The Log of a Cowboy

SLAUGHTER’S BRIDGE

Herds bound for points beyond the Yellowstone, in Montana, always considered Dodge as the halfway landmark on the trail, though we had hardly covered half the distance to the destination of our Circle Dots.  But with Dodge in our rear, all felt that the backbone of the drive was broken, and it was only the middle of June.  In order to divide the night work more equitably, for the remainder of the trip the first and fourth guards changed, the second and third remaining as they were.  We had begun to feel the scarcity of wood for cooking purposes some time past, and while crossing the plains of western Kansas, we were frequently forced to resort to the old bed grounds of a year or two previous for cattle chips.  These chips were a poor substitute, and we swung a cowskin under the reach of the wagon, so that when we encountered wood on creeks and rivers we could lay in a supply.  Whenever our wagon was in the rear, the riders on either side of the herd were always on the skirmish for fuel, which they left alongside the wagon track, and our cook was sure to stow it away underneath on the cowskin.

In spite of any effort on our part, the length of the days made long drives the rule.  The cattle could be depended on to leave the bed ground at dawn, and before the outfit could breakfast, secure mounts, and overtake the herd, they would often have grazed forward two or three miles.  Often we never threw them on the trail at all, yet when it came time to bed them at night, we had covered twenty miles.  They were long, monotonous days; for we were always sixteen to eighteen hours in the saddle, while in emergencies we got the benefit of the limit.  We frequently saw mirages, though we were never led astray by shady groves of timber or tempting lakes of water, but always kept within a mile or two of the trail.  The evening of the third day after Forrest left us, he returned as we were bedding down the cattle at dusk, and on being assured that no officers had followed us, resumed his place with the herd.  He had not even reached the Solomon River, but had stopped with a herd of Millet’s on Big Boggy.  This creek he reported as bottomless, and the Millet herd as having lost between forty and fifty head of cattle in attempting to force it at the regular crossing the day before his arrival.  They had scouted the creek both up and down since without finding a safe crossing.  It seemed that there had been unusually heavy June rains through that section, which accounted for Boggy being in its dangerous condition.  Millet’s foreman had not considered it necessary to test such an insignificant stream until he got a couple of hundred head of cattle floundering in the mire.  They had saved the greater portion of the mired cattle, but quite a number were trampled to death by the others, and now the regular crossing was not approachable for the stench of dead cattle.  Flood knew the stream, and so did a number of our outfit, but none of them had any idea that it could get into such an impassable condition as Forrest reported.

The next morning Flood started to the east and Priest to the west to look out a crossing, for we were then within half a day’s drive of the creek.  Big Boggy paralleled the Solomon River in our front, the two not being more than five miles apart.  The confluence was far below in some settlements, and we must keep to the westward of all immigration, on account of the growing crops in the fertile valley of the Solomon.  On the westward, had a favorable crossing been found, we would almost have had to turn our herd backward, for we were already within the half circle which this creek described in our front.  So after the two men left us, we allowed the herd to graze forward, keeping several miles to the westward of the trail in order to get the benefit of the best grazing.  Our herd, when left to itself, would graze from a mile to a mile and a half an hour, and by the middle of the forenoon the timber on Big Boggy and the Solomon beyond was sighted.  On reaching this last divide, some one sighted a herd about five or six miles to the eastward and nearly parallel with us.  As they were three or four miles beyond the trail, we could easily see that they were grazing along like ourselves, and Forrest was appealed to to know if it was the Millet herd.  He said not, and pointed out to the northeast about the location of the Millet cattle, probably five miles in advance of the stranger on our right.  When we overtook our wagon at noon, McCann, who had never left the trail, reported having seen the herd.  They looked to him like heavy beef cattle, and had two yoke of oxen to their chuck wagon, which served further to proclaim them as strangers.

Neither Priest nor Flood returned during the noon hour, and when the herd refused to lie down and rest longer, we grazed them forward till the fringe of timber which grew along the stream loomed up not a mile distant in our front.  From the course we were traveling, we would strike the creek several miles above the regular crossing, and as Forrest reported that Millet was holding below the old crossing on a small rivulet, all we could do was to hold our wagon in the rear, and await the return of our men out on scout for a ford.  Priest was the first to return, with word that he had ridden the creek out for twenty-five miles and had found no crossing that would be safe for a mud turtle.  On hearing this, we left two men with the herd, and the rest of the outfit took the wagon, went on to Boggy, and made camp.  It was a deceptive-looking stream, not over fifty or sixty feet wide.  In places the current barely moved, shallowing and deepening, from a few inches in places to several feet in others, with an occasional pool that would swim a horse.  We probed it with poles until we were satisfied that we were up against a proposition different from anything we had yet encountered.  While we were discussing the situation, a stranger rode up on a fine roan horse, and inquired for our foreman.  Forrest informed him that our boss was away looking for a crossing, but we were expecting his return at any time; and invited the stranger to dismount.  He did so, and threw himself down in the shade of our wagon.  He was a small, boyish-looking fellow, of sandy complexion, not much, if any, over twenty years old, and smiled continuously.

“My name is Pete Slaughter,” said he, by way of introduction, “and I’ve got a herd of twenty-eight hundred beef steers, beyond the trail and a few miles back.  I’ve been riding since daybreak down the creek, and I’m prepared to state that the chance of crossing is as good right here as anywhere.  I wanted to see your foreman, and if he’ll help, we’ll bridge her.  I’ve been down to see this other outfit, but they ridicule the idea, though I think they’ll come around all right.  I borrowed their axe, and to-morrow morning you’ll see me with my outfit cutting timber to bridge Big Boggy.  That’s right, boys; it’s the only thing to do.  The trouble is I’ve only got eight men all told.  I don’t aim to travel over eight or ten miles a day, so I don’t need a big outfit.  You say your foreman’s name is Flood?  Well, if he don’t return before I go, some of you tell him that he’s wasting good time looking for a ford, for there ain’t none.”

In the conversation which followed, we learned that Slaughter was driving for his brother Lum, a widely known cowman and drover, whom we had seen in Dodge.  He had started with the grass from north Texas, and by the time he reached the Platte, many of his herd would be fit to ship to market, and what were not would be in good demand as feeders in the corn belt of eastern Nebraska.  He asked if we had seen his herd during the morning, and on hearing we had, got up and asked McCann to let him see our axe.  This he gave a critical examination, before he mounted his horse to go, and on leaving said,—­

“If your foreman don’t want to help build a bridge, I want to borrow that axe of yours.  But you fellows talk to him.  If any of you boys has ever been over on the Chisholm trail, you will remember the bridge on Rush Creek, south of the Washita River.  I built that bridge in a day with an outfit of ten men.  Why, shucks! if these outfits would pull together, we could cross to-morrow evening.  Lots of these old foremen don’t like to listen to a cub like me, but, holy snakes!  I’ve been over the trail oftener than any of them.  Why, when I wasn’t big enough to make a hand with the herd,—­only ten years old,—­in the days when we drove to Abilene, they used to send me in the lead with an old cylinder gun to shoot at the buffalo and scare them off the trail.  And I’ve made the trip every year since.  So you tell Flood when he comes in, that Pete Slaughter was here, and that he’s going to build a bridge, and would like to have him and his outfit help.”

Had it not been for his youth and perpetual smile, we might have taken young Slaughter more seriously, for both Quince Forrest and The Rebel remembered the bridge on Rush Creek over on the Chisholm.  Still there was an air of confident assurance in the young fellow; and the fact that he was the trusted foreman of Lum Slaughter, in charge of a valuable herd of cattle, carried weight with those who knew that drover.  The most unwelcome thought in the project was that it required the swinging of an axe to fell trees and to cut them into the necessary lengths, and, as I have said before, the Texan never took kindly to manual labor.  But Priest looked favorably on the suggestion, and so enlisted my support, and even pointed out a spot where timber was most abundant as a suitable place to build the bridge.

“Hell’s fire,” said Joe Stallings, with infinite contempt, “there’s thousands of places to build a bridge, and the timber’s there, but the idea is to cut it.”  And his sentiments found a hearty approval in the majority of the outfit.

Flood returned late that evening, having ridden as far down the creek as the first settlement.  The Rebel, somewhat antagonized by the attitude of the majority, reported the visit and message left for him by young Slaughter.  Our foreman knew him by general reputation amongst trail bosses, and when Priest vouched for him as the builder of the Rush Creek bridge on the Chisholm trail, Flood said, “Why, I crossed my herd four years ago on that Rush Creek bridge within a week after it was built, and wondered who it could be that had the nerve to undertake that task.  Rush isn’t over half as wide a bayou as Boggy, but she’s a true little sister to this miry slough.  So he’s going to build a bridge anyhow, is he?”

The next morning young Slaughter was at our camp before sunrise, and never once mentioning his business or waiting for the formality of an invitation, proceeded to pour out a tin cup of coffee and otherwise provide himself with a substantial breakfast.  There was something amusing in the audacity of the fellow which all of us liked, though he was fifteen years the junior of our foreman.  McCann pointed out Flood to him, and taking his well-loaded plate, he went over and sat down by our foreman, and while he ate talked rapidly, to enlist our outfit in the building of the bridge.  During breakfast, the outfit listened to the two bosses as they discussed the feasibility of the project,—­Slaughter enthusiastic, Flood reserved, and asking all sorts of questions as to the mode of procedure.  Young Pete met every question with promptness, and assured our foreman that the building of bridges was his long suit.  After breakfast, the two foremen rode off down the creek together, and within half an hour Slaughter’s wagon and remuda pulled up within sight of the regular crossing, and shortly afterwards our foreman returned, and ordered our wagon to pull down to a clump of cotton woods which grew about half a mile below our camp.  Two men were detailed to look after our herd during the day, and the remainder of us returned with our foreman to the site selected for the bridge.  On our arrival three axes were swinging against as many cottonwoods, and there was no doubt in any one’s mind that we were going to be under a new foreman for that day at least.  Slaughter had a big negro cook who swung an axe in a manner which bespoke him a job for the day, and McCann was instructed to provide dinner for the extra outfit.

The site chosen for the bridge was a miry bottom over which oozed three or four inches of water, where the width of the stream was about sixty feet, with solid banks on either side.  To get a good foundation was the most important matter, but the brush from the trees would supply the material for that; and within an hour, brush began to arrive, dragged from the pommels of saddles, and was piled into the stream.  About this time a call went out for a volunteer who could drive oxen, for the darky was too good an axeman to be recalled.  As I had driven oxen as a boy, I was going to offer my services, when Joe Stallings eagerly volunteered in order to avoid using an axe.  Slaughter had some extra chain, and our four mules were pressed into service as an extra team in snaking logs.  As McCann was to provide for the inner man, the mule team fell to me; and putting my saddle on the nigh wheeler, I rode jauntily past Mr. Stallings as he trudged alongside his two yoke of oxen.

About ten o’clock in the morning, George Jacklin, the foreman of the Millet herd, rode up with several of his men, and seeing the bridge taking shape, turned in and assisted in dragging brush for the foundation.  By the time all hands knocked off for dinner, we had a foundation of brush twenty feet wide and four feet high, to say nothing about what had sunk in the mire.  The logs were cut about fourteen feet long, and old Joe and I had snaked them up as fast as the axemen could get them ready.  Jacklin returned to his wagon for dinner and a change of horses, though Slaughter, with plenty of assurance, had invited him to eat with us, and when he declined had remarked, with no less confidence, “Well, then, you’ll be back right after dinner.  And say, bring all the men you can spare; and if you’ve got any gunny sacks or old tarpaulins, bring them; and by all means don’t forget your spade.”

Pete Slaughter was a harsh master, considering he was working volunteer labor; but then we all felt a common interest in the bridge, for if Slaughter’s beeves could cross, ours could, and so could Millet’s.  All the men dragging brush changed horses during dinner, for there was to be no pause in piling in a good foundation as long as the material was at hand.  Jacklin and his outfit returned, ten strong, and with thirty men at work, the bridge grew.  They began laying the logs on the brush after dinner, and the work of sodding the bridge went forward at the same time.  The bridge stood about two feet above the water in the creek, but when near the middle of the stream was reached, the foundation gave way, and for an hour ten horses were kept busy dragging brush to fill that sink hole until it would bear the weight of the logs.  We had used all the acceptable timber on our side of the stream for half a mile either way, and yet there were not enough logs to complete the bridge.  When we lacked only some ten or twelve logs, Slaughter had the boys sod a narrow strip across the remaining brush, and the horsemen led their mounts across to the farther side.  Then the axemen crossed, felled the nearest trees, and the last logs were dragged up from the pommels of our saddles.

It now only remained to sod over and dirt the bridge thoroughly.  With only three spades the work was slow, but we cut sod with axes, and after several hours’ work had it finished.  The two yoke of oxen were driven across and back for a test, and the bridge stood it nobly.  Slaughter then brought up his remuda, and while the work of dirting the bridge was still going on, crossed and recrossed his band of saddle horses twenty times.  When the bridge looked completed to every one else, young Pete advised laying stringers across on either side; so a number of small trees were felled and guard rails strung across the ends of the logs and staked.  Then more dirt was carried in on tarpaulins and in gunny sacks, and every chink and crevice filled with sod and dirt.  It was now getting rather late in the afternoon, but during the finishing touches, young Slaughter had dispatched his outfit to bring up his herd; and at the same time Flood had sent a number of our outfit to bring up our cattle.  Now Slaughter and the rest of us took the oxen, which we had unyoked, and went out about a quarter of a mile to meet his herd coming up.  Turning the oxen in the lead, young Pete took one point and Flood the other, and pointed in the lead cattle for the bridge.  On reaching it the cattle hesitated for a moment, and it looked as though they were going to balk, but finally one of the oxen took the lead, and they began to cross in almost Indian file.  They were big four and five year old beeves, and too many of them on the bridge at one time might have sunk it, but Slaughter rode back down the line of cattle and called to the men to hold them back.

“Don’t crowd the cattle,” he shouted.  “Give them all the time they want.  We’re in no hurry now; there’s lots of time.”

They were a full half hour in crossing, the chain of cattle taking the bridge never for a moment being broken.  Once all were over, his men rode to the lead and turned the herd up Boggy, in order to have it well out of the way of ours, which were then looming up in sight.  Slaughter asked Flood if he wanted the oxen; and as our cattle had never seen a bridge in their lives, the foreman decided to use them; so we brought them back and met the herd, now strung out nearly a mile.  Our cattle were naturally wild, but we turned the oxen in the lead, and the two bosses again taking the points, moved the herd up to the bridge.  The oxen were again slow to lead out in crossing, and several hundred head of cattle had congested in front of the new bridge, making us all rather nervous, when a big white ox led off, his mate following, and the herd began timidly to follow.  Our cattle required careful handling, and not a word was spoken as we nursed them forward, or rode through them to scatter large bunches.  A number of times we cut the train of cattle off entirely, as they were congesting at the bridge entrance, and, in crossing, shied and crowded so that several were forced off the bridge into the mire.  Our herd crossed in considerably less time than did Slaughter’s beeves, but we had five head to pull out; this, however, was considered nothing, as they were light, and the mire was as thin as soup.  Our wagon and saddle horses crossed while we were pulling out the bogged cattle, and about half the outfit, taking the herd, drifted them forward towards the Solomon.  Since Millet intended crossing that evening, herds were likely to be too thick for safety at night.  The sun was hardly an hour high when the last herd came up to cross.  The oxen were put in the lead, as with ours, and all four of the oxen took the bridge, but when the cattle reached the bridge, they made a decided balk and refused to follow the oxen.  Not a hoof of the herd would even set foot on the bridge.  The oxen were brought back several times, but in spite of all coaxing and nursing, and our best endeavors and devices, they would not risk it.  We worked with them until dusk, when all three of the foremen decided it was useless to try longer, but both Slaughter and Flood promised to bring back part of their outfits in the morning and make another effort.

McCann’s camp-fire piloted us to our wagon, at least three miles from the bridge, for he had laid in a good supply of wood during the day; and on our arrival our night horses were tied up, and everything made ready for the night.  The next morning we started the herd, but Flood took four of us with him and went back to Big Boggy.  The Millet herd was nearly two miles back from the bridge, where we found Slaughter at Jacklin’s wagon; and several more of his men were, we learned, coming over with the oxen at about ten o’clock.  That hour was considered soon enough by the bosses, as the heat of the day would be on the herd by that time, which would make them lazy.  When the oxen arrived at the bridge, we rode out twenty strong and lined the cattle up for another trial.  They had grazed until they were full and sleepy, but the memory of some of them was too vivid of the hours they had spent in the slimy ooze of Big Boggy once on a time, and they began milling on sight of the stream.  We took them back and brought them up a second time with the same results.  We then brought them around in a circle a mile in diameter, and as the rear end of the herd was passing, we turned the last hundred, and throwing the oxen into their lead, started them for the bridge; but they too sulked and would have none of it.  It was now high noon, so we turned the herd and allowed them to graze back while we went to dinner.  Millet’s foreman was rather discouraged with the outlook, but Slaughter said they must be crossed if he had to lay over a week and help.  After dinner, Jacklin asked us if we wanted a change of horses, and as we could see a twenty mile ride ahead of us in overtaking our herd, Flood accepted.

When all was ready to start, Slaughter made a suggestion.  “Let’s go out,” he said, “and bring them up slowly in a solid body, and when we get them opposite the bridge, round them in gradually as if we were going to bed them down.  I’ll take a long lariat to my white wheeler, and when they have quieted down perfectly, I’ll lead old Blanco through them and across the bridge, and possibly they’ll follow.  There’s no use crowding them, for that only excites them, and if you ever start them milling, the jig’s up.  They’re nice, gentle cattle, but they’ve been balked once and they haven’t forgotten it.”

What we needed right then was a leader, for we were all ready to catch at a straw, and Slaughter’s suggestion was welcome, for he had established himself in our good graces until we preferred him to either of the other foremen as a leader.  Riding out to the herd, which were lying down, we roused and started them back towards Boggy.  While drifting them back, we covered a front a quarter of a mile in width, and as we neared the bridge we gave them perfect freedom.  Slaughter had caught out his white ox, and we gradually worked them into a body, covering perhaps ten acres, in front of the bridge.  Several small bunches attempted to mill, but some of us rode in and split them up, and after about half an hour’s wait, they quieted down.  Then Slaughter rode in whistling and leading his white ox at the end of a thirty-five foot lariat, and as he rode through them they were so logy that he had to quirt them out of the way.  When he came to the bridge, he stopped the white wheeler until everything had quieted down; then he led old Blanco on again, but giving him all the time he needed and stopping every few feet.  We held our breath, as one or two of the herd started to follow him, but they shied and turned back, and our hopes of the moment were crushed.  Slaughter detained the ox on the bridge for several minutes, but seeing it was useless, he dismounted and drove him back into the herd.  Again and again he tried the same ruse, but it was of no avail.  Then we threw the herd back about half a mile, and on Flood’s suggestion cut off possibly two hundred head, a bunch which with our numbers we ought to handle readily in spite of their will, and by putting their remuda of over a hundred saddle horses in the immediate lead, made the experiment of forcing them.  We took the saddle horses down and crossed and recrossed the bridge several times with them, and as the cattle came up turned the horses into the lead and headed for the bridge.  With a cordon of twenty riders around them, no animal could turn back, and the horses crossed the bridge on a trot, but the cattle turned tail and positively refused to have anything to do with it.  We held them like a block in a vise, so compactly that they could not even mill, but they would not cross the bridge.

When it became evident that it was a fruitless effort, Jacklin, usually a very quiet man, gave vent to a fit of profanity which would have put the army in Flanders to shame.  Slaughter, somewhat to our amusement, reproved him:  “Don’t fret, man; this is nothing,—­I balked a herd once in crossing a railroad track, and after trying for two days to cross them, had to drive ten miles and put them under a culvert.  You want to cultivate patience, young fellow, when you’re handling dumb brutes.”

If Slaughter’s darky cook had been thereabouts then, and suggested a means of getting that herd to take the bridge, his suggestion would have been welcomed, for the bosses were at their wits’ ends.  Jacklin swore that he would bed that herd at the entrance, and hold them there until they starved to death or crossed, before he would let an animal turn back.  But cooler heads were present, and The Rebel mentioned a certain adage, to the effect that when a bird or a girl, he didn’t know which, could sing and wouldn’t, she or it ought to be made to sing.  He suggested that we hold the four oxen on the bridge, cut off fifteen head of cattle, and give them such a running start, they wouldn’t know which end their heads were on when they reached the bridge.  Millet’s foreman approved of the idea, for he was nursing his wrath.  The four oxen were accordingly cut out, and Slaughter and one of his men, taking them, started for the bridge with instructions to hold them on the middle.  The rest of us took about a dozen head of light cattle, brought them within a hundred yards of the bridge, then with a yell started them on a run from which they could not turn back.  They struck the entrance squarely, and we had our first cattle on the bridge.  Two men held the entrance, and we brought up another bunch in the same manner, which filled the bridge.  Now, we thought, if the herd could be brought up slowly, and this bridgeful let off in their lead, they might follow.  To June a herd of cattle across in this manner would have been shameful, and the foreman of the herd knew it as well as any one present; but no one protested, so we left men to hold the entrance securely and went back after the herd.  When we got them within a quarter of a mile of the creek, we cut off about two hundred head of the leaders and brought them around to the rear, for amongst these leaders were certain to be the ones which had been bogged, and we wanted to have new leaders in this trial.  Slaughter was on the farther end of the bridge, and could be depended on to let the oxen lead off at the opportune moment.  We brought them up cautiously, and when the herd came within a few rods of the creek the cattle on the bridge lowed to their mates in the herd, and Slaughter, considering the time favorable, opened out and allowed them to leave the bridge on the farther side.  As soon as the cattle started leaving on the farther side, we dropped back, and the leaders of the herd to the number of a dozen, after smelling the fresh dirt and seeing the others crossing, walked cautiously up on the bridge.  It was a moment of extreme anxiety.  None of us spoke a word, but the cattle crowding off the bridge at the farther end set it vibrating.  That was enough:  they turned as if panic-stricken and rushed back to the body of the herd.  I was almost afraid to look at Jacklin.  He could scarcely speak, but he rode over to me, ashen with rage, and kept repeating, “Well, wouldn’t that beat hell!”

Slaughter rode back across the bridge, and the men came up and gathered around Jacklin.  We seemed to have run the full length of our rope.  No one even had a suggestion to offer, and if any one had had, it needed to be a plausible one to find approval, for hope seemed to have vanished.  While discussing the situation, a one-eyed, pox-marked fellow belonging to Slaughter’s outfit galloped up from the rear, and said almost breathlessly, “Say, fellows, I see a cow and calf in the herd.  Let’s rope the calf, and the cow is sure to follow.  Get the rope around the calf’s neck, and when it chokes him, he’s liable to bellow, and that will call the steers.  And if you never let up on the choking till you get on the other side of the bridge, I think it’ll work.  Let’s try it, anyhow.”

We all approved, for we knew that next to the smell of blood, nothing will stir range cattle like the bellowing of a calf.  At the mere suggestion, Jacklin’s men scattered into the herd, and within a few minutes we had a rope round the neck of the calf.  As the roper came through the herd leading the calf, the frantic mother followed, with a train of excited steers at her heels.  And as the calf was dragged bellowing across the bridge, it was followed by excited, struggling steers who never knew whether they were walking on a bridge or on terra firma.  The excitement spread through the herd, and they thickened around the entrance until it was necessary to hold them back, and only let enough pass to keep the chain unbroken.

They were nearly a half hour in crossing, for it was fully as large a herd as ours; and when the last animal had crossed, Pete Slaughter stood up in his stirrups and led the long yell.  The sun went down that day on nobody’s wrath, for Jacklin was so tickled that he offered to kill the fattest beef in his herd if we would stay overnight with him.  All three of the herds were now over, but had not this herd balked on us the evening before, over nine thousand cattle would have crossed Slaughter’s bridge the day it was built.

It was now late in the evening, and as we had to wait some little time to get our own horses, we stayed for supper.  It was dark before we set out to overtake the herd, but the trail was plain, and letting our horses take their own time, we jollied along until after midnight.  We might have missed the camp, but, by the merest chance, Priest sighted our camp-fire a mile off the trail, though it had burned to embers.  On reaching camp, we changed saddles to our night horses, and, calling Officer, were ready for our watch.  We were expecting the men on guard to call us any minute, and while Priest was explaining to Officer the trouble we had had in crossing the Millet herd, I dozed off to sleep there as I sat by the rekindled embers.  In that minute’s sleep my mind wandered in a dream to my home on the San Antonio River, but the next moment I was aroused to the demands of the hour by The Rebel shaking me and saying,—­“Wake up, Tom, and take a new hold.  They’re calling us on guard.  If you expect to follow the trail, son, you must learn to do your sleeping in the winter.”