The Log of a Cowboy

THE NORTH FORK

There was never very much love lost between government soldiers and our tribe, so we swept past Camp Supply in contempt a few days later, and crossed the North Fork of the Canadian to camp for the night.  Flood and McCann went into the post, as our supply of flour and navy beans was running rather low, and our foreman had hopes that he might be able to get enough of these staples from the sutler to last until we reached Dodge.  He also hoped to receive some word from Lovell.

The rest of us had no lack of occupation, as a result of a chance find of mine that morning.  Honeyman had stood my guard the night before, and in return, I had got up when he was called to help rustle the horses.  We had every horse under hand before the sun peeped over the eastern horizon, and when returning to camp with the remuda, as I rode through a bunch of sumach bush, I found a wild turkey’s nest with sixteen fresh eggs in it.  Honeyman rode up, when I dismounted, and putting them in my hat, handed them up to Billy until I could mount, for they were beauties and as precious to us as gold.  There was an egg for each man in the outfit and one over, and McCann threw a heap of swagger into the inquiry, “Gentlemen, how will you have your eggs this morning?” just as though it was an everyday affair.  They were issued to us fried, and I naturally felt that the odd egg, by rights, ought to fall to me, but the opposing majority was formidable,—­fourteen to one,—­so I yielded.  A number of ways were suggested to allot the odd egg, but the gambling fever in us being rabid, raffling or playing cards for it seemed to be the proper caper.  Raffling had few advocates.

“It reflects on any man’s raising,” said Quince Forrest, contemptuously, “to suggest the idea of raffling, when we’ve got cards and all night to play for that egg.  The very idea of raffling for it!  I’d like to see myself pulling straws or drawing numbers from a hat, like some giggling girl at a church fair.  Poker is a science; the highest court in Texas has said so, and I want some little show for my interest in that speckled egg.  What have I spent twenty years learning the game for, will some of you tell me?  Why, it lets me out if you raffle it.”  The argument remained unanswered, and the play for it gave interest to that night.

As soon as supper was over and the first guard had taken the herd, the poker game opened, each man being given ten beans for chips.  We had only one deck of cards, so one game was all that could be run at a time, but there were six players, and when one was frozen out another sat in and took his place.  As wood was plentiful, we had a good fire, and this with the aid of the cook’s lantern gave an abundance of light.  We unrolled a bed to serve as a table, sat down on it Indian fashion, and as fast as one seat was vacated there was a man ready to fill it, for we were impatient for our turns in the game.  The talk turned on an accident which had happened that afternoon.  While we were crossing the North Fork of the Canadian, Bob Blades attempted to ride out of the river below the crossing, when his horse bogged down.  He instantly dismounted, and his horse after floundering around scrambled out and up the bank, but with a broken leg.  Our foreman had ridden up and ordered the horse unsaddled and shot, to put him out of his suffering.

While waiting our turns, the accident to the horse was referred to several times, and finally Blades, who was sitting in the game, turned to us who were lounging around the fire, and asked, “Did you all notice that look he gave me as I was uncinching the saddle?  If he had been human, he might have told what that look meant.  Good thing he was a horse and couldn’t realize.”

From then on, the yarning and conversation was strictly horse.

“It was always a mystery to me,” said Billy Honeyman, “how a Mexican or Indian knows so much more about a horse than any of us.  I have seen them trail a horse across a country for miles, riding in a long lope, with not a trace or sign visible to me.  I was helping a horseman once to drive a herd of horses to San Antonio from the lower Rio Grande country.  We were driving them to market, and as there were no railroads south then, we had to take along saddle horses to ride home on after disposing of the herd.  We always took favorite horses which we didn’t wish to sell, generally two apiece for that purpose.  This time, when we were at least a hundred miles from the ranch, a Mexican, who had brought along a pet horse to ride home, thought he wouldn’t hobble this pet one night, fancying the animal wouldn’t leave the others.  Well, next morning his pet was missing.  We scoured the country around and the trail we had come over for ten miles, but no horse.  As the country was all open, we felt positive he would go back to the ranch.

“Two days later and about forty miles higher up the road, the Mexican was riding in the lead of the herd, when suddenly he reined in his horse, throwing him back on his haunches, and waved for some of us to come to him, never taking his eyes off what he saw in the road.  The owner was riding on one point of the herd and I on the other.  We hurried around to him and both rode up at the same time, when the vaquero blurted out, ‘There’s my horse’s track.’

“‘What horse?’ asked the owner.

“‘My own; the horse we lost two days ago,’ replied the Mexican.

“’How do you know it’s your horse’s track from the thousands of others that fill the road?’ demanded his employer.

“‘Don Tomas,’ said the Aztec, lifting his hat, ’how do I know your step or voice from a thousand others?’

“We laughed at him.  He had been a peon, and that made him respect our opinions—­at least he avoided differing with us.  But as we drove on that afternoon, we could see him in the lead, watching for that horse’s track.  Several times he turned in his saddle and looked back, pointed to some track in the road, and lifted his hat to us.  At camp that night we tried to draw him out, but he was silent.

“But when we were nearing San Antonio, we overtook a number of wagons loaded with wool, lying over, as it was Sunday, and there among their horses and mules was our Mexican’s missing horse.  The owner of the wagons explained how he came to have the horse.  The animal had come to his camp one morning, back about twenty miles from where we had lost him, while he was feeding grain to his work stock, and being a pet insisted on being fed.  Since then, I have always had a lot of respect for a Greaser’s opinion regarding a horse.”

“Turkey eggs is too rich for my blood,” said Bob Blades, rising from the game.  “I don’t care a continental who wins the egg now, for whenever I get three queens pat beat by a four card draw, I have misgivings about the deal.  And old Quince thinks he can stack cards.  He couldn’t stack hay.”

“Speaking about Mexicans and Indians,” said Wyatt Roundtree, “I’ve got more use for a good horse than I have for either of those grades of humanity.  I had a little experience over east here, on the cut off from the Chisholm trail, a few years ago, that gave me all the Injun I want for some time to come.  A band of renegade Cheyennes had hung along the trail for several years, scaring or begging passing herds into giving them a beef.  Of course all the cattle herds had more or less strays among them, so it was easier to cut out one of these than to argue the matter.  There was plenty of herds on the trail then, so this band of Indians got bolder than bandits.  In the year I’m speaking of, I went up with a herd of horses belonging to a Texas man, who was in charge with us.  When we came along with our horses—­only six men all told—­the chief of the band, called Running Bull Sheep, got on the bluff bigger than a wolf and demanded six horses.  Well, that Texan wasn’t looking for any particular Injun that day to give six of his own dear horses to.  So we just drove on, paying no attention to Mr. Bull Sheep.  About half a mile farther up the trail, the chief overtook us with all his bucks, and they were an ugly looking lot.  Well, this time he held up four fingers, meaning that four horses would be acceptable.  But the Texan wasn’t recognizing the Indian levy of taxation that year.  When he refused them, the Indians never parleyed a moment, but set up a ‘ki yi’ and began circling round the herd on their ponies, Bull Sheep in the lead.

“As the chief passed the owner, his horse on a run, he gave a special shrill ‘ki yi,’ whipped a short carbine out of its scabbard, and shot twice into the rear of the herd.  Never for a moment considering consequences, the Texan brought his six-shooter into action.  It was a long, purty shot, and Mr. Bull Sheep threw his hands in the air and came off his horse backward, hard hit.  This shooting in the rear of the horses gave them such a scare that we never checked them short of a mile.  While the other Indians were holding a little powwow over their chief, we were making good time in the other direction, considering that we had over eight hundred loose horses.  Fortunately our wagon and saddle horses had gone ahead that morning, but in the run we overtook them.  As soon as we checked the herd from its scare, we turned them up the trail, stretched ropes from the wheels of the wagon, ran the saddle horses in, and changed mounts just a little quicker than I ever saw it done before or since.  The cook had a saddle in the wagon, so we caught him up a horse, clapped leather on him, and tied him behind the wagon in case of an emergency.  And you can just bet we changed to our best horses.  When we overtook the herd, we were at least a mile and a half from where the shooting occurred, and there was no Indian in sight, but we felt that they hadn’t given it up.  We hadn’t long to wait, though we would have waited willingly, before we heard their yells and saw the dust rising in clouds behind us.  We quit the herd and wagon right there and rode for a swell of ground ahead that would give us a rear view of the scenery.  The first view we caught of them was not very encouraging.  They were riding after us like fiends and kicking up a dust like a wind storm.  We had nothing but six-shooters, no good for long range.  The owner of the horses admitted that it was useless to try to save the herd now, and if our scalps were worth saving it was high time to make ourselves scarce.

“Cantonment was a government post about twenty-five miles away, so we rode for it.  Our horses were good Spanish stock, and the Indians’ little bench-legged ponies were no match for them.  But not satisfied with the wagon and herd falling into their hands, they followed us until we were within sight of the post.  As hard luck would have it, the cavalry stationed at this post were off on some escort duty, and the infantry were useless in this case.  When the cavalry returned a few days later, they tried to round up those Indians, and the Indian agent used his influence, but the horses were so divided up and scattered that they were never recovered.”

“And did the man lose his horses entirely?” asked Flood, who had anteed up his last bean and joined us.

“He did.  There was, I remember, a tin horn lawyer up about Dodge who thought he could recover their value, as these were agency Indians and the government owed them money.  But all I got for three months’ wages due me was the horse I got away on.”

McCann had been frozen out during Roundtree’s yarn, and had joined the crowd of story-tellers on the other side of the fire.  Forrest was feeling quite gala, and took a special delight in taunting the vanquished as they dropped out.

“Is McCann there?” inquired he, well knowing he was.  “I just wanted to ask, would it be any trouble to poach that egg for my breakfast and serve it with a bit of toast; I’m feeling a little bit dainty.  You’ll poach it for me, won’t you, please?”

McCann never moved a muscle as he replied, “Will you please go to hell?”

The story-telling continued for some time, and while Fox Quarternight was regaling us with the history of a little black mare that a neighbor of theirs in Kentucky owned, a dispute arose in the card game regarding the rules of discard and draw.

“I’m too old a girl,” said The Rebel, angrily, to Forrest, “to allow a pullet like you to teach me this game.  When it’s my deal, I’ll discard just when I please, and it’s none of your business so long as I keep within the rules of the game;” which sounded final, and the game continued.

Quarternight picked up the broken thread of his narrative, and the first warning we had of the lateness of the hour was Bull Durham calling to us from the game, “One of you fellows can have my place, just as soon as we play this jack pot.  I’ve got to saddle my horse and get ready for our guard.  Oh, I’m on velvet, anyhow, and before this game ends, I’ll make old Quince curl his tail; I’ve got him going south now.”

It took me only a few minutes to lose my chance at the turkey egg, and I sought my blankets.  At one A.M., when our guard was called, the beans were almost equally divided among Priest, Stallings, and Durham; and in view of the fact that Forrest, whom we all wanted to see beaten, had met defeat, they agreed to cut the cards for the egg, Stallings winning.  We mounted our horses and rode out into the night, and the second guard rode back to our camp-fire, singing:—­

     “Two little niggers upstairs in bed,
     One turned ober to de oder an’ said,
     ’How ‘bout dat short’nin’ bread,
     How ‘bout dat short’nin’ bread?’”