It was very disagreeable, very annoying, and _very_ cold; and my clothes beginning to freeze on me, I started for camp at a brisk walk.
Just as the sun was going down I pa.s.sed near to where the turkeys had flown off to roost. It struck me that by watching there a short time I might see them return to the same or a neighboring roost, knowing they often do so. This, however, was very cold work, my clothes being in a half-dried, half-frozen condition; and I was just going to give it up, when I heard the faint distant report of a rifle. The sound redoubled my attention, since I supposed that game was stirring.
In a few minutes I heard the quick sharp alarm call of the turkey, the unmistakable pit-pit, and saw four of them sail off from the edge of the cliff, at about sixty yards" distance from me, into the top branches of the trees forming one of the groups in the valley below. Drawing gently back, and keeping as much as possible under cover, I made my way down into the valley, and started in the direction of the grove of trees in which the turkeys had settled.
It was getting dark, and I had gone but a short way, when, at a distance of about two hundred yards in front, a most extraordinary-looking object presented itself to my view. It looked like a hayc.o.c.k on legs with the handle of a pitchfork sticking out of it; it was steadily advancing through the gloom to where I stood, and arrived quite close to me before I could quite make out what it was. It proved to be my companion, with two turkeys tied together by the legs and slung over his shoulder across his rifle. The wind coming up the valley and blowing the feathers out in all directions had given the turkeys in the gloaming the extraordinary appearance that had astonished me so much. I gave a low whistle, and he joined me; I pointed to the turkeys in the trees. He dropped those he already had, hung them up out of wolf reach, and together we cautiously crept under the four roosting turkeys.
The light was very bad for rifle-shooting, but our front sights were of ivory, and our birds were skyed; so drawing the best beads we could, we fired simultaneously, and with great success, two fine birds dropping dead at our feet,--the others making off.
We congratulated each other, and started for camp with four fat turkeys,--and fat indeed they were, for they had been feeding all autumn on walnuts, hickory-nuts, grapes, sweet acorns, and pinons, at--or rather I suspect without--discretion.
We had a long trudge home, the turkeys getting apparently heavier every mile. As we tramped along my companion related his day"s experience.
About noon he had come upon the fresh tracks of some turkeys feeding along one of the ridges, and had followed the birds until within about three hours of sunset, when, on peeping into an open glade, he saw fourteen of them scattered over it, picking up seeds and strutting about. As the turkeys seemed to be approaching him, he lay quite still, watching them through the thicket which concealed him. Ultimately they got quite close, giving many fair opportunities to shoot one. But he was determined not to fire unless necessary, preferring to wait for an occasion to present itself enabling him to kill two at one shot,--a very rare chance to obtain. He said it was most interesting to lie there at his ease and watch the motions and movements of the birds as they fed about and spread themselves in fancied security. At last his opportunity came, and firing without a moment"s delay, he floored his birds, taking the head of the nearest clean off, and shooting the farther one through the body at the b.u.t.t of his wings. This was the shot I had heard. I then told him what I had seen, and what had befallen me, and we got home quite done up, but rejoicing at our good luck.
Supper was waiting, and this meal, a blazing fire, and the pipe of peace, recruited us after our fatigues.
We had been very careful and sparing in the use of our spirits, not knowing how long it might be before we should be able to get a fresh supply, or what necessity might arise for their use; but this was considered an occasion when the flowing bowl ought to be indulged in, so grogs all round were mixed and our success celebrated. When this interesting ceremony had been concluded, my companion remarked to me, "Our luck has evidently turned, and, as gamblers always do, we ought to press our good fortune while it lasts. We have got our Christmas turkeys; no doubt the buck you followed is destined to grace our Christmas dinner. I am the man to kill it. Daylight shall see me on his track. You will behold my face no more until I return with the haunches of the big buck." Then he turned in and I quickly followed his example.
At the time I had not the remotest idea that my comrade really intended to put his threat into execution; I thought he was "ga.s.sing," and put it down to the credit of the flowing bowl.
Next morning I awoke at my usual time,--daybreak,--got out of my blankets, arose, stirred the fire into a great blaze and turned my back to it to get a good warm. I looked for my companion,--his blankets were empty; I glanced towards the arms,--his rifle and belt were gone; I felt his blankets,--they were cold. He had consequently been gone for some time.
I made a cast round, and struck his fresh tracks going in the direction of our last day"s tramp. He had "gone for" the big buck. For my part, I was too tired to stir that day. Though then as hard as nails, and in first-rate condition and training, I was thoroughly done up and quite stiff--"played out"--with the previous day"s wetting and walking, so remained in camp, and spent the time in helping to make the plum-pudding, dress and stuff the turkeys, and in resting,--princ.i.p.ally in resting.
Night came, but not my comrade. I was not exactly uneasy about him, for he was a first-rate hunter and mountaineer; but many are the unexpected accidents that may happen to a lone wanderer in the wilderness.
I piled the wood on the fire and sat waiting for him until near midnight. Then I began to think I was foolish to do so, and had better go to sleep. Just as I was turning in the dogs ran out, frisking and capering, into the darkness. I heard the whistle of my comrade, and he strode into the light of the camp-fire. On his back, in a sling extemporized out of the skin of the deer, were the hind-quarters of a big buck. It was not yet twelve, and though a close shave on being Christmas-day, our bill of fare was filled. Some more flowing bowl.
At breakfast the following day my companion narrated to us the story of his late hunt, as nearly as may be, in the following words:
He said, "By daylight I was where you came to grief by breaking through the ice, with this difference, that I was upon the other side of the creek, having crossed it higher up by means of a beaver dam. Being a cold trail, I pushed ahead sharply, keeping a good lookout, and in a little over two hours came to where the buck had lain down to pa.s.s the dark of the night. There being no morning moon, I knew he had not stirred before sunrise, and might, therefore, be browsing, or standing under some tree quite near; so continued my way most cautiously, never following the tracks when they crossed an open, unless obliged to do so on account of the ground being frozen hard, so that it often took me a long time to get his trail again after leaving it; but I knew, if the buck once saw or got a sniff of me, he might run ten miles without stopping.
"About eleven o"clock I sighted him. I was peeping cautiously out of a thicket, at whose edge I had just arrived, into a large park-like glade, and saw him under a big white-oak-tree, eating the acorns. There was no cover between me and where the buck stood, so I could not risk trying to get nearer to him except by making a long detour, and the nearest edge of the timber I was in was too far off him to risk a shot from. There was, therefore, nothing for it but to sit down and wait until he pleased to move on or lie down, and so give me a chance to get nearer. Being hungry, I utilized the time by eating my luncheon, and then fell to smoking. Well, he kept me there over an hour, and then started off in a straight line in a trot. As he took a bee-line for the river, I knew what he was after: he was going to take his "little drink." I, too, should have liked to indulge in a little drink, to wash down my luncheon.
"As soon as the buck was well under way I started at the double, on a parallel course, hoping to get a shot at him in the river"s bottom. I crossed the open ground of a valley in a bend that was above and out of sight of the course he was taking, got into the cover along the river"s bank, and followed it down, but saw nothing of him. By and by I came to where the buck had drunk. He had there crossed the river and gone straight on at a long easy trot towards the Sierra Verde.
"Should he intend going up the mountain my chance of seeing him again that day was over; if he was going to feed in the pinon ridges, then careful stalking and the avoidance of all mistakes would make him my meat. I could not afford to lose time by going to a beaver dam to cross, so at once peeled and waded over.
"After going about two miles, the buck"s tracks showed he had subsided into a walk, and then almost immediately turned, to my great satisfaction, into the pinon-ridge country, in which, after about an hour"s careful stalking, I sighted him again. He was strolling along, feeding; but it was getting pretty well on towards sunset before I was able to approach close enough to him to care to fire a shot, for I had taken so much trouble that I was determined to incur no risk I could avoid, but have patience until I had a certainty of killing him in his tracks. At last he stopped to browse in a little open, oval table-land, on the summit of a cedar ridge.
"The ridge-top was nowhere over a hundred yards across, and was surrounded with a thick fringe of dwarf cedars. Peeping through one of these dwarf cedars, I could see the deer"s broad fat quarters about forty yards in front of me. The buck was slowly walking from where I stood concealed. I put my cap in a fork of the cedar, laid my rifle-barrel on it, brought its stock to my shoulder, and bleated like a doe.
"The big buck stopped, turned his body half round, his head wholly so, and looked straight towards me with his head down.
"I drew a careful bead between his eyes, and dropped him--stone-dead!
"I ran up to bleed him, feeling quite relieved and glad at so successful a termination of ten hours" difficult hunting. I had not noticed it while engrossed by the interest of pursuit, but now found I was very hungry, and so lit a fire at once, that there might be roasting-coals ready by the time I had skinned my deer.
"I was soon enjoying a jolly rib-roast, making a tremendous meal, and recruiting myself for the tramp of from twelve to fifteen miles lying between me and the camp."
So, after all, we had our Christmas dinner according to programme, and a capital one it was, too.
The turkeys were _a merveille_, the venison delicious; for the big buck--he was nearly as big as a Mexican burro-deer--was very fat indeed.
It is only the man who has eaten _really_ fat wild venison who knows what good venison _really_ is. The kidneys were completely covered with tallow, and my companion a.s.sured us that the buck cut nearly an inch of fat on the brisket. The quarters had been hung out to freeze all night, and were thawed in melted snow-water before being cooked, and so were quite tender.
The plum-pudding was over a foot in diameter; we could hardly pull it out of the pot. It was as good as possible, and followed by a bowl of punch, our punch-bowl being for the nonce a tin bucket; not to mince matters, it was our horses" watering-bucket, which, though not elegant, was capacious, and the only utensil we had capable of holding the amount of punch the occasion called for.
No holly grew in the country, but the bright red berries of the Indian arrow-wood and of the bearberry-bush made beautiful subst.i.tutes, and there were more evergreens in sight than entire Christendom could have made use of, so our camp was profusely and gayly decorated. Altogether the day was well and duly celebrated, and it is marked with a white stone in the calendar of my memory.
A COLORADO "ROUND-UP."
ALFRED TERRY BACON.
[Among picturesque scenes of American life there are few to surpa.s.s those to be seen on the cattle ranges of the West, the home of the cow-boy, and of a mode of life widely removed from the quiet conditions of ordinary civilization. We append a description of daily scenes during a cattle "drive."]
By a fortunate circ.u.mstance I first saw that pastoral pageant known in the West as a "round-up" among the most picturesque surroundings that could have been chosen for it even in Colorado. In the northern counties the abrupt line of the Rocky Mountain foot-hills has nearly a north-and-south direction. From their base the gra.s.s-country rolls away in great brown undulations with a general downward slope towards the east for twenty miles, to the depression in the Plains through which the South Platte flows northward. Beyond the river the land rises again with an easy slope for several miles. It is from the side of this rise of ground that the superb panoramic view of the Rocky Mountain range is seen in perfection. More than two hundred miles it stretches in sight, from the ma.s.ses vaguely seen beyond the snowy shoulders of Pike"s Peak to the lower mountains across the border of Wyoming.
At a considerable height on this slope runs a ca.n.a.l for irrigation, led out from the swiftly-descending Platte some miles above. One brilliant evening in July, a procession of wagons, each with its arched covering of canvas tinted by the sunset light, moved up the ascent to the bank of the ditch. The wagons were drawn up in line, about a hundred feet apart, and in five minutes each driver had unharnessed and "hobbled" his horses and a bright row of camp-fires were dancing in the twilight. The wagons were late in making a camp. Usually they precede the herd by several hours; but now close following is heard the lowing of the cattle, a slowly swelling volume of sound, as the drove approaches. At a spot a quarter of a mile from camp, where a level interrupts the general slope, the herd is ma.s.sed together, or, in technical phrase, "bunched," and with the approach of darkness gradually all lie down for the night. One by one the herders drop away to camp as the cattle grow quiet, till but two are left riding in opposite directions about the sleeping herd, each singing vigorously, for the double purpose of warding off sleep and keeping the herd aware of their guard. The songs are continued by the successive watches till dawn, each singer pursuing his tune with a glorious independence of harmony with his mate; yet in the distance, as we sit beside the camp-fire or in waking moments at night, it is a cheerful, vigilant sound. In the cow-boy"s dialect, "singing to "em" has become a synonymous expression for night-herding.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SUNRISE FROM THE SUMMIT OF PIKE"S PEAK]
Before the day"s work is finished, there is a cry heard not far away, "Ropes! ropes!" Two men start up from the resting groups and form a sort of temporary corral by stretching ropes from a wagon, and into it is driven the great herd of saddle-horses, to be "hobbled" for the night.
Then the supper is served,--hastily cooked and hastily eaten. There is little comfort about it. A kind of lengthened tail-board is let down at the end of each wagon and supported by props. All the men of an "outfit"--that is, those banded to work together and share the use of one wagon--gather about this rude table and devour the meal, as they stand, with the lion"s appet.i.te which only a wholly out-door life can give.
Each "outfit" carries its tent, for use in bad weather; but with a dewless night and a dry soil no one cares to stake a tent after fourteen hours of hard riding. As soon as darkness has fairly settled over the earth, we are all rolled in our blankets side by side on the ground as peaceful as a row of mummies. Over us the heaven seems to glitter with a million stars not seen in lower countries, and sleep soon comes to the eyes turned upward towards its infinite calm. At intervals through the night the second, third, and "c.o.c.ktail" reliefs will be called to go on duty: all hands must take their turns at night-herding.
With the first intimation of daylight the camp-fires are again dancing in line. By each a cook begins his breakfast preparations. Long before the appearance of the sun all the camp is astir; bedding is rolled and packed away ready for transportation. In the universal freshness of dawn the view westward from the hill is glorious. Through the meadows just below us winds the Platte, shaded by n.o.ble groves of cottonwood, the home of ten thousand meadow-larks, and already in the starry twilight they have begun a choral symphony of innumerable voices....
But the light of the sun has hardly crept down the hill to touch the tree-tops, still ringing with the morning song, before the hurried standing breakfast at the camp is over and each man has been appointed to his work by the captain of the "round-up." Three or four are named to guard the herd already gathered; some will have special care of the horses; all others, except the men in charge of wagons, are appointed to go "out on circle." Then follows a general saddling of horses, and, while the shadows still lie long across the plain, knots of hors.e.m.e.n, three or four abreast, strike out across the prairie on lines radiating in all directions from the camp. They will ride out on their courses for about five miles, except where the s.p.a.ce is limited on the west by the river, and then, turning back, will drive in towards the centre, or, as they say, will "circle in," or "round up," all the cattle found in that district, a s.p.a.ce with a diameter of ten miles. It is this operation carried on day after day over many thousand square miles of country which gives the name "round-up" to the annual gathering of the cattle on the Plains....
The long, hot morning wastes away, unvaried by any event but the changing phases of the mirage and the gathering of cloud-puffs over the mountains. But when the sun has climbed within an hour or two of the meridian, some one less drowsy than the rest shouts, "They"re coming!"
Across the prairie where he points there is no living thing in sight, but beyond the most distant ridge a great dust-column seems to touch the sky and stand motionless. Then on the opposite horizon we catch sight of another cloud of dust, then another, and another appears, till the circle of approaching herds is complete. Presently the leaders of a procession mount the ridge. The long line of cattle comes steadily on.
Half are lost to sight in the hollows of the prairie, half are seen on the crests of the swelling ground. Up and down the line gallop the hors.e.m.e.n, urging and guiding the cattle. When the first sound from the herd reaches the ear, it is like a long trumpet-blast. Among the mult.i.tudes that are approaching there is not one but utters some sound of protest at this sudden infringement of the liberties of his wild life. The bellowing of the bulls, the lowing of the cows, the bleating of the calves, all are blended into a musical murmur in which no single voice can be distinguished.
With the advance of the cattle the deep note grows louder by almost imperceptible degrees, but at last, when the lines begin to be driven together at the centre, it has increased to a deafening uproar.
Conversation is impossible; orders are shouted as in a storm at sea.
When the converging processions have come so near that the animals can be distinguished, it is interesting to look closely at the pa.s.sing lines, in which every breed and size and color of cattle is represented, from the small tawny Texas cow, as wild as a deer, to the large high-bred Durham bull that paces heavily along nodding his head at every step with an aristocratic air of self-satisfaction. The leaders of a herd are always the strong, fat steers, walking with a quick step, carrying their heads erect, and glancing about with restless eyes,--powerful, swift animals, ready when anything startles them to break into a stampede that will try the mettle of the best horses in the effort to stop them.
To one who has only known cattle in the Eastern States from watching working-oxen crawling along a road a mile and a half in an hour, or mild old dairy-cows loafing home from pasture at night, these spirited wild cattle seem a different race of animals. A new-comer to the plains can hardly believe that cattle are capable of great speed; but let him help in driving a herd for a few days, and his opinion is changed. A small calf lagging in the rear of a herd is sometimes seized with an insane notion that his mother has been left behind if he loses sight of her for a moment. He starts backward on the trail, "like a streak of greased lightning," his pursuer would say. An accomplished cow-boy is often baffled for some time in such a chase. His horse, of course, will outstrip a calf in a long run; but just when he has headed him off, the exasperating little brute will dodge like a hare, and, while the horse is carried on by his impetus, the calf is off again as fast as ever in search of his forsaken parent. I have known a "tender-foot" to disappear over the bluffs on such a chase in the middle of the afternoon and return at night crestfallen, to acknowledge himself vanquished by a most insignificant little calf.
After the leaders of the herd generally follow the young stock,--the yearlings and two-year-olds,--with the fat dry cows scattered along the line; then the mult.i.tude of cows followed by calves; and last the lagging new-born calves, attended and coaxed along by fussy old mothers.
After the men have rushed into camp to swallow the noonday meal and have hurried back to the herd, the hardest and most interesting part of the day"s work begins,--that is, the "cutting out," or sorting, the cattle of those brands which it is desired to separate from the promiscuous mult.i.tude. In the "general round-up" of the early summer the branding of the young stock is the chief business; but in this gathering the object is to separate certain cattle to be driven away to new grazing-grounds in the northern Territories. As we are riding out with the herders returning to their work, suddenly the body from head to foot is suffused with a sense of relief and refreshment, as when water touches a parched throat; for, after eight hours of scorching heat, a cloud has drifted across the sun as he begins his descent. It is only in such an arid, shadeless region that the scriptural metaphor of a "shadow in a weary land" can have the full force which it had to its Asiatic author.
But now, as we came to the herd and turned to circle about it, the westward view was wonderfully changed. The background of mountains which in the morning had been so shadeless was now almost wholly in shadow.