CHAPTER VI

RIDING CIRCLE

By the end of the following day the cutting of the cattle--that is the work of separating the different brands into the four bunches, or herds--had pretty well been completed. McIntyre, therefore, determined to send off to their home ranges, which were not far away, the cattle bearing the Sturgis and Powell brands, while the rest of the outfit would keep on and work the remaining territory. It would take only three or four days for the cattle that were now being sent off to reach their home ranges, where they could be turned loose, and probably held by one man with only a little watching. As soon as the cattle had reached their ranges and been turned over to the people at the ranch, the men who had been sent back with those brands would at once return to the camp and continue the round-up work. Powell and his hired man were to take the Powell cattle, while Hugh and Rube were chosen to take back the Sturgis cattle. McIntyre very wisely kept with him the younger men, like Charley Powell and Jack, well understanding that they would work harder and longer and would be fresher every day than the older men.

The cattle started at daylight the next morning, and Jack rode a few miles with the Sturgis cattle, which were going directly across country, and not around by way of Powell's ranch.

The cows moved very deliberately and were constantly stopping to feed; and by the time Jack had ridden four or five miles back and forth behind the herd, pushing on the lagging ones and breathing the dust kicked up by the feet of the cattle, he was glad that the task of driving the bunch back to the ranch had fallen to others.

Finally he turned about, to go back to the round-up camp.

"I reckon you'll see us again in about four days," Hugh said. "It'll take us pretty nearly three days to get to the ranch with these cows, and a day to get back to camp. We'll strike it down close to the Platte, likely on Sand Creek. I don't suppose you have any message for your uncle?"

"Just tell him I am all right and having a good time. You might tell him, too, what happened over at Powell's. And, of course, if there's any mail for me, bring it back with you. I don't expect to hear anything from that man I bought the saddle from. Maybe, instead of leaving the saddle at Brown's, he just took it with him on the train; but if he did, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he sent me back my five dollars."

"Well," said Hugh, "it will be all guessing for a while yet; but I'll bring any mail there is."

"So long," called Rube; and Jack turned and rode back toward the camp. The distance that had seemed so very long when driving the herd, now seemed surprisingly short, for he rode fast. He did not ride back to the old camp because they were going to move that morning, and when he rode down out of the hills he could see, a couple of miles away on the prairie, the two wagons and the cávaya crawling along over the sage-brush flat toward the next camp, which was to be on Box Elder Creek.

When he overtook the wagons, Frank, the cook, who was driving the chuck wagon, told him that McIntyre had left word that Jack should start out and make a short circle to the eastward, taking in the low hills on the edge of the basin, but not going far back, and should turn anything that he found down into the flat country, where it could be readily gathered the next day. Jack accordingly rode on to the cávaya, roped a fresh horse, and turned loose Pawnee, and then rode back to the cook's wagon, where he begged from Frank a chunk of bread and some bacon. Having disposed of that, he rode off toward the low hills to the east.

When he had gone a short distance into the hills he saw fresh tracks of horses and of cattle running, and from this he concluded that riders had passed over this ground the day before and gathered what cattle had been feeding there; and presently, coming across a trail of a good many head, with horse tracks following the trail and on top of the cow tracks, he made sure that his conclusion was right.

After riding a mile or two farther, however, he came across a little bunch of cattle feeding on the steep hillsides of a ravine, and going around them he pushed them down the hill and in the direction in which he was riding. The cattle were not wild, and it would have been easy to drive them in any direction; but of course they went slowly, and if Jack simply drove them into the round-up camp he could not cover much country; on the other hand, if he drove them down into the valley he knew that at this time of the day they would at once turn about and return to the hills where there was water and, in the ravines, the green grass that the cattle like.

While he was mulling over this, and wondering what he would better do, the cattle ahead of him passed over a ridge and down the steep sides of another ravine, and two or three yearlings in play ran down the hill and through a thick patch of low brush that grew at the bottom of the ravine. As they rushed into that, from its upper end a small black animal, which was unmistakably a bear cub, ran out.

Jack was riding a good quick horse, and almost without thinking he turned and galloped along the steep hillside to try to head off the cub, which kept on up the bottom of the ravine. The ground was very steep, and broken every now and then by little washouts, and two or three times Jack held his breath as he wondered whether the horse would get across them or not. But the animal was sure-footed, besides being swift. It did not even stumble; and before long Jack was bearing down well toward the bottom of the ravine and was a little ahead of the bear. When the two were pretty close together, the bear suddenly turned and began to scramble up the hill, away from Jack. Two or three jumps of the active horse, however, quickly brought it within roping distance, and in a moment the noose was over the bear's head. The horse had turned, and with a mighty pluck the little bear flew out from the hillside and seemed to land on its head in the middle of the ravine. Jack kept the rope tight for a moment, but seeing that there was no movement at the other end, he dismounted and walked back to the bear. The little beast--hardly larger than a setter dog--was quite dead. Jack could not tell whether the pull of the rope had broken its neck, or it had been killed by its fall.

The work of dressing the cub took but a few moments; but to get it on the saddle was more difficult, for the horse regarded the carcass with suspicion and declined to stand when the bear was put on it. Jack was finally obliged to blind the animal with his coat until the load was firmly tied behind the saddle. Then--being unwilling to take risks in this rough country--he led the animal down the ravine. It did not pitch, though it shied and several times tried to rid itself of the saddle by prolonged kicking. At length, however, when Jack reached a place where the ravine was wider and the ground more or less level, he mounted, and the horse went well enough.

Then Jack went back to look for his cattle. He soon found them, and after following them over three or four ridges, came on another much larger group. Gathering them all together, he started down toward the prairie with about seventy-five head of cattle before him. He took good note of the point where he left the hills, intending to drive his cattle into camp and then, if daylight lasted, to come back and resume his search for others.

He pushed the cattle pretty hard, and about the middle of the afternoon had brought them within a mile of camp, where he left them and, getting a fresh horse, returned to the hills.

During the afternoon he found two or three more little bunches of cattle, and shortly before sundown started in with about thirty head. As he was riding toward camp, he met the bunch that he had driven in that afternoon working back toward the hills; so he finally brought in and delivered at camp about one hundred head.

The other parties that had been riding circle during the day had gathered a good many cattle; so that there was again a good-sized herd being held near the camp, to be taken on the next day and to be added to daily, until enough had been gathered for another cutting.

Jack's roping of the little bear was interesting to the camp chiefly because of the variety that it would give to the daily fare of beef and bacon; but another one of the cowboys had had an adventure that had not turned out so comfortably as Jack's.

Juan, a Mexican, who had drifted into the country from the southwest, and who was a most skilful cow hand, in riding along a steep mountain-side, rough with rocks, had startled from his bed beneath an old cedar tree a big bull elk with thick, growing horns just beginning to branch. Juan, of course, rode after him as hard as he could go. The roughness of the ground and the great rocks that lay everywhere scattered along the mountain-side offered no impediment to the elk's speed, but the horse could not do its best on this ground, and had difficulty in overtaking the elk. At length a little patch of smoother ground was reached. Juan pushed his horse up within throwing distance and made a good throw which settled around the animal's head and neck. The loop was so large, however, that it fell down against the brute's chest; and just at that moment pursued and pursuer came to a piece of ground so rough with great rocks that even Juan did not dare to ride into it. He tried to stop and throw the elk; but there was not time for him to turn; and the steady pull of the elk's chest on the rope dragged the horse staggering onward for a few feet, when Juan, to save his mount, was obliged to free his rope from the horn of the saddle. The elk sailed up the mountain-side, the rope dragging behind it, while Juan sat there on his panting horse and uttered Mexican maledictions. That evening the cowboys had a good deal of fun with Juan.

After supper, Jack saw Tulare Joe sitting on the ground working at something a little way from the camp, and walking over to him saw that he was taking off bits of flesh from a small deer hide which was entirely fresh.

"Where did you get your hide, Joe?" asked Jack.

"Why," said Joe, "some of the boys started the deer to-day out of a little patch of brush. It ran from them up over the hill and met me just on top. I happened to have my rope in my hand and I caught it. I'm going to keep it and get two or three others, if I can, and make me a buckskin shirt for winter. They say they're the warmest things you can wear when you're riding in a cold wind, and they don't muffle you up the way a coat does--they leave you free. I'd like to stretch this hide, if I could; but I won't have time to do it on the round-up. If I could stretch it and get it dried flat it would make it easier to pack and easier to handle when it comes to tanning it; but of course on the round-up I haven't the time to peg the hide out, and no time to do the tanning while it's fresh, the way it really ought to be done."

"I didn't know," said Jack, "that it's better to tan a hide right fresh than after it is dried."

"Yes," said Joe, "it is; at least, that's what I've been told. All I know about tanning was taught me by the Navajos down south, and they make awful good soft buckskin."

"I have never done any tanning; but I have seen a heap of robes dressed by women in the Blackfeet country. They tan a buffalo robe in a wonderful way, so that it is as soft as a piece of cloth; but they don't make good buckskin. According to all I have heard, the mountain Indians make the best buckskin."

"That's what they say," answered Joe. "I've seen some wonderful buckskin made by the Utes, and by the Navajos too."

"You have been down among the Navajos, have you?" Jack asked, as he sat down on the ground and, taking out his pocket-knife, began to work on the skin. "I'm interested in them, for when I was a little fellow I used to read Mayne Reid's books, and they had lots to say about the Navajos, and about the raids they used to make down in Mexico."

"Yes," replied Joe, "they were certainly great raiders; and they've got lots of men and women and children there in the camp that are as white as I am. Most of them, they say, were captured down in Mexico as little children and brought up and raised in the tribe, and now, so far as their feelings go, are just as pure Navajo as anybody could be."

"I guess that's so. There isn't anything in blood or race that makes a white man different from an Indian, if he is brought up in an Indian way."

"Not much. Those Navajos, too, are mighty handy with tools and with their fingers. I reckon you've seen lots of Navajo blankets, and likely, too, you may have seen some of the silversmith work they do. They make fine rings and sort of pins, like the women wear at their throats, and they're pretty handy about setting bits of turquoise in silver. They make a whole lot of real pretty ornaments."

"I've heard something about that," said Jack; "though I've never seen any of their work, except maybe a blanket or two. And you say they're tanners, too?"

"Yes. I had a kind of friend in the camp once when I stayed down there, and he showed me his way of tanning; and he certainly did make nice buckskin."

"I wish you would tell me how to do it; or, better still, let me see you tan this hide," said Jack. "But the first thing you want to do with this hide is to try to stretch it flat, and that you can't do in the common way. Why don't you treat it the way the trappers treat beaver skins?"

"Well, if I knew how, maybe I would; but I don't know how. I never saw anybody trap beaver."

"Why," exclaimed Jack, "I can show you how in a minute and a half if we can get some willows that will bend right, and I'm pretty sure we can, for there's a bunch down there close to the creek. Come on down with me and we'll cut some shoots; and then if you've got a piece of twine we'll stretch the hide on a hoop. Very likely it will be set by morning, and you can get Frank to carry it inside his chuck wagon tied to the bows."

"I'll go with you," said Joe, "if you'll just show me what to do."

Along the border of the stream was a growth of rather tall willows two or three years old, and Jack soon cut half a dozen long and rather slender shoots. Then the boys returned to the place where the deer hide had been left. Here Jack trimmed the willow shoots in the proper way, leaving many twigs at the smaller ends, and, showing Joe how to do it, they soon made an oblong hoop somewhat longer and wider than the fresh deer hide stretched out on the ground.

"Now," explained Jack, "if you've got a piece of twine we'll sew the edges of this hide just inside the hoop, stretching the hide all we can, and the hoop will keep it perfectly flat and stretched till it's dry."

"That's a new one on me," declared Joe. "I never knew any way of stretching a deer hide except to peg it out flat on the ground, or maybe to nail it on the side of a barn. That's mighty cute, though, the way you made the hoop by just tying the slender willow twigs around the main piece of wood. It seems firm, too, as if it were going to hold."

"Oh, it will hold all right; and it will do the work it's intended to do. You see there isn't much strain coming on any particular part of the hoop. It's evenly distributed all around, and it gives a straight outward pull to the hide. That's the way we always used to dry our beaver skins; but of course they are pretty nearly round, so that we made those hoops in the shape of a circle."

Joe went over to his bed and from his war-sack fished out a piece of twine; and before long the deer hide was nicely stretched on the hoop, carried over to the cook wagon, and put in charge of Frank, and, for safety's sake, tied to the bows at the top of the wagon.

"Well," said Joe, as they walked over to the fire, "I'm mightily obliged to you for that. If you want me to, I'd like to show you how to tan a deer hide Navajo fashion. Maybe I'll get a chance to do that before the round-up is over--that is, if you'd like to know how."

"I sure would, Joe," answered Jack. "I don't know anything about tanning myself, though I have seen a whole lot of hides dressed. It would be pretty nice to be able to make good buckskin."

About the fire almost the whole camp was gathered, the men smoking their last pipes or cigarettes, before turning in, while those who were soon to go out on night herd had already brought up their horses, which were standing saddled not far from the fire. As Jack and Tulare Joe strolled up, McIntyre called to them:

"You two kids had better get your horses now, and be ready to go out on the last relief. Do you think you can wake up at two o'clock, Jack?"

"I don't believe I can, Mr. McIntyre," Jack replied. "I'll have to get one of the boys to come in and call me."

"Well," said McIntyre, "if you're going to get up at that time, you'd better turn in quick, or else you'll be short of sleep."