Part 4

“So far as I know it was Pecos Bill that discovered the method. Durin’ Pecos Bill’s time there was a lot of people that didn’t believe there was any sech animal as the whiffle-pooffle livin’ in the bottom of the lakes. Bill said he knowed there was, and he’d show ’em. So he studied and studied, and finally he found a way to capture the critters. First he gits together a rowboat, a long post-hole auger, and a can of oil. Then he hunts up the funniest story-teller he can find and takes him along and sets out.

“He rows out on the lake to where the water’s deep; then he takes the post-hole auger and bores a hole clean down to the bottom so as the whiffle-pooffle can come up to the top. Then he has the story-teller tell the funniest stories he can think of--all about Pat and Mike and an Englishman and a Scotchman, and all that.

“Purty soon the whiffle-pooffle gits interested and pricks up his ears. Then Bill tells the story-teller to git funnier. Then purty soon the whiffle-pooffle is so amused that he comes up through the hole and sticks out his head. Bill tells the man to keep on gittin’ funnier and funnier till the whiffle-pooffle comes clean out on top of the water. Then Bill begins to ply the oars, very gentle-like at first. The whiffle-pooffle is so interested and amused that he jest naturally can’t help but foller the story-teller, who all the time is gittin’ funnier and funnier. Bill rows faster and faster, all the time makin’ straight for the bank.

“Jest before he gits there, when he is rowin’ as fast as he can, he pours the oil out on the water and cuts sharply to the left. By that time the whiffle-pooffle has got up so much speed on the slick water that he can’t stop, and he jest naturally slides right out on the bank. Then Pecos Bill lands on him. If you ever git one of the critters on the land, he’s jest as helpless as a year-old baby. But they’re mighty bashful, mighty bashful.”

“In that particular, thay ain’t a-tall like the club-tailed glyptodont,” said Red, “which is a very ferocious and vicious beast. I’ll tell you, Lanky, when you’re ridin’ around in the canyons and meet one of them fellers, you’d better not git into any disputes with him about your highway rights. Jist give him the whole road and don’t argue with him. And be careful you don’t hang around under the rim-rock when them critters is around.”

“I take it they are animals,” said Lanky.

“Yeah, I guess they belong to the kingdom of beasts,” replied Red. “Some people call ’em whang-doodles, but they ain’t real whang-doodles, bein’ much bigger and more ferocious. They’re purty scerce now, but when we work the canyon tomorrow, I can show you places where they have been. Yes, sir, I can show you the very spot where one of them fellers took off one of the very best friends I ever had in this world.”

“A sort of mountain lion, I suppose,” said Lanky.

“Son, one of them babies would make a mountain lion look like a kitten. Besides, they don’t belong to the feline species nohow, bein’ more like a kangaroo in build, and about sixteen hands high when on all-fours, though most of the time they hop along on their hind legs and tail and keep their forepaws ready to biff anything that gits in their way. And if one of them critters hits you--well, you’re lucky if they find anything to bury.

“However, that ain’t their main method of combat; that ain’t the way one of ’em took off my dear friend--Jack Snodgrass was his name. The glyptodont has got a big flat tail made out of stuff like cow’s horn, except there ain’t no bone in it. This tail bein’ springy is a great aid and help in more ways than one. He can jump along with it and clear the brush, and he can land on it when he wants to jump off of a cliff, and he don’t feel no bad effects from the jar.

“Well, I started to tell you how one of them beasts took off my dear friend Jack Snodgrass. Jack used to work on this outfit, and one fall he was workin’ the canyon, jist like we’ll be tomorrow, and Jack gits a glimpse of the glyptodont. Jack was always a curious lad; so he tarried around to see what the critter was about. Jack was on the other side of a canyon, anyway, and he ’lowed he’d have plenty of time to make his stampede if the critter showed any signs of combat. So Jack jist looks across to see what’s goin’ on.

“Directly the glyptodont gits wind of him and looks at him right straight for a minute or two. But Jack still ain’t worried none, havin’ the canyon between him and the ferocious beast. He jist stands there and watches him to see what he is about. Purty soon he notices that the glyptodont is spadin’ around on the ground with his tail. Presently he scoops up a big boulder, jist like you’d lift it with a shovel. He carries this on his tail, bein’ careful not to let it fall off, and backs up and eases it off on the top of a bigger boulder. Jack begins to try to figure out a way to capture the brute; he ’lows if he ever could git him broke, he’d be a mighty handy animal to have around the place about tankin’ time.

“Well, the glyptodont walks over to the other side of the rock he’s set up and squats on his hind legs; then he draws up his front legs and begins to whirl around and around on his hind legs, jist like a spool of barbed wire on a crowbar when you’re stringin’ fence. After he spins around a while, he lets down his tail, which hits the rock he’s set up, which comes through the air like a cannon-ball. That was the last thing pore Jack ever knowed. We buried him, pore feller, next day--that is, all of him we could find. When we’re over there tomorrow, I’ll show you the place where he got kilt, as well as a lot of other places where them critters has catapulted rocks up and down the canyons jist to keep in practice and for the fun of seein’ ’em roll. Yeah, them club-tailed glyptodonts is ferocious animals.”

“They’re vicious brutes,” agreed Joe, “but they ain’t got much on the gwinter.”

“I never heard of a gwinter,” said Lanky.

“Well,” replied Joe, “did you ever hear of a godaphro?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear of a side-swiper?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear of a mountain-stem-winder?”

“No, I never heard of them, either.”

“Well, they’re really all one and the same thing, but the real true and correct name is gwinter.”

“And what sort of a beast is he?” asked Lanky.

“Well, he’s a grass-eatin’ quadruped,” said Joe, “something like a cross between a buffalo and a mountain-goat, only he’s a lot more ferocious. The peculiar thing about the gwinter is his legs. Instead of havin’ four legs of equal length like a critter ought to have, or two short legs in front and two long ones behind, like the glyptodont, these brutes have two long legs on the downhill side and two short legs on the uphill side. This is mighty convenient for ’em, since they don’t live on level ground nohow. Some of ’em has their right legs long, and some of ’em has their right legs short, dependin’ on which way they graze around the mountains. The Chisos and the Davis and the Guadalupe mountains used to be full of ’em. Up there, them critters was thicker than the buffalo or the antelope on the plains, but they’re gittin’ mighty scerce now. Still, they took off many a cow-hand in the early days, and sometimes yet a tenderfoot gits in the way of one of ’em and don’t come back home to the chuck wagon at night.

“If one of them critters ever starts toward you, Lanky, don’t for anything let him know you’re scered. If you try to run, he’ll git you shore. Jest stand there and look him right in the eye like you was glad to see him. He’ll be comin’ right toward you with his head down like a bat shot out of a cannon. Still, don’t move, and if you’re in the saddle, hold your hoss. Jest let that gwinter alone till he gits in two steps of you, then take a couple of steps down the hill. He can’t run the other way, and you’ll be safe. Ten to one he’ll be so mad about it he’ll try to foller you, anyway, and when he gits his short legs down hill, he’s a goner. Jest stand by and watch him roll down the mountain and break his fool neck. That’s one reason why they’re so scerce, the cowboys learned that trick. Another reason is that they fought among themselves too much. You see, them that has their long legs on the right used to meet them that has their long legs on the left as they grazed around the mountains. And when two of ’em met like that, they always tangled up. Finally they fought till the weaker side all got kilt, so now there’s only one kind on each mountain. On some mountains it’s the right-leggers, and on some mountains it’s the left-leggers.”

“If somebody would capture one alive,” said Lanky, “he could sell him to a circus for five thousand dollars.”

“That’s been tried, son; that’s been tried,” replied Joe. “However, your figger’s too small. Once when I was punchin’ cattle in the Chisos, Barnum and Bailey sent a feller all the way down from New York City with fifty thousand dollars to pay any man that would cage him a gwinter. For a long time he couldn’t git nobody to try it, till finally he come to our outfit.

“‘I won’t endanger the lives of my men in any sech manner and fashion,’ says the boss. ‘However,’ he says, turnin’ to us, ‘if any of you men want to try it on your own hook, you can. They ain’t much work to do right now, and I’ll let you off for a few days.’

“Well, we gits our best mounts and ropes, and looks after our cinches, and sets out. We scouts around a while, and shore nuff we hears one snort right near the foot of Egg-shell Mountain. We lets out our wildest yells and fires off our six-shooters, and somehow, by luck I guess, we gits the critter buffaloed, and he goes tearin’ around the mountain and us after him. Each time he goes around the mountain he gits a little higher. We sees our hosses is goin’ to give out if we don’t figger out some way to spell ’em. We ’lows that since we got the critter on the run, two of us will be enough to go around the mountain, and the others stays put. Then on the next round, two more goes, and so on and so forth. Each time we gits a bit nearer the top. Finally, we all joins in, in order to be there when he gits to the top and can’t go no further. And purty soon there he is at the top.”

“How did he escape?” asked Lanky.

“Why, the brute jest turned right through his self, jest clean wrong side out like a sock, and run the other way.”

“And that was the last you saw of him?”

“Oh, we used to see him occasionally, as we knowed by his long legs bein’ on the other side; but when winter come, he caught cold and died. And that’s what you’ll do, Lanky, if you set there by the coals and shiver. You’d better git a little shut-eye before you stand guard.”

WIND AND WEATHER

The day had been blustery enough, and Lanky’s eyes were red from the sand’s having cut into his eyeballs. There was still dust in the air, but at twilight the wind had subsided, and Lanky was experiencing that feeling of intense relief that comes when the sandstorm is over.

During the day there had been little talk. Lanky had most of the time ridden within normal hailing distance of Red Wallace; but conversation would have been difficult, and neither he nor Red had been in the mood for it. At noon each man swallowed his beans and bacon as rapidly as he could. Even then, he consumed a considerable quantity of sand.

The old-timers were sitting expectantly around the fire. Their experience with tenderfeet told them that Lanky would open the conversation, and that the topic would be the wind.

“Terrible day we had,” he observed. “How much sandstorm weather are we likely to have?”

“Son,” replied Red, “what you’ve seen today is the gentle zephers of spring. You ain’t seen a real sandstorm.”

“Then,” replied Lanky, “I’d like to know how I’m to know one when I meet it.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Lanky,” said Red. “I’ll tell you exactly how you can know. Do you recollect seein’ a log-chain hangin’ suspended from the big hackberry tree in front of the bunkhouse?”

“That immense chain?” asked Lanky.

“Yeah,” said Red. “That’s a log-chain. And you wondered what it was up there for, no doubt. Well, it’s to tell when there’s a sandstorm. As long as it’s hangin’ straight down, we know there ain’t no wind to speak of. When it hangs out at an angle of forty-five degrees, we speak of a slight breeze. It’s only when she’s stickin’ straight out parallel to the ground that it’s correct and proper to speak of a windstorm.”

“I’d think winds like that would blow all the houses and windmills over,” observed Lanky.

“It ain’t only the houses and windmills,” said Hank. “It’s real-estate. Why, there was a feller come in here one time and filed on a section of land in Colonel Slaughter’s pasture, and a big sandstorm come along, and he never did find that section. He advertised in all the papers for it, offerin’ a reward for its return, and he got lots of answers from people down in the brush country that had stray sections on their hands that they wanted to git rid of, but he looked ’em over and said none of ’em had his brand on ’em. And so he had to go back East.”

“Yeah, the wind does some mighty funny things,” said Joe. “I come dang near losin’ the best saddle hoss I ever had on account of a sandstorm.”

“I guess he got against a drift fence where the tumbleweeds and sand collected and buried the critter alive,” said Hank.

“Naw, that wasn’t it,” replied Joe, “though I’ve dug many a cow-brute out of the sand drifts. It wasn’t that. In them days I was workin’ cattle out in the Monahans country. One evenin’ the boss tells me to swing up a little draw, sayin’ the wagon would be at the head. Well, I got out of the draw jest at dark, and I looked around, but I couldn’t see no campfire anywheres in sight. I rode around a while, but still not seein’ no signs of the wagon, and bein’ tired, I decided to turn in. I was scered to turn my hoss loose, (Brown Jug was his name) for fear he’d strike off to the remuda and leave me there afoot. So I stakes him to a little cottonwood bush on top of a mound. I knowed better than to hobble the critter, for he was wise to walkin’ off with the hobbles on. Well, when I got him staked out, I took off the saddle, which I used for a pillow, and the blanket, which I used for a bed, and went to sleep.

“In the mornin’ when I woke up and looked around, the scenery wasn’t exactly familiar. There was a big cottonwood tree which I couldn’t remember seein’ the night before, and I wondered how I come to miss it. And I looked some more, and there wasn’t any Brown Jug in sight anywheres. I thinks to myself, the critter never played a dirty trick like that on me before, and I ’lows he must be around somewheres. Shorely, I says to myself, I ought to be able to find the bush I tied him to. So I whistles three times, and then I hears a weak nicker ’way up in the top of the tree, and I looks up, and damn me if there wasn’t that pore critter, with his tongue hangin’ out, dang nigh choked to death.

“Then I seen what had happened, I’d tied the hoss on top of a sand-dune. The wind had come up and the sand had blowed away. What I calculated on bein’ a bush was in fact a great big tree--so dang big in fact, that the thirty-foot lariat wouldn’t let pore Brown Jug more than half way to the ground. If I hadn’t woke up jest when I did, the pore brute would of choked to death shore.”

“How did you get him down?” asked Lanky.

“Oh, that was easy,” said Joe. “In them days I always had my old six-gun by me, and I jest whipped her out and put a bullet through the rope and let Brown Jug down. The fall didn’t seem to hurt him none, and after he blowed a little while, he was as pert as ever.

“However, the wind got up again in the middle of the mornin’, and the only way I could keep the hoss on the ground was to tie big rocks to the horn of the saddle.”

“That shows you’ve got more sense than a prairie-dog,” said Hank, “which surprises me. Many a time on the South Plains durin’ a sandstorm, I’ve seen them critters ten feet in the air, diggin’ with all their might, tryin’ to git back in their holes.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ve seen,” said Red, “and it was the funniest sight I ever saw caused by a sandstorm. One day in the spring the boss sent me out to pizen prairie-dogs. He was one man I didn’t work for long; he jist couldn’t stand to see a man not doin’ somethin’. So when the wind would git bad and he didn’t want to go out his self, he would send us out to ride fence and pizen dogs and the like.

“Well, this time I rode over to where I knowed there was a big town, and I rode up, and what do you suppose I saw? The sand was all blowed away, and there was them holes stickin’ forty feet in the air. I never knowed before that time how crooked them critters made their residences.”

“The wind’s purty hard on the rodents sometimes,” said Hank. “I knowed a wind, however, that helped out a pore human down on Sulphur Draw that was about to starve. This feller had come in to farm, and he raised a cribful of corn, but the ranchers wouldn’t buy it because it wasn’t shelled, and wouldn’t go in a morral. So the pore farmer was about to starve, and his old lady and kids to boot.

“This feller was jest fresh from the sticks and didn’t have much confidence in anybody, anyway, and he ’lowed the ranchers was waitin’ for a chance to steal his corn. So he nailed up the crib door good and tight. He noticed a knothole in one of the walls, but he saw it was too little for an ear of corn to go through; so he jest let that go.

“One day a wind come up, and the farmer and his folks hid in the dugout like prairie-dogs, and the next day the wind laid, and they crawled out and looked around; and there was corn cobs scattered all alongside the crib. The old man thought shore somebody had stole his corn, but when he got the crib door open, he saw it there all shelled as purty as if he’d done it his self.

“He was a sort of ignorant and superstitious man, and the next day when I happened by, he says to me that the fairies had come and shelled his corn. Well, I never did take no stock in fairies and the like, and I knowed there must be a reasonable and sane explanation somewheres. So I picked up one of the corn cobs and stuck it in the knothole. It was jest a good tight fit. Then I told the old man what must of happened. The wind got up and would of blowed all his corn out of the crib, but the knothole wasn’t big enough for an ear to go through. Hence each ear got shelled, and all the corn was left in the crib. It was jest as simple as that. Perfectly natural. If them old fellers we read about that believed in fairies and witches, and all that crap, had jest of used their heads, they’d found out that everything’s natural and simple enough. They put me in mind of Mex’cans. But as I was about to say, the old man sold his corn and got on purty well.”

“There was a farmer close to us one time,” said Joe, “that lost his milk cows in a curious manner. He had a little patch of pop-corn, and one hot day the cows broke into the patch and started eatin’ it up. All of a sudden that corn begun poppin’ and flyin’ every which away.”

“Did the shooting grains kill the cows?” asked Lanky.

“Naw,” said Joe. “When the fool critters saw all that pop-corn flyin’ through the air, they thought it was snow, and jest naturally froze to death.”

“Do you ever have tornadoes out here?” asked Lanky.

“You mean cyclones?” asked Joe. “Well, yes, sometimes. A queer thing happened to me one time up here jest below the Caprock. We was goin’ up the trail, and one evenin’ it was hot as blazes and sultry and still. The cattle was gittin’ nervous and we was all expectin’ hell to break loose any time. And shore nuff it did. A cloud come up in the northwest and it thundered and lightened, and then the storm struck us. Them steers jest naturally histed their tails and left the country. I was on a good hoss, but it was all I could do to stay in sight of them cattle. My pony was givin’ me all he had, and he wasn’t gainin’ on them steers none. Neither was the other boys gittin’ close to ’em.

“D’rec’ly I looked back over my shoulder like, and there was them clouds bilin’ and whirlin’ around in the sky; then all at once a funnel drops down and takes out after me. I started quirtin’ my hoss. I feel right mean about it yet when I think about it, for he was doin’ his best to ketch that herd, and he couldn’t do no more.

“Well, the next thing I knowed I was up in the air still in the saddle with my hoss under me, whirlin’ round and round like a top. That cyclone carried me around in the air like that for a half an hour or more, me scered all the time that it was goin’ to drop me. But it didn’t. After a while it sets me down jest as gentle as a mother with her baby.

“I looks up, and there’s the herd comin’ hell-bent for election right toward me. I gits off my slicker and fires off my six-shooter and turns them steers and gits ’em to millin’. Purty soon the other boys rides up, and we gits ’em quieted down, and the whole outfit has to set up and sing to ’em all night.

“The next day we counted ’em out, and we hadn’t lost a head; not a single cow-brute was missin’. If it hadn’t been for that cyclone, we’d been gathering cattle for a week, and then likely we wouldn’t of found ’em all.”

“That’s the way it is,” said Red. “Some winds is good and some winds is bad, but I’d rather have sandstorms and risk a cyclone once in a while than to have mud in the rainy season like they have on the Black Land divide.”

“We found lots of mud when we drove through last fall,” said Lanky.

“You jist thought you found mud,” replied Red. “You ought to have seen them flats before they begun makin’ roads. When I first hit that country, they was jist fencin’ off the lanes, and when I got a job, the boss put me to ridin’ fence. One day I was ridin’ along by the lane, and I looked over and there was a good, brand-new Stetson hat layin’ on the top of a mud-hole. I thinks to myself, ‘That’s a good hat, and I might as well have it as the next feller.’ So I got down and got a-holt of a fence-post to steady myself, and reached out to git it. Jist as I teched the crown a feller yelled out: ‘Hey, what you doin’ there?’ he says. Then I noticed for the first time that there was a man’s head stickin’ out of the mud. I asked the feller if he needed any help, but he said he was ridin’ a mighty good hoss, and he guessed he’d make it through all right. He afterwards got to be a mighty good friend of mine. Pete Jackson was his name.”

“Well, sir,” said Joe, “speakin’ of mud, that puts me in mind of one experience I had goin’ up the trail in ’83. We was kinda late in gittin’ through, and the rainy weather had already set in before we crossed the Black Land divide. We hadn’t hardly got across when we begun to notice that our hosses was losin’ all their pertness. The boss’s pet cow-hoss got as lazy as a jackass. My own favorite hoss, Brown Jug, jest got sleepier and sleepier, till finally he jest laid down and went to sleep and never did wake up. We lost half of our remuda jest like that.