We were to have had a grand cattle hunt
yesterday, beginning at 6:30, but the horses were all lost.
Often out of fifty horses all that are worth anything are
marauding, and a day is lost in hunting for them in the canyons.
However, before daylight this morning Evans called through my
door, "Miss Bird, I say we've got to drive cattle fifteen miles,
I wish you'd lend a hand; there's not enough of us; I'll give you
a good horse."
The scene of the drive is at a height of 7,500 feet, watered by
two rapid rivers. On all sides mountains rise to an altitude of
from 11,000 to 15,000 feet, their skirts shaggy with pitch-pine
forests, and scarred by deep canyons, wooded and boulder strewn,
opening upon the mountain pasture previously mentioned. Two
thousand head of half-wild Texan cattle are scattered in herds
throughout the canyons, living on more or less suspicious terms
with grizzly and brown bears, mountain lions, elk, mountain
sheep, spotted deer, wolves, lynxes, wild cats, beavers, minks,
skunks, chipmunks, eagles, rattlesnakes, and all the other
two-legged, four-legged, vertebrate, and invertebrate inhabitants
of this lonely and romantic region. On the whole, they show a
tendency rather to the habits of wild than of domestic cattle.
They march to water in Indian file, with the bulls leading, and
when threatened, take strategic advantage of ridgy ground,
slinking warily along in the hollows, the bulls acting as
sentinels, and bringing up the rear in case of an attack from
dogs. Cows have to be regularly broken in for milking, being as
wild as buffaloes in their unbroken state; but, owing to the
comparative dryness of the grasses, and the system of allowing
the calf to have the milk during the daytime, a dairy of 200 cows
does not produce as much butter as a Devonshire dairy of fifty.
Some "necessary" cruelty is involved in the stockman's business,
however humane he may be. The system is one of terrorism, and
from the time that the calf is bullied into the branding pen, and
the hot iron burns into his shrinking flesh, to the day when the
fatted ox is driven down from his boundless pastures to be
slaughtered in Chicago, "the fear and dread of man" are upon him.
The herds are apt to penetrate the savage canyons which come down
from the Snowy Range, when they incur a risk of being snowed up
and starved, and it is necessary now and then to hunt them out
and drive them down to the "park." On this occasion, the whole
were driven down for a muster, and for the purpose of branding
the calves.
After a 6:30 breakfast this morning, we started, the party being
composed of my host, a hunter from the Snowy Range, two stockmen
from the Plains, one of whom rode a violent buck-jumper, and was
said by his comrade to be the "best rider in North Americay,"
and myself. We were all mounted on Mexican saddles, rode, as the
custom is, with light snaffle bridles, leather guards over our
feet, and broad wooden stirrups, and each carried his lunch in a
pouch slung on the lassoing horn of his saddle. Four big,
badly-trained dogs accompanied us. It was a ride of nearly
thirty miles, and of many hours, one of the most splendid I ever
took. We never got off our horses except to tighten the girths,
we ate our lunch with our bridles knotted over saddle horns,
started over the level at full gallops, leapt over trunks of
trees, dashed madly down hillsides rugged with rocks or strewn
with great stones, forded deep, rapid streams, saw lovely lakes
and views of surpassing magnificence, startled a herd of elk with
uncouth heads and in the chase, which for some time was
unsuccessful, rode to the very base of Long's Peak, over 14,000
feet high, where the bright waters of one of the affluents of the
Platte burst from the eternal snows through a canyon of
indescribable majesty. The sun was hot, but at a height of over
8,000 feet the air was crisp and frosty, and the enjoyment of
riding a good horse under such exhilarating circumstances was
extreme. In one wild part of the ride we had to come down a
steep hill, thickly wooded with pitch pines, to leap over the
fallen timber, and steer between the dead and living trees to
avoid being "snagged," or bringing down a heavy dead branch by an
unwary touch.
Emerging from this, we caught sight of a thousand Texan cattle
feeding in a valley below. The leaders scented us, and, taking
fright, began to move off in the direction of the open "park,"
while we were about a mile from and above them. "Head them off,
boys!" our leader shouted; "all aboard; hark away!" and with
something of the "High, tally-ho in the morning!" away we all
went at a hard gallop down-hill. I could not hold my excited
animal; down-hill, up-hill, leaping over rocks and timber, faster
every moment the pace grew, and still the leader shouted, "Go it,
boys!" and the horses dashed on at racing speed, passing and
repassing each other, till my small but beautiful bay was keeping
pace with the immense strides of the great buck-jumper ridden by
"the finest rider in North Americay," and I was dizzied and
breathless by the pace at which we were going. A shorter time
than it takes to tell it brought us close to and abreast of the
surge of cattle. The bovine waves were a grand sight: huge
bulls, shaped like buffaloes, bellowed and roared, and with great
oxen and cows with yearling calves, galloped like racers, and we
galloped alongside of them, and shortly headed them and in no
time were placed as sentinels across the mouth of the valley.
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