of the neighboring ranchmen is incurred. The best days of ranching are over ; and though there are many ranchmen who still make money, yet during the past two or three years the majorit)- have certainly lost. This is especially true of the numerous Easterners who went into the business without any experience and trusted themselves entirely to their Western representatives ; although, on the other hand, many of those who have made most money at it are East- erners, who, however, have happened to be naturally fitted for the work and who have deliberately settled down to learning the business as they would have learned any other, devoting their whole time and energy to it. Stock-raising, as now carried on, is characteristic of a young and wild land. As the country grows older, it will in some places die out, and in others entirely change its character ; the ranches will be broken up, will be gradually modified into stock-farms, or, if on good soil, may even fall under the sway of the husbandman. In its present form stock-raising on the plains is doomed, and can hardly outlast the century. The great free ranches, with their barbarous, picturesque, and curiously fascinating surroundings, mark a primitive stage of existence as surely as do the great tracts of primeval forests, and like the latter must pass away before the onward march of our people ; and we who have felt the charm of the life, and have exulted in its abound- ing vigor and its bold, restless freedom, will not only regret its passing for our own sakes, but must also feel real sorrow that those who come after us are not to see, as we have seen, what is perhaps the pleasantest, healthiest, and most exciting phase of American existence. THE HOME RANCH PONIES PAWING IN THE SNOW. Ill The Home Ranch Y home ranch Hes on both sides of the Little Missouri, the nearest ranchman above me being about twelve, and the nearest below me about ten, miles distant. The general course of the stream here is northerly, but, while flowing through my ranch, it takes a great westerly reach of some three miles, walled in, as always, between chains of steep, high bluffs half a mile or more apart. The stream twists down through the valley in long sweeps, leaving oval wooded bottoms, first on one side and then on the other ; and in an open glade among the thick-growing timber stands the long, low house of hewn logs. Just in front of the ranch veranda is a line of old cottonwoods that shade it during the fierce heats of summer, rendering it always cool and pleasant. But a few feet beyond these trees comes the cut-off bank of the river, through whose broad, sandy bed the shallow stream winds as if lost, except when a freshet fills it from brim to brim with foaming yellow water. The bluffs that wall in the river-valley curve back in semicircles, rising from its alluvial bottom generally as abrupt cliffs, but often as steep, grassy slopes that lead up to great level plateaus ; and the line is broken every mile or two by the entrance of a coulee, or dry creek, whose head branches may be twenty miles back. Above us, where the river comes round the bend, the valley is very narrow, and the high buttes bounding it rise, sheer and barren, into scalped hill-peaks and naked knife-blade ridges. The other buildings stand in the same open glade with the ranch house, the dense growth of cottonwoods and matted, thorny underbrush making a wall all about, through which we have chopped our wagon roads and trodden out our own bridle-paths. The cattle have now trampled down this brush a little, but deer still lie in it, only a couple of hundred yards from the house ; and from the door sometimes in the evening one 2b RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING -TRAIL can see them peer out into the open, or make their way clown, timidly and cautiously, to drink at the river. The stable, sheds, and other out- buildings, with the hayricks and the pens for such cattle as we bring in during winter, are near the house ; the patch of fenced garden land is on the edoe of the woods ; and near the middle of the sflade stands the high, circular horse-corral, with a snubbing-post in the center, and a wing built out from one side of the gate entrance, so that the saddle-band can be driven in without trouble. As it is very hard to work cattle where there is much brush, the larger cow-corral is some four miles off on an open bottom. A ranchman's life is certainly a very pleasant one, albeit generally varied with plenty of hardship and anxiety. Although occasionally he passes days of severe toil, — for example, if he goes on the round-up he works as hard as any of his men, — yet he no longer has to undergo the monotonous drudgery attendant upon the tasks of the cowboy or of the apprentice in the business. His fare is simple ; but, if he chooses, it is good enough. Many ranches are provided with nothing at all but salt pork, canned goods, and bread; indeed, it is a curious fact that in traveling through the cow country it is often impossible to get any milk or butter ; but this is only because the owners or managers are too lazy to take enough trouble to insure their own comfort. We ourselves always keep up two or three cows, choos- ing such as are naturally tame, and so we invari- ably have plenty of milk and, when there is time for churning, a good deal of butter. We also keep hens, which, in spite of the damaging inroads of hawks, bob-cats, and foxes, supply us with eggs, and in time of need, when our rifles have failed to keep us in game, with stewed, roast, or fried chicken also. From our garden we get potatoes, and unless drought, frost, or grasshoppers THE HOME RANCH 27 interfere (which they do about every second year), other ve