CHAPTER X

THE FENCELESS LAND

The next day Jack was ordered to travel with the herd in company with Jack Mason and Rube. Mason was a man who had not been long in this part of the country. He was not a pilgrim, for he had been born among the mountains of the West, and had spent all his life in the fenceless country. As a very young man he had worked his way up to the north, and for several years had lived on or near the Blackfeet Reservation, and Hugh knew him well. When he found him in the round-up camp Hugh had spoken of him to Jack in high terms.

"He's harum-scarum," he had said, "but he's a good prairie man, and I don't think he's afraid of anything that wears hair or feathers. He does not always believe in obeying laws that he does not approve of, and I've heard he has been in trouble once or twice on that account; but he's a square man, and a man that it's safe for you to know, and to tie to under ordinary conditions. Sometimes, however, he goes off half-cocked, and when he does that I shouldn't want you to tie to him. He's a man that's growing better every day, but he needs experience and balance, and I don't believe there's any way for Jack Mason to get that, except by living in the world and finding out for himself a whole lot of things that he don't know yet.

"There's another thing about Mason," Hugh went on; "he's terrible stout, quick with his hands, and quite a wrestler. I mind the only time I ever saw him wrestle. The fellow that tackled him got a handful. It was at the Blackfeet Agency. A big husky chap came over from Canada and went around blowing about how good he could wrestle. He threw the blacksmith, who was pretty stout, and a big Indian that was persuaded to try him, and after he had done that he talked louder than ever. He was an Englishman that had been in the mounted police. Finally somebody who had seen Mason in a scuffle told the man that he couldn't throw Mason, and the Englishman wanted to bet he could, and at last got all worked up about it. Mason kept refusing and dodging and putting off, until the Englishman was about crazy to make a match, and at last Mason said he would go him. They put up five dollars a side to wrestle on the flat out in front of the stockade. When they got hold of each other, the Englishman started in to throw Mason quick, but however hard he tried, he didn't seem to stir him out of his tracks. But suddenly, while they were all watching and wondering what was going to happen, Mason give a kind of a twist and threw the Englishman over his head, and he lit on his back three or four steps away, with the wind all knocked out of him. It took five or ten minutes to bring him to, and then he was only just able to walk, and had to be helped back into the stockade. He didn't talk much about wrestling after that, and left in the course of two or three days.

"You notice Mason sometime when he's in swimming and see his arms and shoulders, and the pins he's got under him. He's stout, I tell you."

Mason was a good cow hand and a most cheery, delightful fellow. No matter how gloomy the situation, how hard the rain poured or the cold wind blew, he whistled and sang in hearty fashion, made jokes and laughed at those of others, and altogether got out of life a great deal of enjoyment.

Those who were to drive the herd went out early to relieve the night herders. They were in no haste to start the cattle, which were given some time to feed before being pushed along to the next camp. While the cattle were feeding they needed no special attention for they were not likely to try to wander until they had eaten their fill. So the three herders got together on a knoll from which a good view of the country could be had, and sat there watching the stock as it fed. Rube whittled tobacco, and time and again filled his old black pipe; but the two Jacks, being non-smokers, looked over the wide plain before them, and noted, as one may note if one sits down and stares at a landscape, the various things that were happening among the wild dwellers of that landscape.

Scarcely half a mile to the north was an old doe antelope which in the early morning light had seemed much interested in the cattle and trotted down toward them on a tour of inspection. Those who saw her felt pretty sure that hidden somewhere in the neighborhood she had a couple of little kids; and sure enough after the old mother had satisfied herself that there was no danger in those great groups of dark animals, her two tiny young ones came out from their hiding-place and played around her.

Along a distant hillside off to the south, Jack Mason's keen eye detected a moving object, and after watching it for a while he turned to Jack.

"There goes a wolf, traveling back after his night's hunting to find a place to lie by during the day," he said.

After it had been pointed out, they could see the great beast trotting smoothly along over the prairie toward some bushy ravines higher up on the hill.

"Except for the cattle and the wild animals," Mason said, "there's not much to be seen here."

"Not much," answered Jack. "It's lonely; but I like the very lonesomeness of it."

"Yes," responded Mason; "so do I. I don't know anything much better than to ride along over the prairie, or to sit alone on top of the hill and just see what goes on all about you. Most people wouldn't see anything, but the man that has got his eyes open sees a whole lot."

"Ho!" put in Rube, "you fellows talk as if you had never before been where it was lonely. I have; and there's too much loneliness out here for me. I'm getting to be like the fellow I heard of who was riding fence down in Texas on one of those big fenced ranches. He never saw anybody from week-end to week-end, and one time when he came into a ranch to get his supplies, he said it was so darned lonely out there that he'd got into the habit of taking off his hat and saying 'Howdy' to every fence post that he passed."

"Well," laughed Mason, "he must have suffered for lack of company; but I would never have that complaint."

"Hugh tells me that you've lived up in the Piegan country," said Jack, addressing Mason. "Were you up there long?"

"Three or four years. I expect I'll go back there before long. Six or eight years ago I drifted up from the south through this country, and finally brought up among the Piegans. I've been across the line a few times to the British, and have stopped a little while with the Bloods and the north Piegans. You know that in old times, when the first treaties were made, the Piegans split up on the question of where they should live. Some of them liked the country to the south of the line, and some that to the north. Originally all the three tribes of the Blackfeet came from way up north on the Red Deer River, or maybe still farther, to the east of that. I've heard old John Monroe--maybe you know him--"

"I should say so!" exclaimed Jack. "I lived in his lodge all one summer."

"Well," continued Mason, "I've heard old John Monroe tell a mighty good story about the way the Blackfeet came down from the northeast, and how they first met the white people."

Here Rube interrupted.

"I think we had better start these cows along. A lot of 'em have quit feeding and the first thing we know they'll be lying down, and then we'll have a hard time to get them to move. Better come on and start 'em now. The longer we put it off the harder work and slower it'll be."

"That's gospel," said Jack Mason. "We've got to whoop these cows up, and we haven't any time for writing ancient history now."

"Yes," agreed Jack, "I suppose we've got to move; but look here, Mason, I want to get you to tell me that story, if you will. I've an idea that I've heard bits of it up North, but if you can give it to me in a connected fashion I wish you would."

"Why sure," Mason answered. "I'd like to tell it to you the best I can; but you know very well that I can't tell it the way old John Monroe could. He's half Indian and that means that he's a natural sign talker; and then he's got a dash of French in him, that makes him willing to talk, and he talks well; and then I expect the Scotch--for old Hugh Monroe's father must have been Scotch, if the name counts for anything--gives him a sense of humor. So he's a rattling good story-teller. Of course, for me, and maybe for you, he's sometimes a little hard to understand, because he talks a language made up of English, French, Cree and Blackfeet. Sometimes I miss the connection, but his stories are always good. The best ones that I ever heard, though, were those that he told in Cree to Billy Jackson, and that Billy Jackson interpreted for me, for Jackson is no slouch of a story-teller himself."

As they talked, the men rode over toward the cattle and going about them started those that were lying down and at last got the whole bunch moving very slowly in the direction they wished them to go. Among the cattle were three or four partially crippled animals that had been lamed either by the horns of other cows in the crowding, or by falling in bad places. Most of the hurts were trifling and would soon pass away, but there was one two-year-old steer that had a very bad shoulder and could use only one foreleg. He could get along very slowly and with difficulty. As Rube and Jack passed each other, riding to and fro to keep the stock going, Rube pointed to the steer.

"I hate to drive that cripple," he said; "and I'd leave him in a minute if I wasn't afraid that the wolves or coyotes would kill him to-night."

"Yes," answered Jack; "I am afraid if he were left behind he would never see the morning light; even a bunch of coyotes could kill him without any trouble, for just as soon as they crippled his hind legs, he would fall over and they would eat him alive."

"I reckon," decided Rube, "the best that we can do is to keep him going, and if we get him into camp to-night, we'll let McIntyre say what shall be done with him."

About noon the boys came to a stream and, driving the cattle down to it, made up their minds that they would give them an hour or two of rest. When Mason came up, Jack spoke to him about the crippled steer and asked what he thought about it, repeating what he and Rube had said a little while before.

"You're right about that," said Mason. "I don't believe he'd last out the night; for, as you say, the coyotes would kill him. If he were well, he could stand off a bunch of coyotes, but as he is, he wouldn't last long. You talk about crippling up his hind legs. Do you savvy, Jack, how it is that a buffalo or a steer, or a cow, gets hamstrung?"

"I always supposed that a wolf just bit through that big tendon that runs down from the ham to the hock, and, of course, if that's cut or broken that cripples that leg entirely."

"Right you are," said Mason, "up to a certain point; but did it ever occur to you how big and tough that tendon is, and did you ever stop to think whether a wolf could bite through it with one snap of his jaws?"

"No; I confess that I never did. But now that you speak of it, it looks to me like a pretty good-sized contract for any animal to bite through that tendon at a single snap."

"That's what it is," answered Mason. "If you ever get a chance to try a knife on that tendon you'll find that unless the knife is sharp like a razor you'll have to put in a good deal of force, and do some little sawing to get the blade through the tendon. We all know that a wolf is big and strong and that he can bite tremendously hard, and that he's got sharp teeth. I believe that maybe a wolf has force enough in his jaws to break a man's wrist, if he caught it just at the right point, but I don't believe that there ever was a wolf whelped that was able to cut through that tendon at a single snap, unless by accident. Of course, he might partly cut through it, and the animal's struggles might break it, but I don't believe that would happen once in a thousand times. The way the wolves hamstring these animals, so far as I've been able to see, is by biting that tendon over and over again, and before long it gets all bruised and more or less shredded, and swells up and stiffens, and the animal is not able to use his leg. If this happens to one or both legs, the first thing you know the animal is down and that's the end of it."

"Well, that's news to me," declared Jack. "I never thought of that before. I always just took it for granted that a wolf, because he is big and strong, could and did cut through that tendon by a snap of his jaws; but the way you put it, it looks to me as if that would not be possible."

"I've seen a number of cases," Mason continued, "where animals have been killed by wolves and I've always been interested in hearing about this hamstringing, so I've paid particular attention to the condition of that part of the leg, trying to see whether the tendon was ever cut, and I never have seen a case when it was cut."

"That's a new idea to me," repeated Jack. "I'd like to get more light on it. Did you ever talk about it to Hugh? He's been on the prairie an awful long time."

"No; I don't think that I ever talked about it to anybody at all; but I'm like you, I'd like to know whether it is gospel or not. At all events, it's what I've seen, and I think it's reason, too."

"It does seem reasonable," said Jack. "Let's ask Hugh when we get in to-night. Meantime we'll try to push along this cripple and let McIntyre decide what's to be done with him."

It was late in the afternoon when the herd was turned out to feed near the camp; and at night, soon after McIntyre got in, Jack told him the story of the crippled steer, and asked what should be done with it.

"Whose is it?" asked McIntyre.

"One of the Sturgis steers."

"Well," said McIntyre, "you and old man Johnson can decide what's to be done with it; and whatever you say goes."

Hugh, when consulted, thought that the best thing was to leave it behind them on the prairie, and that it must take its chances of living or dying. With rest and feed it would probably recover, but if driven along with the herd it would be sure to get worse and finally would have to be killed.

"All right," McIntyre consented; "when we move from here we'll leave it, and let it take its chance. We'll stop over here to-morrow, and cut and brand."

That night as they sat around the fire, Jack asked Mason to tell Hugh what he thought took place when an animal is hamstrung, and then asked Hugh what his beliefs were about the matter.

"Why," replied Hugh, as he stuffed down the fire in his pipe with a callous forefinger, "of course, Mason is dead right. I supposed everybody knew that. Hamstringing buffalo and stock means, I suppose, crippling them by hurting that big tendon above the hock. I've heard that in old days sometimes the Mexicans, and maybe the Indians too, used to ride up behind a buffalo with a right sharp saber or machete and by making a strong downward stroke did actually cut the hamstring and hurt the buffalo so that it had only three legs to go on; but I never supposed that anybody thought a wolf could really cut a hamstring through in that way. It's just the way Jack Mason says, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and you'll find that most mountain men and most Indians who have seen anything will tell you just the same thing.

"I expect you read a whole lot in books that's written by men who never saw the things happen that they describe: they've read of them perhaps a good many times, and sort of take it for granted that what they've read is all right; but, really, they don't know what it means. I guess this hamstringing business is one of those things. As Mason says, it might happen now and then that a wolf's jaws that hit that tendon just right would partly cut it in two, and then the animal might break it in struggling, but that wouldn't happen often."

"There's another thing, Hugh," Jack said, "that I want Mason to tell you--about some things he's heard from old John Monroe--some stories about how the Piegans came from their old home in the North down to where they live now. I want to get him to tell us about that."

"Why, yes," replied Hugh, "those are right good stories. I've often heard old John Monroe and other old men talk about that. I supposed maybe I'd told you about it, but I don't know as I have."

"No; I don't think you ever told me the whole story, though I've heard you and other people up there talk about it as something that was perfectly well known."

"Oh, yes," answered Hugh; "it's well known all right. All the old men know about it, but lots of the young men don't know anything at all about it. They don't care much about those old stories. All they want to do is to be riding horses; or maybe some of them, if they should have a dollar or so, go off down to the Birch Creek and buy some whisky with it."

"Well, I suppose it's too late to hear the story to-night; but to-morrow night, if you feel like it, I'd like to have you tell us those stories, Mason. You would like to hear them over again, wouldn't you, Hugh?"

"Sure," said Hugh; "I'd like to mighty well."

"Me, too," said Tulare Joe, as he threw the stump of his cigarette into the fire and rose to go to his blankets.