The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail DaysAdams, Andy
General
The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days
Adams, Andy
Cattle drives -- Fiction; Cowboys -- Fiction; Western stories
Somewhere near or about the Montana line, we took a left-hand trail.
Flood had ridden it out until he had satisfied himself that it led
over to the Tongue River and the country beyond. While large trails
followed on down the Powder, their direction was wrong for us, as they
led towards the Bad Lands and the lower Yellowstone country. On the
second day out, after taking the left-hand trail, we encountered some
rough country in passing across a saddle in a range of hills forming
the divide between the Powder and Tongue rivers. We were nearly a
whole day crossing it, but had a well-used trail to follow, and down
in the foothills made camp that night on a creek which emptied into
the Tongue. The roughness of the trail was well compensated for,
however, as it was a paradise of grass and water. We reached the
Tongue River the next afternoon, and found it a similar stream to the
Powder,--clear as crystal, swift, and with a rocky bottom. As these
were but minor rivers, we encountered no trouble in crossing them, the
greatest danger being to our wagon. On the Tongue we met range riders
again, and from them we learned that this trail, which crossed the
Yellowstone at Frenchman’s Ford, was the one in use by herds bound for
the Musselshell and remoter points on the upper Missouri. From one
rider we learned that the first herd of the present season which went
through on this route were cattle wintered on the Niobrara in western
Nebraska, whose destination was Alberta in the British possessions.
This herd outclassed us in penetrating northward, though in distance
they had not traveled half as far as our Circle Dots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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