Part 5

They all use hemp ropes which are imported from some of the southern states of the republic, and carry a lariat of hair which they make themselves. They work for from eight to twelve dollars a month in Mexican coin, and live on the most simple diet imaginable. They are mostly _peoned_, or in hopeless debt to their _patrons_, who go after any man who deserts the range and bring him back by force. A puncher buys nothing but his gorgeous buckskin clothes, and his big silver-mounted straw hat, his spurs, his riata, and his _cincha_ rings. He makes his _teguas_ or buckskin boots, his heavy leggings, his saddle, and the _patron_ furnishes his arms. On the round-up, which lasts about half of the year, he is furnished beef, and also kills game. The balance of the year he is kept in an outlying camp to turn stock back on the range. These camps are often the most simple things, consisting of a pack containing his “grub,” his saddle, and _serape_, all lying under a tree, which does duty as a house. He carries a flint and steel, and has a piece of sheet-iron for a stove, and a piece of pottery for boiling things in. This part of their lives is passed in a long siesta, and a man of the North who has a local reputation as a lazy man should see a Mexican puncher loaf, in order to comprehend that he could never achieve distinction in the land where _poco tiempo_ means forever. Such is the life of the _vaquero_, a brave fellow, a fatalist, with less wants than the pony he rides, a rather thoughtless man, who lacks many virtues, but when he mounts his horse or casts his riata all men must bow and call him master.

The _baile_, the song, the man with the guitar--and under all this _dolce far niente_ are their little hates and bickerings, as thin as cigarette smoke and as enduring as time. They reverence their parents, they honor their _patron_, and love their _compadre_. They are grave, and grave even when gay; they eat little, they think less, they meet death calmly, and it’s a terrible scoundrel who goes to hell from Mexico.

The Anglo-American foremen are another type entirely. They have all the rude virtues. The intelligence which is never lacking and the perfect courage which never fails are found in such men as Tom Bailey and Johnnie Bell--two Texans who are the superiors of any cow-men I have ever seen. I have seen them chase the “mavericks” at top speed over a country so difficult that a man could hardly pass on foot out of a walk. On one occasion Mr. Bailey, in hot pursuit of a bull, leaped a tremendous fallen log at top speed, and in the next instant “tailed” and threw the bull as it was about to enter the timber. Bell can ride a pony at a gallop while standing up on his saddle, and while Cossacks do this trick they are enabled to accomplish it easily from the superior adaptability of their saddles to the purpose. In my association with these men of the frontier I have come to greatly respect their moral fibre and their character. Modern civilization, in the process of educating men beyond their capacity, often succeeds in vulgarizing them; but these natural men possess minds which, though lacking all embellishment, are chaste and simple, and utterly devoid of a certain flippancy which passes for smartness in situations where life is not so real. The fact that a man bolts his food or uses his table-knife as though it were a deadly weapon counts very little in the game these men play in their lonely range life. They are not complicated, these children of nature, and they never think one thing and say another. Mr. Bell was wont to squat against a fireplace--_à la_ Indian--and dissect the peculiarities of the audience in a most ingenuous way. It never gave offence either, because so guileless. Mr. Bailey, after listening carefully to a theological tilt, observed that “he believed he’d be religious if he knowed how.”

The jokes and pleasantries of the American puncher are so close to nature often, and so generously veneered with heart-rending profanity, as to exclude their becoming classic. The cow-men are good friends and virulent haters, and, if justified in their own minds, would shoot a man instantly, and regret the necessity, but not the shooting, afterwards.

Among the dry, saturnine faces of the cow punchers of the Sierra Madre was one which beamed with human instincts, which seemed to say, “Welcome, stranger!” He was the first impression my companion and myself had of Mexico, and as broad as are its plains and as high its mountains, yet looms up William on a higher pinnacle of remembrance.

We crawled out of a Pullman in the early morning at Chihuahua, and fell into the hands of a little black man, with telescopic pantaloons, a big sombrero with the edges rolled up, and a grin on his good-humored face like a yawning _barranca_.

“Is you frens of Mista Jack’s?”

“We are.”

“Gimme your checks. Come dis way,” he said; and without knowing why we should hand ourselves and our property over to this uncouth personage, we did it, and from thence on over the deserts and in the mountains, while shivering in the snow by night and by day, there was Jack’s man to bandage our wounds, lend us tobacco when no one else had any, to tuck in our blankets, to amuse us, to comfort us in distress, to advise and admonish, until the last _adios_ were waved from the train as it again bore us to the border-land.

On our departure from Chihuahua to meet Jack out in the mountains the stage was overloaded, but a proposition to leave William behind was beaten on the first ballot; it was well vindicated, for without William the expedition would have been a “march from Moscow.” There was only one man in the party with a sort of bass-relief notion that he could handle the Spanish language, and the relief was a very slight one--almost imperceptible--the politeness of the people only keeping him from being mobbed. But William could speak German, English, and Spanish, separately, or all at once.

William was so black that he would make a dark hole in the night, and the top of his head was not over four and a half feet above the soles of his shoes. His legs were all out of drawing, but forty-five winters had not passed over him without leaving a mind which, in its sphere of life, was agile, resourceful, and eminently capable of grappling with any complication which might arise. He had personal relations of various kinds with every man, woman, and child whom we met in Mexico. He had been thirty years a cook in a cow camp, and could evolve banquets from the meat on a bull’s tail, and was wont to say, “I don’ know so much ’bout dese yar stoves, but gie me a camp-fire an’ I can make de bes’ thing yo’ ever threw your lip ober.”

When in camp, with his little cast-off English tourist cap on one side of his head, a short black pipe tipped at the other angle to balance the effect, and two or three stripes of white corn-meal across his visage, he would move round the camp-fire like a cub bear around a huckleberry bush, and in a low, authoritative voice have the Mexicans all in action, one hurrying after water, another after wood, some making _tortillas_, or cutting up venison, grinding coffee between two stones, dusting bedding, or anything else. The British Field-Marshal air was lost in a second when he addressed “Mister Willie” or “Mister Jack,” and no fawning courtier of the Grand Monarch could purr so low.

On our coach ride to Bavicora, William would seem to go up to any ranch-house on the road, when the sun was getting low, and after ten minutes’ conversation with the grave Don who owned it, he would turn to us with a wink, and say: “Come right in, gemmen. Dis ranch is yours.” Sure enough, it was. Whether he played us for major-generals or governors of states I shall never know, but certainly we were treated as such.

On one occasion William had gotten out to get a hat blown off by the wind, and when he came up to view the wreck of the turn-over of the great Concord coach, and saw the mules going off down the hill with the front wheels, the ground littered with boxes and débris, and the men all lying about, groaning or fainting in agony, William scratched his wool, and with just a suspicion of humor on his face he ventured, “If I’d been hyar, I would be in two places ’fore now, shuah,” which was some consolation to William, if not to us.

In Chihuahua we found William was in need of a clean shirt, and we had got one for him in a shop. He had selected one with a power of color enough to make the sun stand still, and with great glass diamonds in it. We admonished him that when he got to the ranch the punchers would take it away from him.

“No, sah; I’ll take it off ’fore I get thar.”

William had his commercial instincts developed in a reasonable degree, for he was always trying to trade a silver watch, of the Captain Cuttle kind, with the Mexicans. When asked what time it was, William would look at the sun and then deftly cant the watch around, the hands of which swung like compasses, and he would show you the time within fifteen minutes of right, which little discrepancy could never affect the value of a watch in the land of _mañana_.

That he possessed tact I have shown, for he was the only man at Bavicora whose relations with the _patron_ and the smallest, dirtiest Indian “kid,” were easy and natural. Jack said of his popularity, “He stands ’way in with the Chinese cook; gets the warm corner behind the stove.” He also had courage, for didn’t he serve out the ammunition in Texas when his “outfit” was in a life-and-death tussle with the Comanches? did he not hold a starving crowd of Mexican teamsters off the grub-wagon until the boys came back?

There was only one feature of Western life with which William could not assimilate, and that was the horse. He had trusted a bronco too far on some remote occasion, which accounted partially for the kinks in his legs; but after he had recovered fully his health he had pinned his faith to _burros_, and forgotten the glories of the true cavalier.

“No, sah, Mister Jack, I don’ care for to ride dat horse. He’s a good horse, but I jes hit de flat for a few miles ’fore I rides him,” he was wont to say when the cowboys gave themselves over to an irresponsible desire to see a horse kill a man. He would then go about his duties, uttering gulps of suppressed laughter, after the negro manner, safe in the knowledge that the _burro_ he affected could “pack his freight.”

One morning I was taking a bath out of our wash-basin, and William, who was watching me and the coffee-pot at the same time, observed that “if one of dese people down hyar was to do dat dere, dere’d be a funeral ’fo’ twelve o’clock.”

William never admitted any social affinity with Mexicans, and as to his own people he was wont to say: “Never have went with people of my own color. Why, you go to Brazos to-day, and dey tell you dere was Bill, he go home come night, an’ de balance of ’em be looking troo de grates in de morning.” So William lives happily in the “small social puddle,” and always reckons to “treat any friends of Mister Jack’s right.” So if you would know William, you must do it through Jack.

It was on rare occasions that William, as master of ceremonies, committed any indiscretion, but one occurred in the town of Guerrero. We had gotten in rather late, and William was sent about the town to have some one serve supper for us. We were all very busy when William “blew in” with a great sputtering, and said, “Is yous ready for dinner, gemmen?” “Yes, William,” we answered, whereat William ran off. After waiting a long time, and being very hungry, we concluded to go and “rustle” for ourselves, since William did not come back and had not told us where he had gone. After we had found and eaten a dinner, William turned up, gloomy and dispirited. We inquired as to his mood. “I do declar’, gemmen, I done forget dat you didn’t know where I had ordered dat dinner; but dere’s de dinner an’ nobody to eat it, an’ I’s got to leave dis town ’fore sunup, pay for it, or die.” Unless some one had advanced the money, William’s two other alternatives would have been painful.

The romance in William’s life even could not be made mournful, but it was the “mos’ trouble” he ever had, and it runs like this: Some years since William had saved up four hundred dollars, and he had a girl back in Brazos to whom he had pinned his faith. He had concluded to assume responsibilities, and to create a business in a little mud town down the big road. He had it arranged to start a travellers’ eating-house; he had contracted for a stove and some furniture; and at about that time his dishonest employer had left Mexico for parts unknown, with all his money. The stove and furniture were yet to be paid for, so William entered into hopeless bankruptcy, lost his girl, and then, attaching himself to Jack, he bravely set to again in life’s battle. But I was glad to know that he had again conquered, for before I left I overheard a serious conversation between William and the _patron_. William was cleaning a frying-pan by the camp-fire light, and the _patron_ was sitting enveloped in his _serape_ on the other side.

“Mist’ Jack, I’s got a girl. She’s a Mexican.”

“Why, William, how about that girl up in the Brazos?” inquired the _patron_, in surprise.

“Don’t care about her now. Got a new girl.”

“Well, I suppose you can have her, if you can win her,” replied the _patron_.

“Can I, sah? Well, den, I’s win her already, sah--dar!” chuckled William.

“Oh! very well, then, William, I will give you a wagon, with two yellow ponies, to go down and get her; but I don’t want you to come back to Bavicora with an empty wagon.”

“No, sah; I won’t, sah,” pleasedly responded the lover.

“Does that suit you, then?” asked the _patron_.

“Yes, sah; but, sah, wonder, sah, might I have the two old whites?”

“All right! You can have the two old white ponies;” and, after a pause, “I will give you that old _adobe_ up in La Pinta, and two speckled steers; and I don’t want you to come down to the ranch except on _baile_ nights, and I want you to slide in then just as quiet as any other outsider,” said the _patron_, who was testing William’s loyalty to the girl.

“All right! I’ll do that.”

“William, do you know that no true Mexican girl will marry a man who don’t know how to ride a charger?” continued the _patron_, after a while.

“Yes; I’s been thinking of dat; but dar’s dat Timborello, he’s a good horse what a man can ’pend on,” replied William, as he scoured at the pan in a very wearing way.

“He’s yours, William; and now all you have got to do is to win the girl.”

After that William was as gay as a robin in the spring; and as I write this I suppose William is riding over the pass in the mountains, sitting on a board across his wagon, with his Mexican bride by his side, singing out between the puffs of his black pipe, “Go on, dar, you muchacos; specks we ever get to Bavicora dis yar gait?”

IN THE SIERRA MADRE WITH THE PUNCHERS

On a chill, black morning the cabins of Los Ojos gave up their inmates at an early hour. The ponies, mules, and _burros_ were herded up, and stood shivering in an angle, while about them walked the men, carefully coiling their hair lariats, and watching for an opportunity to jerk them over the heads of the selected ones. The _patron’s_ black pet walked up to him, but the mounts of my companion and self sneaked about with an evident desire not to participate in the present service. Old _Cokomorachie_ and Jim were finally led forth, protesting after the manner of their kind. I carefully adjusted my Whitman’s officer-tree over a wealth of saddle blanketing, and slung my Winchester 45-70 and my field-glasses to it. The punchers, both white and brown, and two or three women, regarded my new-fangled saddle with amused glances; indeed, Mr. Bell’s Mexican wife laughed at it outright, and Tom Bailey called it “a damn rim-fire.” Another humorist thought that “it would give the chickens the pip if they got onto it”; all of which I took good-humoredly, since this was not the first time “your Uncle Samuel” had been away from home; and after some days, when a lot of men were carefully leading sore-backed horses over the mountains, I had cause to remark further on the subject. A Mexican cow-saddle is a double-barrelled affair; it will eat a hole into a horse’s spine and a pair of leather breeches at the same time. If one could ask “Old Jim” about that saddle of mine, I think he would give it an autograph recommend, for he finished the trip with the hide of his back all there.

Leaving the “burro men” to haul and pull at their patient beasts as they bound on their loads, our outfit “pulled out” on what promised to be plenty of travelling. We were to do the rounds of the ranch, explore the mountains, penetrate to the old Apache strongholds, shoot game, find cliff-dwellers’ villages, and I expect the dark minds of the punchers hoped for a sight at the ever-burning fire which should discover the lost mine of Tiopa. We were also promised a fight with the “Kid” if we “cut his trail”; and if he “cut ours,” we may never live to regret it. Some tame Indians, just in from a hunt in the Rio Chico, had seen three fires, but they had “rolled their tails”[4] for Bavicora so promptly that they had not ascertained whether they were Apache or not. The same men we were in the company of had run the “Kid’s” band in to the States only two months before, but on our trip that very elusive and very “bad Injun” was not encountered. Much as I should like to see him, I have no regrets, since it is extremely likely that he would have seen me first.

[Footnote 4: Cowboy for travelling rapidly.]

Our little band was composed of the _patron_, Don Gilberto; my travelling companion from New York city, who had never before been west of the Elysian Fields of New Jersey; Bailey and Bell, ranch foremen, and as dauntless spirits as ever the Texas border nurtured; the ranch bookkeeper, a young man “short” on experiences and “long” on hope; Epitacio, an Indian hunter, since outlawed; William, the colored cook; four buckskin Mexican punchers; an old man who was useless for practical purposes, but who was said to be “funny” in Spanish; and two burro men. We were that day to go to the farthest outlying ranch, called the Casa Camadra, and then to stop for a short hunt and to give the punchers time to “gentle” some steers for work-cattle. The puncher method of doing this is beautifully simple, for any animal undergoing this is gentle or dead after it. After scouring the plain for antelope until late, we followed up a creek towards the cabin where we expected to find the punchers and the burro men with their loads of creature comforts, and as we rode in it was raining a cold sleet. The little log-cabin was low, small, and wonderfully picturesque. It was a typical “shack,” such as one used to see in the Northwest when the hunters were there. Out in the rain sat two punchers, enveloped in their _serapes_, engaged in watching a half-dozen big steers eat grass. Inside of the cabin was William by a good fire in a most original fireplace, glowing with heat and pride over his corn-cakes and “marrow-gut.” Between various cigarettes, the last drink of _tequela_, and the drying of our clothes, we passed the time until William had put the “grub” on a pack-saddle blanket and said, “Now, gemmen, fly in.”

“Fly in” is vulgar, but it is also literal, for we did that: we did not dine--we flew in. The expression and the food were both good. Outside, the cold rain had turned into a wet snow, and we all crowded into the little place and squatted or lay about on the floor. With fingers and hunting-knives we carved and tore at the mountain of beef. The punchers consume enormous quantities of meat, and when satiated they bring forth their corn-husks and tobacco-pouches, and roll their long, thin cigarettes, which burn until they draw their _serapes_ about their heads and sink back in dreamless sleep. It is all beautifully primitive, and as I rise on my elbow to look across the blanketed forms packed like mackerel in a cask, to hear their heavy breathing, and see the fire glow, and hear the wind howl outside, I think how little it takes to make men happy. Tom Bailey and Johnnie Bell, the ranch foremen, had faces which would have been in character under a steel head-piece at Cressy, while the wildest blood of Spain, Morocco, and the American Indian ran in the veins of the punchers; and all these men were untainted by the enfeebling influences of luxury and modern life. A chunk of beef, a cigarette, an enveloping _serape_, with the Sierras for a bedroom, were the utmost of their needs.

The sunlight streamed down the big chimney, and William’s “Good-mo’nin’, sah,” brought back my senses. Beyond his silhouette, as he crouched before the fireplace, I could hear the sputtering of the broiling steak. I repaired to the brook and smashed the ice for a rub-down. It was still drizzling, and the landscape lay under a heavy fog. Outside the cabin lay the dead body of a skinned wolf, and about a small fire crouched the punchers.

Breakfast over, the men rode off by twos into the fog, and as Tom Bailey and I jogged along together we reasoned that if we were to strike the point of the mountains and then keep well in the timber we might catch a bunch of antelope which we had “jumped” the day before on the plain below. So all day long we rode over the wet rocks, under the drip and drizzle of the mountain pines, up hill and down dale, and never “cut a sign.” It was our luck; for on riding up to the “shack” we saw the bodies of deer, antelope, a big gray wolf, and the skin of a mountain-lion. We were requested to view the game, and encouraged to comment on it; but Tom and I sought a dark corner of the cabin to consume our coffee and cigarettes in silence.

At the Casa Camadra are two other log-houses, and in them live some squalid, yellow-hided humans who are to farm a little stretch of bottom-land this year. They require work-steers to do their ploughing, and Mr. Bell has brought up half a dozen vicious old “stags,” which are both truculent and swift of foot. The Mexicans insist that they are not able to handle them; and Mr. Bell orders his punchers into action. I strolled out to the corrals to see the bulls “gentled.” After a lot of riding and yelling they were herded and dragged into the enclosure, where they huddled while seven punchers sat on their ponies at the gate. I was standing at one corner of the corral, near the men, when out from the midst of the steers walked a big black bull, which raised its head and gazed directly at me. The bull had never before in his stupid life observed a man on foot, and I comprehended immediately what he would do next, so I “led out” for the casa at a rate of speed which the boys afterwards never grew weary of commending. No spangled _torero_ of the bull-ring ever put more heart and soul into his running than did I in my great-coat and long hunting-spurs. The bull made a “fo’lorn hope” for the gate, and the gallant punchers melted away before the charge.