CHAPTER XVIII

WITH THE HORSE ROUNDUP

When Hugh and Jack reached the house, after putting the young elk in a calf-pen in the stable, they found a number of strangers there, and all the corrals seemed to be overflowing with horses. In one some men were still working, but when the supper horn sounded all hands came to the house.

The supper table that night was longer than it had been since Jack had been at the ranch. There were nine strange cowboys there, all of whom, however, seemed to be well acquainted with Mr. Sturgis and Hugh and Rube and Joe. Still, they were not very talkative at supper, but after it was over and they were sitting about outside the house, smoking, many stories were told of the daily happenings of the last two or three weeks while they had been gathering the horses. Jack would have enjoyed sitting about to listen to this talk, but when Hugh suggested that they should go down to the corrals and walk through the horses, he readily accompanied him. In the first pen that they entered the horses stood crowded so close together that it looked at first as if they could not push their way through them, but as they went on, the animals crowded to one side and made a narrow lane through which they could walk. Two months before, when Jack had first come to the ranch, it would have made him nervous to be so close to the heads and heels of these wild horses, but now he scarcely thought of it. Hugh looked the horses over and talked about them with the enthusiasm of a real horseman. He pointed out the beauties of this one and that, and called attention to one colt after another, telling which mare was its mother, and having some little story about each one.

One of the corrals seemed to be occupied chiefly by mares and colts, with some young horses, and of these a number of the mares seemed to recognise Hugh, and pushed their way up to him, reaching out their noses to be patted, and sometimes thrusting their heads over his shoulder. He explained to Jack that these were old horses that had been long on the place, and were accustomed to being brought up and held in the corral, where they were gentled and petted a little, and that they seemed not to forget this, and were always willing to make friends whenever they were brought up. He said, too, that their foals and yearlings and two and three-year olds, which often all followed the mother, themselves grew gentle and liked to be noticed by the men, and that, of course, animals that were tame were much more easily handled and broken to saddle or to harness than the wild colts that had been running on the range all their lives.

Two or three of the yearlings in this corral were cripples, with twisted, misshapen limbs, and Jack asked Hugh whether these would ever recover, and if not, what they were good for.

"No," said Hugh, "they won't never get well, and they ain't worth nothing. It's a shame to use colts so that they break down like that. That comes of running a little young colt hard for twenty-five or thirty miles on the roundup. Of course these little fellows after they get some strength can travel pretty nearly as well as an old horse, but if you run them too far or too fast in bringing in the horses, their soft, gristly little bones get bent and twisted, and they don't ever get straight again. There's a heap of good foals ruined every year, just because a lot of fool cow punchers want to get a bunch of horses into the corral in an hour and a half, when by rights they ought to take three hours to do it in. All them crippled yearlings ought to be killed, they're no good now, and they'll never be any better than they are. They just eat the grass that might support a good horse."

After an hour or two in the corrals, as it began to grow dark, Hugh and Jack went back toward the house. On the way Jack stopped in at the hen-house to look at his setting hens and put the covers on the barrels in which their nests were. As he was doing this he heard from beneath one of the hens a faint, peeping sound, and lifting up one wing he saw beneath it the tiniest little duckling that he had ever seen. It was too dark to see much, and he had to leave the hen-house without finding how many of his eggs had hatched, but he made up his mind that the next morning, no matter what happened, he must prepare a coop for this brood of ducks. When they reached the house they found that a number of the tired cowboys were already rolled up in their blankets, and sleeping. There were four in the bunk-house, three on the floor of the dining-room, and the others were just taking their blankets over to the barn, to sleep in the soft, sweet-smelling hay. Hugh said to Jack, "You'd better turn in, too, son; to-morrow will begin pretty early in the morning, and you won't have any too much time to sleep if you go to bed now."

It was not yet light next morning when Jack heard the bustle which announced that all hands were astir, and he at once got up and dressed, to find himself only just in time for breakfast. It was plain daylight by the time the meal was over, and most of the men at once went down to the corrals. Jack hurried down to the hen-house, but, on looking at his ducks' eggs, found that only a part of one setting had hatched, and putting a little food near the hen's nest, he left them, determining to postpone the building of his coop until the following day. He went on down to the corral and found that the men were busy turning out the horses on to the prairie, where they were to be herded by two riders. Some of the men had brought wood to the big round corral, and just outside it, and close to the fence, some were kindling fires, while others were chopping poles and logs into wood small enough to be used on these fires. A great lot of iron bars, four or five feet long, stood against the corral fence, and on looking closely at these, Jack saw that each had a handle on one end and an iron letter on the other. These, he supposed, must be the branding irons, and these fires were for heating them.

After a time most of the horses had been turned out, but a large number, almost all of them old mares, with their colts, had been cut out and confined in a series of pens that were connected by a gate with the round corral, outside which the fires were burning. By the time these were going well, and the various branding irons had been put in them to heat, three or four of the men drove into the big corral a bunch of thirty or forty mares, whose little colts stayed close by their sides. Many of these mares seemed quite wild, and all raced around the walls of the pen, as if very much frightened. It seemed to Jack as if these little colts, some of which hardly looked bigger than jack rabbits, must all be killed by being stepped on. Yet each colt kept close to its own mother's side, and a little bit under her, so that it was well protected from being harmed by any other mare that crowded close upon it.

Two or three men with ropes now entered the corral and, as the horses ran about them, each one threw his rope over a colt, and as soon as the rope caught a colt's neck, a couple of men quickly dragged it out into the middle of the corral, and taking hold of it, threw it down, holding it so that it should not injure itself in its struggles; then one of the men ran to the fence and called for a particular iron, bearing the brand which showed on the mother of the colt. When this was given him he ran back to where the colt lay and carefully pressed it on its shoulder or neck or hip, and held it there. The hair and skin hissed under the hot iron, a little smoke arose, the colt tried to struggle, and then, after the brand had been properly placed, it was allowed to spring to its feet and to run back to the bunch. Meantime, its mother had been whinnying, calling, and sometimes running out from the circle of the horses, almost up to the men who were holding down her colt. When it was freed and ran back to her, she nosed it all over and then contentedly took her place with the other old mares.

The work of branding went on rapidly. Now and then some man would catch a colt with too large a loop, the little animal's head and forequarters would pass through it and it would be caught around the body. When held in this way it was of course much harder to handle than when caught by the neck, and before the men got their hands on it, it would go through a series of extraordinary antics, rearing, plunging, bucking and dancing; but at last it would be caught, thrown down and treated like the others. A man who caught a colt in this fashion was much laughed at by the other cowboys and advised to take lessons in roping. As soon as all the colts in the corral had been branded, the horses there were turned out and a fresh lot of mares and colts brought in. All through the morning this went on. Jack, though at first he sat on the top rail of the corral and watched, was soon called down from his lofty perch and set to work. For some time he passed the hot irons in to the men who were doing the branding, then he was sent to get more wood, and afterwards for a bucket of water. The cowboys were all good-natured and very friendly with him, and chaffed him as he ran here and there, trying to carry out their orders.

After dinner the work continued, and one thing happened that made Jack feel badly. A little colt, frightened at something, had run a few steps in front of its mother, as all the horses were racing about the pen, and just as the rope caught its neck, it stopped. The mother, lumbering along behind it, tripped over the tightened rope and fell on the colt, and when it got up one of its fore-legs swung loose.

"There's a dead colt," said one of the men, and in a minute they caught it and threw it down.

Then one of the older men took the hurt leg and moved it backward and forward, while he held his ear close to the animal's shoulder.

"Yes," he said, "its shoulder is smashed, I can hear the bones grate. Hand me that hatchet, Jim."

The hatchet was passed to him, and he struck the little colt twice with it in the head, and two of the men carried the carcass to the fence and passed it through. Jack did not understand this, which had happened so quickly, and asked Hugh, who happened to be standing near him, why they killed the colt.

"Why," said Hugh, "when the mare fell on it she broke its shoulder, and it couldn't never have got well, in fact, it couldn't even have followed its mother around, it would just have had to suffer for a few days and then die; so of course it was better to kill it now."

"What a pity!" said Jack, as he looked at the pretty little animal lying at his feet, whose eyes were already glazing. "Wasn't there any way to have cured it?"

"No," said Hugh, "I expect not, and it would have cost more to try to cure it than it could ever have been worth; I expect it was better to kill it off right now."

When supper time had come that night, all the colts had been branded, and orders were given that after Mr. Sturgis's horses had been cut out of the bunch, next morning, the roundup should move on.

After supper that night, Jack sat down near three or four of the cowboys who were smoking their pipes and cigarettes by the corner of the house, and listened to their talk. One of them seemed to be telling a story.

"I tell you," he said, "it was about the funniest thing I ever saw. You see, we'd run the bear may be a mile and a half, and two or three of us had put our ropes on him, but he always managed to slip out. It was a pretty hot day, and his tongue was hangin' out about a yard, and toward the end he was pretty mad, and when we got close, he'd turn round and charge back on us. One time when he did this he passed pretty close to Mat, who was on a slow horse, and Mat managed to catch him by the hind leg, and the rope stayed; but when Mat tried to hold him, the bear turned round and charged, and Mat got kind o' scared, and just turned the rope loose from his saddle and ran, and the bear went on. Well, pretty quick, we came to a little pile of rocks, with three or four cedars growing around them, and the bear stopped at these rocks and wouldn't run no further. We run up pretty close to him and tried to rope him, but he was sort o' half under the rocks and we couldn't catch him. He had Mat's rope on his hind leg yet, and it was lying out on the prairie, and we commenced to make fun of Mat, and to tell him to ride in there and pick up his rope and drag the bear out, but of course we didn't expect he'd try to do no such fool thing as that, but we kept on making fun of him, and the first thing we knew he started to ride by the bear and pick up his rope. When he got right close, just as he was goin' to stoop for the rope, there comes the bear sailing out after him, and lookin' mighty savage, I tell ye. He turned his old horse and run, and the bear run, and when he looked around and saw the bear not very far off, he rode his horse under one of them cedar trees, and just reached up and caught hold of a branch and curled up over it, and his horse ran on, and he went climbing on toward the top of the tree. We just set there on our horses and laughed at Mat, so long and so hard that the bear ran on and went plumb out of the country, carrying Mat's rope, and we never see him again."

Soon after the sun rose next morning Mr. Sturgis's horses were being cut out of the bunch and turned into one of the big corrals, and by ten o'clock the horse roundup had started on its way again, and all the strangers with it.

That afternoon Hugh and Jack busied themselves making a pen for the little ducks, all of which had now hatched out. Each of the old hens was put in a coop, which stood at opposite corners of the pen, and boards standing on their sides made a fence and prevented the newly hatched birds from wandering away, yet gave them a little space of grass, over which they could walk and feed. Jack had never seen such little bits of ducklings as some of these were, and Hugh told him that he thought they must be teal. After the pen was finished he spent some little time catching small grasshoppers, which he threw to the birds, and it was comical to see the excitement which they showed and the way in which they fought over this food.

They also gave a lesson to the little calf elk. Up to this time it had paid no attention to them, but had wandered about its pen with slow steps, constantly looking for a place to get out. Now, however, when Jack reached his hand over to pat it, it caught the sleeve of his shirt in its mouth and chewed it a little, and when he put his hand near to its nose, it tried to take the whole hand into its mouth.

"Oh," said Hugh, "that fellow's getting hungry; he's about ready to drink now. Put your fingers in his mouth and I'll go and get some milk and we'll teach him how to drink."

Hugh went up to the house, and soon returned with a small pail, holding about a pint of warm milk. "Now," he said to Jack, "get inside the pen and hold the can in your left hand, and then lower the hand he's sucking until it's in the milk, so that he'll draw some milk into his mouth when he sucks." Jack did so, and as soon as the calf began to taste the milk it showed quite a little excitement, shaking its body and pushing with its head against the can, and pretty soon it pushed so hard that it almost knocked the can out of Jack's hand, and spilt most of the milk. He kept up the work until the calf had drunk all the milk in the pail, but it was not nearly satisfied, and bawled after Jack as he went out of the barn.

"Now," said Hugh, "we must give it another drink before supper, and then another just before dark. Just as soon as we can learn it to drink it will be perfectly tame, and you can turn it out to wander around the house. You'll have to watch it, though, for if it goes off a little way from the house the coyotes are liable to catch it. Fact is, I think we'd better make a little corral for it, out in the brush, and leave it out there days where it can get plenty of sunlight and learn how to pick grass a little, and then shut it up here every night where it will be safe. It will be tame though, from now on."

As they were going up to the house, Hugh said, "Well, I expect you'll be ready to see Tony go at the broncs to-morrow morning. I heard your uncle say we'd start in the first thing in the morning."

"Yes, indeed, Hugh," said Jack, "that's something I want very much to see, and I expect to have a lot of fun. Do you suppose any of those wild horses will throw Tony?"

"It's hard to say," replied Hugh; "he's an awful good rider, and I don't expect he gets thrown very often, but every man that follows bronco busting is liable to get thrown and killed every time he gets on a wild horse. I've ridden plenty of wild horses in my time, but I don't ride no more. It's boy's work, that's what it is."

"I am going up to take another look at the little ducks, Hugh," said Jack; and he went on toward the pen. In a minute Hugh heard his name called loudly, and went on up toward the duck pen.

"Oh, Hugh," said Jack, as he drew near, "something's killed three of those littlest ducks already, and here is blood on the top of one of the coops. What can it be?"

Hugh looked about and apparently saw no sign, but in a moment he lifted his finger to call Jack's attention, and stood listening. Jack heard faintly a bird's call, which sounded familiar, but at first he could not think where he had heard it.

"That's what it is," said Hugh; "them durned magpies have found these ducks, and now they'll kill them all, unless we kill them. You stop here a minute or two while I go to the house and get your uncle's shot-gun and your rifle, and we'll see if we can't ambush them fellows."

Jack felt very badly as he stood there waiting; three of these dear little ducks had gone in an hour; at this rate they would not last very long. Presently Hugh came back with the gun, and, giving Jack his rifle, he loaded the shot gun, and they sat down in the bushes not far from the pen.

"Now," said Hugh, "them magpies will be back pretty quick, and we'll have to lie here right quiet. If you get a chance at one sitting on a branch, kill him, and I'll try to take any others that may be there, as they fly away. There may be only one or two of them, and if we kill them and hang them up around the pen, that'll likely scare off any other, that may come."

They had not been waiting more than a few moments before they heard the magpies calling not far off, and presently one, almost at once followed by two others, appeared in the branches of one of the aspens close to the ducks' pen. They peered down at it curiously, and Jack, seizing a moment when one of them stood still, fired, and the bird dropped. The other two rose in the air, but Hugh, standing up, shot first one and then the other, and both fell into the bushes. Hugh got three long sticks and, sharpening an end of each, stuck them in the ground about the pen, and to each one tied one of the dead magpies, which swung to and fro in the breeze, and would be likely to act as scarecrows to any others that might come.